Another unflattering audit

The Secretary of State issued an audit report on the Whitman County elections office recently. It was not flattering.

The elections office is a county office under the supervision of the county auditor, Eunice Coker, but it is located outside the courthouse in the relatively new elections office fronting on Main Street in Colfax.

It is a spacious and modern space which replaced the cramped quarters the office once had in the courthouse.

The new space was declared a necessity to make elections more accurate and efficient.

According to the audit, it didn’t work.

Elections in the county have been error prone. The most common and most public problems have had to do with the inaccurate distribution of ballots.

The auditor knows all about audits. Her office has been criticized in audits and financial reviews in the past.

Now, her elections office is in the spotlight.

In the past, Coker has accepted little responsibility for the problems found during her watch. Being an independently elected county official, she has argued that she does not have to answer to the commissioners or any other county authority. She has not taken the advice of external consultants kindly either. She says some audit exceptions are not accurate.

This time that attitude will not work.

She must solve the problems in her operations before the public casts its votes in vitally important elections this year.

There is nothing more sacrosanct in a democracy than the vote of the people. People must have confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the voting process.

It is her mandate and her responsibility that citizens have that confidence and that the confidence is justified.

Nothing else will do.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher