Slade Gorton calls for criminal probe of election

Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton yesterday joined the call for a criminal investigation of King County's handling of the November election, even as county officials acknowledged a breakdown in the process for accounting for absentee ballots.

Gorton, appearing at a news conference with state Republican Chairman Chris Vance, said the U.S. Department of Justice or some other agency should conduct an investigation. He said he didn't know if any criminal acts were committed in the county's failure to count 93 valid absentee ballots in the tight governor's election in November.

The mistake could have been fraud or "colossal incompetence," he said.

"I think it's appropriate to come to the conclusion that King County has the worst election administration in any county in the United States of America — a humiliating statement, I think, from our perspective," Gorton said.

Gorton called it a "breathtaking" breakdown in the system that 93 ballots weren't counted even though workers knew in November that at least 86 had been misplaced. Gorton lost a close election, after a recount, to Democrat Maria Cantwell in 2000.

Vance said the uncounted ballots were suspicious because they came primarily from Republican-leaning precincts in a predominantly Democratic county. A Seattle Times analysis shows two-thirds of the precincts went for Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, and the votes, if counted, might have reduced Democrat Christine Gregoire's lead by about four votes.

The six Republicans on the Metropolitan King County Council on Monday asked U.S. Attorney General Albert Gonzales to order an investigation of the election. The seven Democrats called for an outside audit of the elections office.

Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney John McKay in Seattle, said McKay has told people requesting a federal investigation to contact the FBI.

A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, said yesterday he supports some kind of investigation. But his department doesn't have authority to launch one unless the governor or the county prosecutor asks for it. No such request has been made.

McKenna and King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng couldn't be reached for comment late yesterday. Calls to the FBI were not returned.

King County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat, dismissed Gorton's call for an investigation as "pure partisanship."

State Democratic Party attorney Jenny Durkan called it "hypocritical beyond belief." She said Republicans have not been concerned about errors in other counties that might have helped Rossi. Republicans are contesting Gregoire's 129-vote victory over Rossi in a manual recount after he won two machine vote counts. Rossi has asked Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges to overturn the election.

While the partisan debate raged, King County election officials said a key document accounting for absentee ballots in the November election was so flawed it was virtually meaningless.

The Mail Ballot Report, which showed every absentee ballot accounted for, didn't report the correct number of ballots returned by voters. Instead, it simply added the number of ballots counted and the number rejected to show a perfectly matching number of ballots returned.

The improperly reported information came to light after officials learned that 93 valid absentee ballots weren't counted in the election.

Elections-office spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said it isn't known why the author of the report, absentee-ballot facility chief Nicole Way, didn't correctly account for ballots. "This is part of an ongoing investigation, and we cannot comment at this time," Egan said.

Way, who was placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday, could not be reached for comment. Two other staffers were suspended as well, pending completion of an investigation. A fourth worker was suspended yesterday.

"Oh, she knows better than that," Way's one-time boss, former Elections Manager Bob Bruce, said yesterday.

In calculating the number of returned ballots by adding up ballots counted and ballots rejected, Bruce said, "You have a false figure. ... If you're not keeping track of how many came in to start with, you don't have much of a check."

But Bruce, who was Way's boss several years ago, dismissed suspicions of fraud. Most of the year-round, absentee-ballot staffers once worked under him, he said, "and I don't think any of them would even have thought of doing that."

It is more likely workers were overwhelmed by an unprecedented volume of absentee ballots, and they took unacceptable shortcuts, Bruce said.

Republican election observer John Davidson said 93 ballots may have gone uncounted because of a decision by election administrators to stop observers from bundling and indexing empty absentee-ballot envelopes.

The old practice, Davidson said, often turned up uncounted ballots that were accidentally left in envelopes — and it made it easier to find missing ballots when numbers didn't add up.

Davidson said Elections Director Dean Logan "thought the outside envelopes were not that important. They just put them in mail trays and didn't even code by batch number. They had to go through every tray to find one if there was a problem."

Egan confirmed that Logan stopped observers from handling ballot envelopes — not because he thought the envelopes weren't important but because it wasn't a proper role for observers.

"That is a practice that needed to change," Egan said. Observers are paid by the county not to conduct elections but "to be the impartial eyes and ears for King County Elections ... and let us know of any inconsistencies."

Egan said more election workers were assigned to handle ballot envelopes to compensate for the reduced role of the observers.

"We welcome any authorized investigation," Egan said. She noted that her office was organizing an investigation with the help of auditors from other counties. "Nobody was more disheartened and disappointed in the discovery of those 93 ballots than Dean Logan and the supervisors here. That is clearly unacceptable," she said.

Seattle Times reporters Susan Kelleher, Justin Mayo, David Postman and Mike Carter contributed to this report. Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com