Official disputes vote-tally assertion

A Metropolitan King County councilman who once served on the county canvassing board is disputing election officials' claim that there is nothing unusual in their inability to figure out who cast 1,800 ballots in the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election.

David Irons, a Sammamish Republican, said yesterday that in the 2000 general election the discrepancy between the numbers of ballots cast and voters credited with voting was only 17 — far less than the 1,230-vote variance that election officials are citing.

Irons also said there was "no discrepancy" in some special elections he certified along with other members of the canvassing board.

His challenge of Elections Director Dean Logan's numbers came on the same day that Logan sent a 24-page report on the election to County Executive Ron Sims. Logan and Sims discussed the report at a news conference this morning.

Logan will go before the County Council on Monday in what could be the first of two or more appearances to discuss the election. Council members, who have expressed concerns about management of the election, asked him to give a report and answer their questions.

Problems in King County have been in the spotlight since the election. The state Republican Party has filed a legal challenge to the election of Democrat Christine Gregoire, who beat Republican Dino Rossi by 129 votes after two statewide recounts of the votes for governor.

GOP members of the County Council are urging that the council reconvene the Citizens' Election Oversight Committee, which last year made recommendations for improving elections.

"You can't help but walk away from 2004 and not have some sense of your faith being shattered in the process," said County Council Vice Chairman Pete von Reichbauer, R-Federal Way.

Council Chairman Larry Phillips, D-Seattle, said he supports the idea of reconvening the oversight committee, which he said has been "wonderful in advising us in the past."

Irons said he has been frustrated in his attempt to obtain election records that would confirm his recollection of the discrepancy in the 2000 vote count. He also has requested — but has not received — records on the mailing of absentee ballots to overseas voters, including members of the armed forces.

Logan confirmed that he had told Irons he would have to wait to receive the records he has requested. "He is right that we responded to his office that we would get that information to him but that we were responding to a multitude of public-records requests right now and we would get that to him as soon as possible."

Logan said Irons had not contacted him to dispute Logan's numbers. He reiterated that the 2004 discrepancy "doesn't seem largely inconsistent" with those of earlier years.

Logan said yesterday the number of voters listed as voting exceeded ballots by 3,067 in the 2001 general election and by 2,809 in 2002.

He acknowledged, however, that discrepancies in 2000, 2001 and 2002 may have been inflated by the county's practice at the time of crediting absentee voters with having voted even if their ballots weren't counted because they were mailed too late or because of signature problems. The county has since stopped that practice.

Election officials last month said the number of voters who voted exceeded ballots counted by 7,770 in 2000. They later reduced that number to 1,230 after they discovered the number of voters was mistyped in the final certification report.

Former Elections Superintendent Julie Anne Kempf said last night she didn't recall the exact vote discrepancy in 2000, but said it was under 30. And in the 1999 general election, she said, the variance between voters and ballots was only 17.

Kempf said election officials' recent calculations of the vote discrepancy in past elections were based on the wrong documents. The correct numbers can be found in the reconciliation worksheets sought by Irons, she said.

Kempf was fired from her job in January 2003 after her boss, then-Elections Director Bob Roegner, accused her of lying about the late mailing of absentee ballots in the 2002 general election. Roegner later resigned after ballots were mailed late in a May 2003 special election.

The County Council appointed the Election Oversight Committee in July 2003 to study the Elections Office and recommend improvements. Sims appointed Logan — at the time state elections director — to take over the troubled office.

A.J. Culver, chairman of the oversight committee, said he is concerned by the county's inability to reconcile the numbers of ballots and voters in the recent election.

"It would seem to me that if 25 people signed the book, you had better have 25 ballots, not 26, not 24. I don't know why you would not have it," he said.

Among the documents Irons said Logan hasn't provided is a one-page log of mailings of absentee ballots that was provided to The Seattle Times several weeks ago.

"I would think that he would make an above-and-beyond effort to keep the water as calm as possible, and I'm hoping that he will go in a different direction and get information back to us," Irons said.

Irons, whose district was largely carved up in redistricting last month, is considering whether to run for re-election to the council, run for county executive against Sims, or not run for office at all.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com