Whitman County bungles ballots

PULLMAN - For the third consecutive Pullman City Council election and the sixth time in the past four years, the Whitman County Elections Office is dealing with a ballot error.

This time, 812 Ward 1 Pullman ballots were sent to Ward 3. Those Ward 3 voters who are affected reside in Precinct 235.

Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker said the only difference in the Ward 1 and Ward 3 ballots is the Pullman City Council Ward 1 race between incumbent Councilor Al Sorensen, Hannah Krauss and Eric Fejeran. Ward 3 residents should not be voting on the Ward 1 race.

"These 812 voters are not eligible to vote for that city council position," Coker said.

Because of the mistake, she said those 812 Ward 3 ballots will need to be set aside and sifted through by elections staff.

And to fix the error, Coker said those Ward 3 voters who voted on the four-way race for Pullman School Board will have their votes registered on new ballots by elections staff. She said that if they voted on the Pullman City Council Ward 1 race their vote will not be counted.

Coker said those ballot duplications will be done on the afternoons of July 25, July 31 and Aug. 8, and to promote transparency, they will be open to the public.

"It's to give anyone a chance to observe the duplication process," she said.

Coker said by keeping the ballots separate she doesn't expect either race to be affected by the error. She said the error was caused by recent changes in the boundaries that make up Pullman's wards. The new ward boundaries were entered into the county's computer system, but the Ward 3 ballots were still printed incorrectly with the Ward 1 city council race.

"Something didn't take, or it's something in the system," she said.

Coker said she expects the elections office will resolve the issue.

"After we went through the presidential (election) last year, it's a situation we can handle easily; it's not an overwhelming amount," she said.

Coker said the loss of Elections Supervisor Debbie Hooper, which left the office short-staffed, also could have played a factor in the mishap.

"We lost a key person with a lot of expertise," she said. "And we've always been short-staffed in elections."

The mistake by the elections office marks the third consecutive Pullman City Council election with a ballot blunder.

In 2013, there was a ballot error involving the same Pullman City Council Ward. Then in October 2015, the Whitman County Elections Office had to resend more than 700 ballots to Pullman voters on Pioneer and College Hills after Ward 1 ballots were sent to Ward 3 residents. Days before that mistake, it was discovered the race for Hospital District No. 3, Position 5 was omitted from the ballot. In February 2016, about two-dozen Oakesdale residents received Tekoa ballots. Two months later, a department error led to an incorrect proposition being printed on nearly 300 ballots that were mailed to four precincts within the county.

Coker said there is no connection between the string of mistakes.

"Each new issue has its own cause," she said. "There's not some underlying flaw or issue out there."

Councilor Sorensen said he would be more upset about the mistake if it was made during the general election.

He noted that Krauss announced she's dropped out of the race, but her decision came after the formal six-week withdrawal date, so he and challenger Eric Fejeran likely will be the two candidates moving to the general election anyway.

"I don't think it will make a difference, but it could," he said. "If this was the general election, those would need to remailed."

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Babcock may be contacted at jbabcock@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2275.