Q&A: voting

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Related stories King County holds key as tally nears end Gubernatorial recount puts official on hot seat

Q: Why are there so many more ballots in dispute in King County than in other counties?

A: King County is one of six counties (Pierce, Spokane, Chelan, Klickitat and San Juan are the others) where ballots are counted by an optical-scan machine and the counties have poll-site tabulators. On Election Day, the ballots are fed into the counting machines without being inspected. The ballots would be kicked out only if they were left blank or if a voter picked two candidates in one race.

In the other 19 counties that use optical scanning and the 14 counties that use punch cards, ballots are inspected before being fed into the computer. Mismarked ballots where voter intent is clear are fixed before the votes are counted. That's why these counties are finding fewer missed ballots than the six counties that had no inspection.

On the recount, the ballots from the punch-card counties aren't being reinspected.

Q: Why weren't all these voting problems in the governor's race detected the first time ballots were counted?

A: Counting machines weren't programmed to spit out any "undercounts" in the governor's race, that is, ballots that weren't counted in that specific race.

Many voters — 22,000 in King County alone — didn't pick a candidate in the governor's race. King County election officials say the tabulation machines could be programmed to kick out undercounted ballots, but that could be a nightmare because every race a voter skipped would spew back the ballot.

Q: I'm not very comfortable having someone "enhance" or "duplicate" my mismarked ballot. Can one election worker change my ballot by himself or herself?
 
A: No. The workers are in teams of two, with party observers watching. Ballots still in question go to the three-member canvassing board.

Q: Why did Snohomish County find more ballots during the recount?

A: State election officials say these ballots were in a secured locker, wrapped and prepared for counting, but somehow they got left in the locker and were not counted.

Q: If there is a hand recount, how will that work?

A: First, a hand recount has to be requested by one of the parties; that party would have to pay for it upfront. The party or candidate must make a deposit with the state of 25 cents a vote for a manual recount. If the final number of voters is 2.8 million, the deposit would be $700,000 for a manual recount. If the recount changes the race, the money will be returned.

The losing candidate could request recounts of selected counties. But if that recount changes the result outcome, state law requires that all the ballots in the state be recounted.

In the event of another recount, Dino Rossi ballots would be put in one stack and Christine Gregoire ballots in another.

One poll worker would count a stack and a second poll worker would recount the stack. If the numbers agree, they'd move on to a new stack. All tallies would be done by hand.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com