Tough questions for elections chief as County Council looks into vote

In his first appearance before the Metropolitan King County Council since the contested election for governor, county Elections Director Dean Logan warned against overreacting to a series of mishaps.

"The most important thing," Logan said, "is that we not take radical action in the wake of this close race. We need responsible, meaningful election reform."

But shortly after Logan's appearance at the fact-finding meeting, state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said Logan's office had understated a discrepancy between ballots counted and voters credited with voting.

In contrast to the official figure of 1,853 more ballots counted than known voters, the Republican Party calculated a discrepancy of 9,596.

Vance said the county's number was misleading because it was derived by subtracting excess voters in some precincts from excess ballots in others. "You've got to add those numbers together, not subtract."

The Republicans' analysis said there were 5,845 more ballots than voters in 1,318 precincts and 3,751 more voters than ballots in 1,011 precincts, Vance said.

King County officials dismissed Vance's attack as an irresponsible attempt to undermine confidence in Democrat Christine Gregoire's 129-vote victory over Republican Dino Rossi in a manual recount after Rossi led in two earlier machine counts.

"We knew that the Republicans would have to come after King County because they would have to make the case that something very bad happened here, and it's just not true," said Kurt Triplett, chief of staff to County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat.

TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES King County Elections Director Dean Logan gestures while presenting his report yesterday. The discrepancy between ballots counted and voters credited with voting is at issue in the disputed election.

Huennekens said the integrity of elections doesn't depend on reconciling the numbers of ballots and credited voters, but instead rests on such "front-end" controls as maintaining security at polling places and verifying signatures on absentee ballots.

During Logan's appearance at yesterday's fact-finding meeting of the County Council, Councilman Bob Ferguson, D-Seattle, asked about the county's inability to determine who cast 1,800 out of 898,000 ballots.

Logan responded that he had compared those numbers with King County's past performance and with other counties' performance this year and found the numbers were not "out of kilter."

But former Elections Director Bob Bruce yesterday said the discrepancy between ballots and voters in this election was far larger than in past elections. Bruce said he recalls the discrepancy in the 2000 presidential election as being less than 20 votes.

"When you come up with a discrepancy, boy, you start digging to find out why," Bruce said. In a close race in past years, he said, "If it was much more than a dozen or two, it would have to be brought forward to the canvassing board and they would have to make some hard decisions about what to do about it."

Bruce was the third former elections official who has taken issue with current officials' claim that in 2000 there was a discrepancy of 1,230 between ballots and voters. County Councilman David Irons, R-Sammamish, a canvassing board member in 2000, said he recalled the variance that year as 17. Former Elections Superintendent Julie Anne Kempf put the gap at less than 30.

Kempf has said the county's 1,230 number is wrong because it relied in part on a report dated Jan. 17, 2001 — too long after the election, she claims, to be accurate in light of changes to the voter registration list after the election.

Yesterday, several County Council members asked for more information about the mailing of absentee ballots to armed-forces members and about whether additional safeguards are needed to prevent felons from illegally voting.

The council's newest member, Reagan Dunn, R-Bellevue, a former federal prosecutor, clashed with Councilman Larry Gossett, D-Seattle, in Dunn's first full council meeting.

Dunn urged a get-tough policy to identify felons who illegally register to vote, and he challenged Logan's statement that state law compels him to register anyone who signs an oath saying he or she is qualified to vote.

Dunn suggested there aren't enough controls in place to prevent someone like the Green River serial killer, Gary L. Ridgway, from voting.

Gossett said it was "demagogic" to crusade against voting by felons, who he said are disproportionately African American and who often don't have their voting rights restored because they are too poor to pay their legal debts.

Councilman Steve Hammond, R-Enumclaw, said he wasn't satisfied with officials' response to problems in the election. "If we keep hearing the phrase that 'mistakes were made' and there's a circle-the-wagons mentality, I'll begin to lose confidence in the department," Hammond said. "But if I know there were corrective discipline actions taken, at that point my confidence begins to go up."

"I would love it if I could say, 'Heads will roll,' and that will make it better," Logan responded. "I don't believe that's the case. There have been cultural issues in the division for years."

Logan said the elections office needs to improve worker training, revamp work procedures, establish productivity "benchmarks," and consolidate its scattered operations.

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