Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
COLFAX — The Whitman County Elections Office is expected to continue processing ballots into next week as staff work through duplicates.
“It’s very time consuming,” Auditor Sandy Jamison said
The Washington Administrative Code defines ballot duplication as: “the process of making a true copy of valid votes from a physically damaged ballot or a ballot that is unreadable or uncountable by the tabulation system onto a paper or electronic blank ballot to ensure the ballot may be correctly tabulated by the tabulation system.”
Duplicate ballots can be ballots where the citizen marked one candidate or option initial and then indicated they wanted a different one.
With two bubbles marked, the tabulator machine is unable to collect the data, Jamison said. So, election employees have to mark a new ballot with the intended choices.
Two people witness the duplicating of the ballot and a different two people check that it is done properly, she said.
“There is nothing improper about the process,” Jamison said.
The original ballot is kept with the duplicate for verification and future audits.
Ballots are also duplicated if the bubble was not filled in enough for the machine to read.
“We will never make any marks on an original ballot,” Jamison said.
As duplicate ballots take four different people to process, election staff are only able to process 300-400 per day, she said.
Jamison will certify the election results Nov. 24.
She expects to process canvassed ballots Nov. 23.
The 2,500 ballots remaining to count does not include those that are being sent to the Canvassing Board.
Jana Mathia is a reporter at the Whitman County Gazette.
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