Audit finds violations in elections dept.

An audit by the Washington Secretary of State Office examining the past five years of elections in Whitman County noted 17 violations in election procedures and processes out of 74 which were examined.

Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker said the audit occurred during the November general election and added that her department is now in the process of making changes recommended by the audit.

“It was our turn. It’s an opportunity to improve, to modernize, to be more consistent across the board is what audits are to me,” Coker said.

Lori Augino, elections director with the Secretary of State Office, said every county elections department is reviewed every five years. She said the amount of violations noted in Whitman County was high compared with the rest of the state.

“The number of items in this report are more than what I have seen in my time as elections director,” she said, noting she has held the position since January of 2013.

Augino noted this process is for accountability.

“We pride ourselves in working collaboratively with elections departments in providing accurate elections across the state,” she said.

Coker said she was surprised by some of the findings of the audit and noted she considered only four of the items to be major. She considered the rest minor.

“It wasn’t a bad audit,” Coker said. “There’s nothing at all in that audit that we’re going to go, ‘can’t do that’.”

One of the major issues occurred the morning of the Nov. 3 general election when an election worker printed off the returns of the election at 11:16 a.m.

Under state rules, election results are not allowed to be printed before 8 p.m.

“It shouldn’t have happened, we acknowledged it happened and we’re taking some steps so that it doesn’t happen again,” Coker told the Gazette.

Coker said the mistake was an accident.

“No matter when you tabulate, you can never push the button that gives you totals until 8 p.m. on election night,” she said. She added elections supervisors are allowed to begin the tabulation process Tuesday morning in Whitman County.

“They can start tabulating what has come in already and then leave the machine and not touch it again until 8 p.m., but one of the ladies accidentally pushed the wrong button.”

Coker said the mistake was noticed immediately and also taken care of immediately.

“She told her co-worker, and the two of them took that print out over to the shredder and did not even look it,” she said. “I would like to ensure the voters no one knew the results of the election ahead of time.”

Coker said now the attention is turned to making sure that mistake will not and can not happen again. She said the department is now installing new software on the machine that will not allow the button to be pushed before a set time and date.

“It’s a mechanism that says this button cannot be pushed until the parameter you’ve set,” Coker explained. “We’re purchasing that. It’s one of those things you think is never going to happen, but it did.”

Another major issue Coker noted from the report was the procedures manual for the elections department. The reviewer noted the procedures manual in the office was last modified in 2011 and the department must have a current procedures manual. Coker said the office is currently working on a procedures manual.

“We had a procedures manual that was up to date and it went missing,” she said. “That will be taken care of. They’re recreating it.”

The review said that 2011 manual does not include recent law and rule changes.

The third issue Coker said was major was the report noting that Pullman City Hall does not qualify as a voting center, though the county advertised it as a voting center for the election, as well as past elections. The report said this site did not qualify as a voting center because the staff failed to display required information about the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and limited options for disabled voters.

Coker told the Gazette that HAVA signage was not displayed because it kept falling down, and the reviewer did not see it because of that. She said one of the issues noted at the Pullman site was the use of provisional ballots.

“He said if you don’t have every single ballot style, and there are more than 200 in Whitman County, you can’t have that as a voting site,” she said. “They want it so that your exact ballot is behind those workers so they can get you the right ballot.”

Coker said this would not be possible because the department does not have extra ballots to keep in Pullman. She said to correct this issue the department will now provide a laptop at the Pullman voting site so voters can print their correct and exact ballots from MyVote and then vote there.

“Our solution is we’re not going to have provisional ballots,” she said. “They can go to MyVote and drop it in the ballot box there.”

Coker said the Pullman City Hall will continue to be used for a voting site with the corrections noted and with Secretary of State approval. She said the options for the disabled voters will not be included there, but will be included at the elections department building in Colfax.

The fourth major issue Coker noted were security issues the reviewer noticed with the ballot drop boxes.

“The Whitman County Auditor must empty or secure ballot deposit sites at 8 p.m. on Election Day to prevent the deposit of additional ballots,” the Secretary of State report indicated. “At exactly 8 p.m., one person locked ballot drop boxes using keyed locks. Ballots were not removed until later that evening. A keyed lock does not provide detection of access to a drop box. Additionally, the ballot deposit box in the elections office lacked a seal and log. Observation showed one person emptying the box on two occasions, once during the election and again the day after the election.”

The report said uniquely-numbered seals and seal logs are needed on the front and back of ballot drop boxes to be able to detect any access until the ballots have been removed. Coker said the drop box in the building had a seal on the back but not the front.

“We have seals on the back, but we hadn’t been putting seals on the front,” she said.

Coker also said she disagreed with some of the security issues noted. Her disagreement was that the reviewer said only one person emptied the ballot box, and state laws require at least two people.

“That’s not true that there was only one person emptying,” she said. Coker noted in her response to the Secretary of State that “we always have at least two people empty the boxes.”

Coker also told the Gazette the canvassing board of Whitman County is working on a new canvassing board manual. This board includes Prosecutor Denis Tracy, Coker and County Commission Chair Michael Largent. The Secretary of State reviewer said the board failed to adopt official administrative rules, and the board must adopt a manual that contains recount procedures, ballot duplication procedures, procedures to perform manual recounts, procedures for audit of results and random check of ballot counting equipment procedures.

Coker said the manual, which she expects to be ready for review and possible adoption on April 26, is being modeled after Benton County’s model. The reviewer indicated that this issue, as well as some of the others, was also noted as a violation in the 2010 audit.

Augino said her office is willing to help the auditor’s office here with implementing mandatory changes and making improvements, but that help has to be accepted by the office here.

“We stand ready to help them in any way,” Augino said. “We are willing and able to work with Whitman County to work toward these improvements.”

Other violations the reviewer noted included regular mail ballot packets did not include instructions on how to obtain a replacement ballot; the department failed to provide provisional ballot voters with free access to information; the department accepted and processed a name change request that failed to provide the voter’s previous name and physical address; outdated voter registration verifications were used; the auditor accepted an unsigned withdrawal of candidacy form during the 2015 election cycle, and the elections department certified the election almost one month after the 15-day deadline.

Another violation noted was that the auditor was unable to provide the reviewer with detailed precinct maps during the review, but Coker said the department has asked cities and towns for these maps on a yearly basis and does make public the maps the department does have.

Also listed was the failure of the Whitman County Disability Advisory Committee (DAC) to meet since April 2012, causing some members to cease participation and the group to no longer meet statutory requirements. The reviewer requested the committee to be reactivated, and Coker said this occurred in January of this year.

There were also a number of issues Coker said she disagreed with, which included that ballot packets mailed to Whitman County’s uniformed and overseas voters (UOCAVA) lacked the required privacy sheet and did not include some required information; when 8,000 incorrect ballots were mistakenly issued to voters the inserts in the corrected ballots lacked required elements; the elections staff defaced voting materials by removing unused stamps from ballot envelopes returned in ballot drop boxes, and the county auditor failed to notify the media of the special three-day filing period as well as not posting it on the auditor’s website.

Coker said she does not disagree with audits generally.

“When I disagree, it’s because something’s wonky,” she said.

Augino said most of the counties in the state love the auditing process.

“In most cases, the counties love this program because it provides a second set of eyes,” she said. “The information is embraced by the counties.”

Coker added that she has confidence in the elections department moving forward and that all issues noted will be corrected.

“Those ladies work hard and are understaffed,” Coker said. “This county’s getting excellent service out of their elections department.”