Parties clash over voter challenges

Most of the 1,944 King County voters whose registrations were challenged by Republicans last month appear to have done what the GOP says: registered illegally using private mailbox businesses or storage complexes as their residential addresses.

Is "most" good enough?

Democrats and Republicans were putting wildly different spins on that question Monday, on the eve of the election.

County Democratic leaders said that over the weekend they discovered more voters whose registrations had been challenged erroneously by Republicans. The GOP withdrew 140 challenges Friday, admitting they were mistaken, and state party Chairman Chris Vance acknowledged more probably had been filed in error.

"I think what they're doing is voter disenfranchisement," Shanna Sawatzki, a 36th Legislative District Democratic leader, said of the challenges.

Vance said the accuracy of the majority of the challenges shows the King County elections office isn't enforcing the law. "The media is focusing on a few high-profile exceptions," he said. "[County Executive] Ron Sims' negligence has allowed the possibility of fraud to exist."

Vance said he had no evidence of fraud, however.

The performance of the elections office has been a major issue in the county-executive race between incumbent Sims, a Democrat, and Republican David Irons, a county councilman. Gentry Lange, of the Green Party, is also running.

The Seattle Times reviewed 30 addresses that accounted for more than 1,000 of the Republicans' challenges. All but one — the Watermarke apartments in Belltown — matched up with a list of mailbox businesses. Republicans withdrew their challenges to the registrations of voters at the Watermarke on Friday.

Times reporters also visited a number of the addresses to confirm the presence of the businesses, and that no one lived at those addresses.

Democrats, county elections officials and the managers of several private mail businesses said most voters apparently registered at the nonresidential addresses because it was more convenient and because they didn't know it was against the law.

A significant number appear to be voters who live on boats and can't get their mail delivered there.

The largest number of challenged voters — 130 — are registered at Ballard Mailbox and Shipping, on Market Street in Ballard. Owner Karen Wagner said most are "live-aboards."

"They're outraged," she said. "This is where they have to get their mail. ... Some of them say they're not even going to vote now."

Twenty more are registered at Lake Union Mail, on East Louisa Street in the Eastlake area. Owner Jules James said five no longer rent boxes there, but 15 do — mostly live-aboards and "snowbirds" who, in some cases, couldn't have learned about the challenges in time to switch their registrations to their residences.

"To spring this on these voters right before the election is terrible," James said. "Nobody's trying to cheat anyone here except the Republicans — and I am one."

James was a Republican candidate for the Legislature in 1984.

An arm of the King County GOP called the Voter Registration Integrity Project filed the challenges Oct. 26. Elections director Dean Logan sent letters to the voters dated Nov. 1, telling them that unless they transferred their registrations to their residences or reregistered by last Saturday, their votes in today's election would be treated as "challenged ballots."

The letters prompted hundreds of calls to the elections office from confused, angry voters. Office spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said 155 changed their registration addresses by Saturday's deadline.

She said voters who didn't change their addresses should vote today anyway. The county Canvassing Board will decide the challenges at hearings later this month.

County GOP Vice Chairwoman Lori Sotelo, who signed all the challenges, said last night she did not know how she would respond to voters who come to the hearings and contend they didn't know it was illegal to register at mailbox businesses.

Vance said it's important that voters be registered at the address where they live because the mailbox business may be in a different precinct or district. "If somebody was going to engage in voter fraud and do phony registrations, you'd say you were registering to vote at a UPS store," he said. "We're just trying to get King County to enforce the law."

But a number of voters whose registrations were challenged said they are registered at their homes.

"The Republican Party clearly did not do their homework," said Cathryn Virzi, who, along with her husband, Joe, is registered at their house on Queen Anne. "It's obviously not a business."

"If intimidation is the tactic, it backfired," Virzi said. "We're more determined than ever that our votes count."

The registrations of several voters who live in apartments at the storage-unit complexes they manage also were challenged.

County Democratic Chairwoman Susan Sheary said Democrats began trying to contact voters on the Republicans' list Friday. She said the research will continue through Wednesday; then Democrats will decide what to do next.

A lawsuit against Republicans is possible, she said.

In Seattle, Democrats said they found 29 more voters in the 36th Legislative District and seven in the 46th whose registrations had been challenged erroneously. Those numbers could not be immediately verified.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Jean Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, said in a statement Monday that she will propose legislation prohibiting challenges of voters' registrations so close to an election.

Staff reporters Emily Heffter, Peyton Whitely and Sonia Krishnan and researcher Justin Mayo contributed to this report.

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