Whitman County Elections errs again

COLFAX - The most recent error in a string of mistakes by the Whitman County Elections Office has left nearly 600 Pullman residents voting on city council races outside of their ward.

In an email to media and municipalities Friday afternoon, the office notified the public they sent 587 incorrect ballots to two Ward 1 precincts.

"They received Ward 2 ballots and they should have received Ward 1 ballots," Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker said.

Ward 1 - with 587 registered voters - is considering the race between incumbent Al Sorensen and challenger Eric Fejeran. The mailed ballots, however, have them incorrectly voting on the race between Garren Shannon and Dan Records.

It's nothing new to Whitman County. This is the third consecutive Pullman City Council election with a ballot error and the seventh time in the past four years Whitman County is dealing with an error.

"One of our new processes is to send a ballot proof out," Coker said. "The city of Pullman lawyer said the bond language looked good and said they didn't feel it was their part to be checking the wards. My whole issue is that it was a bit of a miscommunication on both sides."

Coker said it's up to cities to provide counties maps of wards and precincts with "correct and current information," as stated in the Revised Code of Washington.

She said the county's maps of Pullman wards and precincts is not correct, which led to the mistake.

"The RCW says we need to give them the boundary of the wards and we did in 2011," Pullman City Supervisor Adam Lincoln said. "I don't know how it's the city's fault."

Considering the problem surrounding the city's wards, Lincoln questions whether ward errors have been occurring for the past six years, as the elections have been based on the same maps.

"I would hope someone would start looking back at what could be the outcomes," he said. "Until someone challenges, it's difficult to know."

Coker admits it's possible residents may have been incorrectly voting in those two precincts for the past six years.

"If I was running for council I would be adamant this be resolved," Lincoln said. "It's a county responsibility since it's an election issue."

With the general election just 11 days away, the elections office is asking voters in the affected precincts to not vote on the initial ballot they received. Rather, they should wait for corrected ballots, which will be re-sent by the elections office today. Those ballots will be tucked inside a gray envelope.

Ballots that have already been submitted will be set aside.

"We have not had the time to stop and go back, and I don't know if we could go back right now," Coker said. "We're in election mode. This all would have been caught if someone at the city would have pulled this up and said, 'Why is this precinct voting for this ward?'

"I'm not saying we are not to blame. I'm saying it's something that could have been avoided on both sides."

Lincoln said it's unclear whether the validity of the election is in jeopardy.

"There's a concern, especially for those running," he said. "They all understand they want this to be accurate. I don't know if any of them will file lawsuits or complaints, but they are concerned.

"If there's a close election, I would assume candidates will be up in arms about it,"

Coker said the county is working toward a GPS mapping system that would alleviate a lot of the problems with election mapping errors.

Lincoln just hopes the county solves the issue before the next election.

"My hope is the Whitman County Elections Office puts some time and effort to solve this problem," he said. "When you're running for elected office you want to make sure the democratic process is working."

A link to a map of Pullman City Council wards is available at http://bit.ly/2hgMqIc.

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Babcock may be contacted at jbabcock@lmtribune.com or at (509) 339-3423.