Crucial primary election appears to go well

Despite a few glitches reported at the polls, King County Elections Director Dean Logan declared yesterday's election "a step forward" in rebuilding voter trust.

A key broke in one polling-place door, prompting a scramble to spring the lock. And a technical error kept some vote-counting machines from initially working, but it appeared that overall, the election was "successful," Logan said.

Logan has been under intense public pressure to run an error-free election, after a series of problems revealed in last year's close governor's election. Besides restoring voter confidence, his job is on the line if the election doesn't go well.

Though countywide turnout was light — about 27 percent — it may take days or weeks before it's known how well his team performed.

As he visited polling places yesterday, Logan turned up the car radio to hear news reports about the primary election. Secretary of State Sam Reed said Logan's office would be "under a microscope."

County officials announced last week that a "turnaround team" they had hoped to hire to observe the election would not be in place for the primary. A spokesman for County Executive Ron Sims said Sims intends to have a team in place in time for the Nov. 8 general election.

But plenty of party officials, County Council members and members of the public were watching closely yesterday at the polls and as workers began counting thousands of absentee ballots.

While Logan and his staff have made procedural changes to improve elections, the turnaround team will be charged with spurring larger, cultural change in the elections office.

Some voters were forced to cast provisional ballots yesterday because their names didn't show up in poll books. Schyler Batey said his name wasn't listed at The Josephinum apartments in Seattle, where he has voted for two years.

Jo Childers, a poll worker there, said another voter reported the same problem. King County Republican Party Executive Ross Marzolf said he was told of a similar complaint.

Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said last night that county records show Batey as registered to vote.

"We'll definitely look into this," she said, adding that Batey's ballot will be counted. "This is the beauty of provisional voting. It prevents people from being disenfranchised."

At a few polling places, a new security device on ballot boxes also caused some problems. The device, a bar that blocks the slot where ballots are inserted, was removed incorrectly when some polls opened. That caused the machines to reject ballots. County troubleshooters figured out the problem, and ballots that were rejected will be counted at election headquarters.

Some voters also complained about the "pick-a-party" primary reinstated by a federal judge this summer. As in the 2004 primary, King County vote-counting machines were programmed to reject ballots on which voters didn't choose a political party. Poll workers then had to ask voters if they intended to vote only in nonpartisan races and, if so, override the programming to allow their votes to be counted.

"Everyone in the room ends up knowing how I voted. They didn't fix that ... yet," said Seattle voter Chris Jackins, whose nonpartisan ballot was rejected by the machine several times before the override.

Emily Heffter: 425-783-0624 or eheffter@seattletimes.com