King County Executive Ron Sims today named a blue-ribbon commission to investigate the county elections office's handling of the 2004 election and propose reforms.

Sims' 10-member commission, to be chaired by Cheryl Scott, retired president and CEO of Group Health Cooperative, would meet weekly to look at management, operations, staffing and other issues in the running of the county elections office.

Sims hopes the commission will issue a final report by mid-July.

Ron Sims

The proposal comes after the county elections office last week found 94 absentee ballots that hadn't been counted in the November governor's election. The office also acknowledged that a report accounting for absentee ballots was flawed, and ballots weren't included in mailings to some voters for an April 26 vote-by-mail hospital-levy election.

Citing "poisonous political rhetoric" from last week, Sims said, "we needed someone with no stake in the outcome to take a look."

Some Republican County Council members have questioned the impartiality of Sims' commission.

"Enron did not audit themselves," said Councilman David Irons, a Republican. "What we've called for was to have someone come in and truly audit the policies and procedures and were they followed."

The commission, Irons said, should be appointed by an independent entity: "If we're truly hunting for an independent group, then let's have it appointed by an independent entity" such as the secretary of state.

Sims' spokeswoman, Carolyn Duncan, said he wouldn't oppose an audit of the office. "We welcome an outside look," she said. "If the council still wants to do that, that's fine."

Secretary of State Sam Reed offered his help after county officials acknowledged Wednesday that they don't know how closely the number of absentee ballots returned by voters in the Nov. 2 general election matched the number of ballots counted or rejected.

County Council member Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, said asking Reed to look at the elections office would be valuable because of Reed's expertise and respect among Democrats and Republicans. But he noted that Reed is a Republican, and thus wouldn't have the full stamp of objectivity that Ferguson claims an outside auditor would.

Sims said the panel members, who include state elections director Nick Handy, would be able to take an impartial look at the office.

"To say they can't be independent impugns their integrity," Sims said. "They're going to be independent of me; they have legal expertise, elections expertise and management and communications expertise."

Besides Scott and Handy, the panel members are John Lindback, Oregon state director of elections; Patricia Aitken, a mediator and former King County Superior Court judge; David Boerner, Seattle University associate law professor and former King County chief criminal deputy prosecutor; Philip Eaton, president of Seattle Pacific University; Susan Hutchison, executive director of the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, communications consultant and former KIRO-TV news anchor; Joe Knight, dean of the Univer(sity of Washington School of Law; Suzanne Sinclair, Island County auditor and past chairwoman of the Washington State Auditors Association; and the Rev. Stephen Sundborg, Seattle University president.

Seattle Times staff reporters David Postman and Keith Ervin contributed to this report.

Alwyn Scott 206-464-3329 or ascott@seattletimes.com