Whitman County auditor answers to ballot mistakes

A ballot mistake has caused the Whitman County Auditor's Office to mail out nearly 300 corrected ballots this week, an error that comes on the heels of a state report that faulted the department for 20 violations of state elections practices.

The violations include three prior ballot mistakes, an accidental early vote tabulation and concerns about the security of ballot boxes. A report published by the Washington Secretary of State's Office followed reviews of 74 election policies and procedures during the 2015 general election.

This week's ballot mistake was a clerical error, Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker said. A proposition by Whitman County Fire District No. 7 asking whether to annex Rosalia into its district was incorrectly printed as Rosalia annexing the fire district.

New ballots have been mailed to the 291 voters currently within the fire district.

"That was, indeed, a Whitman County auditor elections department error," Coker said.

According to the state's review, which was published last month, the auditor's office issued corrected ballots to more than 8,000 voters during the November general elections.

In one instance, county staff mailed ballots that didn't include a race for the Colfax Hospital District. Coker mailed out more than 4,000 corrected ballots. The office then discovered another error and mailed out more than 700 corrected ballots.

In another instance, according to the report, an entire ward of the city of Pullman received incorrect ward-district ballots. Coker again mailed out more than 4,000 corrected ballots.

Coker said she has "no bones at all to pick" with some of the department's reported missteps.

She also acknowledges the mistaken early calculation of votes on Election Day 2015, and said it is one of the "critical" issues she wants to address immediately.

According to the state's report, votes were tabulated at 11:16 a.m. on Election Day. Election results cannot be produced before 8 p.m. on election night.

Coker said it was a "total mistake."

The machine that tabulates votes does so all day, she said, and the "save" button is right next to the "print" button. The woman operating the machine accidentally pushed the wrong button, Coker said. She added that the results were immediately shredded before anyone could read them.

"They did the right thing," Coker said.

The software on the machine will be programmed so that results cannot be printed before 8 p.m., she said.

The 2015 general election review lists secure ballot boxes as another violation. The ballot boxes lack a seal and a log that records each time the boxes are opened and the seals replaced, according to the report, but Coker said the boxes do include seals and logs on their back side. The front side of the ballot box - where ballots are inserted - is designed to be inaccessible.

"Technically, there's no real reason to have a seal on that front drop slot," Coker said.

Coker has agreed to add seals and logs to the front of the boxes, as well as address a number of other minor issues brought forward in the state's report. But she also argues some of the report's findings are incorrect, because the elections administrator who reviewed the county failed to ask for certain items or made assumptions.

"A large portion of the items that he said we didn't have or we didn't use or the language was outdated or it wasn't in our packets - we showed them and said, 'Yes it is,' " Coker said

Coker said she will re-examine the review, compile the items she disagrees with and send them to the state's elections supervisor. The secretary of state's office may then issue an addendum to the report, Coker said.

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Embree may be contacted at cembree@lmtribune.com or (208) 669-1298. Follow her on Twitter @chelseaembree.