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When incorrect ballots listing Tekoa's school levy were discovered in Oakesdale mailboxes after ballots were sent out two weeks ago, Oakesdale Superintendent Jake Dingman became worried about his school's levy.
“I was upset that morning,” he said. “That is 28 percent of my budget.”
It soon came to light that the ballot mishap included 25 Tekoa ballots which had been mistakenly sent to Oakesdale voters. Dingman said he brought the error to the attention of the Whitman County Elections office, and the process was then underway to begin correcting the error.
Dingman's worry was that 25 votes, whether the voters mistakenly voted for the Tekoa levy or did not get the chance to vote for the Oakesdale levy, could swing an election.
“Twenty-five no votes doesn't help,” Dingman told the Gazette. “This really could have affected the two towns.”
Dingman said last week that while the error was fixed, he was disappointed in the response, or lack thereof, from the auditor's office. He had sent an e-mail to Auditor Eunice Coker detailing his concern about this error as well as past errors in previous elections.
“I am writing this letter to express my deep concerns regarding the operations of the elections office of Whitman County, which ultimately falls under your duties as auditor,” Dingman wrote. “In each of the elections I have been part of as the Superintendent of Schools, I have faced challenges; mostly with all citizens receiving ballots; however, there have been issues with out-of-date registered voter lists, and now the largest mistake, the wrong ballots being sent to the wrong town.”
Dingman sent that e-mail Jan. 27, shortly after the error came to light, and Coker responded stating that she would reply soon. However, it took until Feb. 3 for Dingman to get a reply.
“She did, to her credit, respond to all the concerns I had raised,” he told the Gazette. “The overall concern, though, is not addressed.”
Dingman said the overall concern is continuous mistakes at the elections office.
“Almost every election we read about something that has gone wrong,” Dingman said. “You don't read about it in Spokane.”
Coker, when speaking to the Gazette, acknowledged the error with the Oakesdale ballots and said “it's all good” now. She called the error an “anomaly.”
“The way that we process, that this happened at all is such an anomaly,” she said. “The process itself works. It is just a total anomaly to how the process works.”
Coker said the mistake occurred when a bundle of 25 Tekoa ballots were mistakenly placed in Oakesdale's pile, with no one noticing while the envelopes were stuffed. She said part of the reason the mistake was not realized until voters brought attention to it is because the department orders an excess of ballots, so the Tekoa pile still had enough for all voters in the district after 25 ballots were mistakenly sent to Oakesdale.
“We order from our printer 10 to 25 percent more ballots than we have voters,” she said.
Dingman said this latest error has cast a lack of confidence toward the elections department.
“We shouldn't be reading about an error every election,” he said. “We all mess up, but if I messed up every school year, I wouldn't still be here after eight years.”
When ballots were mailed out for last November's general election, two mistakes were noted, the first being that the hospital district three race between Martin Marler and Sandra Brabb had been left off the ballot, and the second being ballots mistakenly mailed out to Pullman voters with outdated precincts.
In July 2013, a candidate's name on Pullman ballots was printed incorrectly, and in January 2010, the Colfax school levy proposal was printed with the wrong amount on the ballots.
Coker said that despite the current error and past ones, the elections office will continue as normal.
“We're dealing with stuff like this every day, and we, every once in a while, have a mistake,” she said. “In each scenario, if it was a mistake on our part, it was handled and found. You can point fingers at printers and everything else.”
Some of the explanations for the past mishaps included that rotation schedules had not been updated in regard to the hospital district race, so the office was unaware that the race needed to be included on the ballot; an old file was mistakenly used at the printer with regard to the Pullman precincts; the correct printing of the name was overlooked; elections staff mistakenly had the wrong figure, and, now, ballots ended up in the wrong pile.
Coker said that these mishaps should not lead to fingers being pointed.
“We took care of the issue,” she said. “It should be a kudos to the elections department.”
Sheryl Moss, certification and training manager at the Washington Secretary of State office, said that the office there is aware of the mistaken Oakesdale/Tekoa ballots, as well as past mistakes, and said that while mistakes are not common, they are also “not uncommon.”
“There were two other mistakes in this election in other counties,” she said, though she did not disclose what those mistakes had been.
Moss said that there is no plan for Secretary of State intervention at the Whitman County office, but noted that it is important to get the ballots right.
“There are some things that can be done to mitigate it in the future,” she said. “The biggest thing is catching it early and being able to do something about it if there is an error. Finding out early is key.”
Moss said that anyone who might be concerned about an election process, whether it be ballots being prepared, sorted or counted, can exercise the opportunity to observe the process.
“One of the things that the average citizen can do is to come in and observe and watch the process,” she said. “It's an open process. Anyone can come in and watch.”
Coker also said that anyone would be welcome to come watch the process.
“That's why we have the big window at our building,” she said.
Coker expressed confidence in her department and staff.
“I feel that my elections office is excellent and bent over backward,” she said.
She also expressed confidence in the training provided by the Secretary of State.
“Their training and certification, it's excellent,” Coker said. “They've thought of everything, and if they haven't, they're going to jump on it.”
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