Most challenged ballots are cleared to be counted

A divided King County Canvassing Board decided Monday to count the votes of nearly three-fourths of the voters whose registrations were challenged by Republicans and who cast ballots in the Nov. 8 election.

The three-member panel rejected 141 GOP challenges and accepted 58.

Most of the challenges were decided by split votes. Elections director Dean Logan and County Councilman Dow Constantine, D-West Seattle, said that, in most cases, Republicans had not provided the "clear and convincing evidence" state law requires to show the voters were registered illegally at addresses where they don't live.

The panel's third member, Dan Satterberg, disagreed, saying the GOP had provided enough proof in most cases. He voted to accept all but 18 of the 199 challenges.

While Logan and Constantine argued that most challenges had not met the legal burden of proof, they acknowledged most of the challenged voters do in fact appear to be registered at private mailbox businesses or storage complexes, as Republicans alleged. Logan said he would contact those voters, then forward any cases of suspected fraud to county Prosecutor Norm Maleng.

State Republican Chairman Chris Vance called that a victory for the GOP.

"Even though our challenges have been formally rejected, we have achieved our objective," he said. "The objective remains the same as it's always been: to persuade King County to clean up its process and clean up its voter rolls."

He also criticized Constantine and Logan, whom he labeled "two partisan Democrats," for ignoring Satterberg, Republican Maleng's chief of staff. "It is highly unusual to see the prosecutor ignored on what a legal standard is," Vance said.

But Logan, who works for County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat, said he was following the legal advice of the deputy prosecutor assigned to his office.

Lori Sotelo, a county GOP vice chairwoman, challenged the registrations of more than 1,900 voters Oct. 26, charging all were registered illegally at nonresidential addresses. Republicans said the challenges were evidence that King County's voter rolls are a mess and that Logan and Sims aren't doing their jobs.

Democrats said Republicans were trying to intimidate or disenfranchise voters and hurt Sims, who was re-elected to a third full term this month.

Sotelo later withdrew more than 170 challenges, acknowledging they were mistaken. An additional 200-plus challenged voters changed their addresses before the deadline for the Nov. 8 election. Of those still being challenged, more than 1,000 didn't vote in this election; their status will be determined by Logan next month in separate proceedings.

The Canvassing Board was required to decide the 199 remaining challenges before certifying the election results today.

At hearings before the board earlier this month, Sotelo and her lawyers presented photographs of businesses at the addresses where voters were registered. In some cases they also provided the results of Internet searches that had produced other addresses for the challenged voters.

That evidence wasn't enough, Logan and Constantine said Monday.

Logan said state law requires that challengers provide the challenged voters' real addresses, and Sotelo hadn't done that. He also said she didn't provide conclusive proof, such as affidavits from building managers, that no one could or did live at the challenged addresses.

"The threshold for denying a citizen the right to vote must be high," Logan said.

Constantine said his reasoning was similar to Logan's. He also said he was uncomfortable with the legal conclusion that a private mailbox business can't be a voter's residence for registration purposes.

Constantine also criticized Sotelo for the timing of her challenges and said the Legislature should consider prohibiting them so soon before an election.

But Satterberg said state law is clear: "It does not permit anyone to be registered at a mailbox at any time." He called Logan's argument that Sotelo was required to provide voters' actual addresses "an irrelevant and technical reading of the statute."

But he also said "an adversarial and partisan process" isn't the best way to clean up the voter rolls.

Satterberg did join Constantine and Logan in rejecting all of Sotelo's challenges of voters registered at storage-complex addresses, charging she hadn't investigated them thoroughly. Many complexes have resident managers.

All three board members also agreed to accept the challenges and cancel the votes of more than 50 voters who provided other, residential addresses to the Canvassing Board after receiving notice their registrations had been challenged.

Some said they had registered at private mailbox businesses because they live on boats or in recreational vehicles. Others said they hadn't given their residential addresses when they registered because of concerns about personal safety.

Ironically, challenged voters who didn't respond when notified of the challenges were more likely to have their registrations upheld.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com