Many ballots are redone before they're counted

King County election workers filled out new ballots for 1 of every 12 votes cast in last month's election, mostly because voters didn't fill out the originals right.

In all, county workers redid more than 45,000 ballots so that voters' choices would register on tabulating machines. Statewide, well over 100,000 ballots were duplicated.

It's nothing new. Election workers have been fixing voters' mistakes for years without attracting much attention. But now, in the aftermath of the record-close, contentious 2004 race for governor, the state Republican Party chairman says the Legislature should consider banning the practice.

"This whole process makes us very nervous," Chris Vance says.

Duplicating ballots opens the door to mistakes and fraud, he says: "You've got human beings making judgments and human beings touching the ballots. It just leads to mischief. ... We could say, 'Let the machines count the ballots and that's it.' "

State and local elections officials and Vance's Democratic Party counterpart say there are safeguards to ensure that workers copy ballots to reflect voters' choices. They also say Vance's proposed cure is worse than the disease.

"The purpose of an election is to discern the will of the majority," says Dean Logan, King County's elections director. "It's not to determine whether voters can follow directions.

"Are we going to disenfranchise someone because they used the wrong pen?"

Election workers duplicate ballots because Washington is a "voter-intent" state. If officials can figure out what a voter meant to do, they bend over backward to count that vote.

Not all states are as accommodating. Michigan, for one, won't count a ballot that isn't filled out right.

8% in large counties

Copying bad ballots is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process that's carried out in every county elections office in Washington. Snohomish County remade about the same share of its ballots as King in the November election. In Clark, Whatcom and Kitsap counties, the percentage was even higher.

In Washington's nine largest counties, which together accounted for more than three-quarters of the November vote, nearly 8 percent of all ballots were redone.

Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy says it's a downside of recent changes that have made voting easier — changes she supports. "When we make life more convenient, there are some disadvantages," McCarthy says.

Fifteen years ago, most Washington voters cast their ballots on Election Day at schools and churches by poking holes in punch cards. Now most voters mark "optical-scan" ballots at home with pens and mail them in.

Officials say there's more opportunity for voters to get creative with a pen or pencil than a punch card. They also say almost all ballots that require duplication arrive by mail.

In King County, a ballot that's marked improperly at a polling place gets caught right away: The on-site tabulating machine spits it out, giving the voter an opportunity to correct it on the spot.

What goes wrong

Until this year, election workers could "enhance" ballots — remark the originals so machines could count them — or duplicate them. Legislators banned enhancement after the 2004 election, requiring that original ballots remain intact. "The potential for mischief was too high, in their opinion," Secretary of State Sam Reed says.

Some ballots must be duplicated because they arrive torn or mangled by the Postal Service. Others require duplication even when voters follow directions to the letter.

Example: When King County voters change their minds about which candidate to vote for after they've already marked their ballots, they're instructed to put an "X" through the oval they've already filled in, then fill in the right one. Without duplication, the scanner wouldn't capture what the voters intended.

But election officials say they wouldn't have to redo nearly as many ballots if more voters followed directions.

Some mark their ballots with red pens, highlighters or hard-lead pencils the scanners can't read. Others circle candidates' names, or make "X's" or checkmarks next to them instead of darkening the ovals. Still more write in names not listed on the ballot, but they don't fill in the corresponding oval to identify it as a write-in vote.

Some write editorial comments on their ballots — Logan says the Seattle monorail was a popular topic this year — that can stray into ovals or the tracking marks along the ballots' edges that scanners must read to register votes correctly.

In Snohomish and other counties where voters mark their choices by drawing a line to connect two halves of an arrow, elections officials say they frequently must duplicate two-sided ballots on which voters have drawn lines so heavily that the ink bleeds through to the other side.

Wendy Mauch, Snohomish County's elections supervisor, says voters will be asked to use only pencils in future elections.

Clark County was the only large county that still used punch cards in last month's election. Elections supervisor Tim Likness says most of the ballots that required duplication there had chads — the tiny squares of paper voters punch out — that voters hadn't completely detached.

In King County, election workers inspect all mail ballots and pull out those needing duplication. If there's doubt about a voter's intent, the ballot is referred to the Canvassing Board.

Election workers remake ballots in teams of two, Logan says: One reads the voter's choices from the original ballot; the other transcribes them to the duplicate. Then they switch ballots, check their work and initial it.

Each ballot has its own identification number. Party observers can watch the entire process.

Safeguards sufficient?

But Jonathan Bechtle, a policy-research analyst with the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation, says there are no statewide standards to guide election workers in determining voter intent. He co-authored a report earlier this year that called for a ban on duplication unless the original ballots have been damaged.

The safeguards don't satisfy Vance, either. "The safest thing is, let the machines count the ballots," he says.

Vance acknowledges that his distrust of King County's elections office, which grew during the 2004 gubernatorial recount, has influenced his views. While there were no close major races this year, he says, "in a close election you'll have the staff of King County Elections handling those ballots. And they are Democrats."

Logan works for King County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat.

"The Republicans want to throw out 8 percent of the votes of the people of Washington," says Paul Berendt, the state Democratic Party chairman. "Thomas Jefferson would be rolling in his grave. ... These votes should count."

Reed, a Republican, agrees. "To deny somebody the right to have their vote counted because they made a mistake is not something we want to do," he says. Many of those voters are elderly or disabled, Reed adds.

But the secretary of state still is troubled that so many ballots must be redone. Technology could be part of the solution, he says — newer tabulating machines aren't as picky as older models — but voter education probably will play a larger role.

Pierce County has been waging an aggressive education campaign for several years. In the November election the percentage of ballots there that required duplication was below 5 percent. Logan says that shows there may be hope.

Still, he adds, "I think this is something we're going to have to live with for a long time."

Kitsap County Auditor Karen Flynn says the percentage of ballots in her county that require duplication regularly hovers around 11 or 12 percent.

"People do not read instructions if they feel they know how to do something," she says, "and they think they already know how to vote."

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