Eighty ballots never arrived

Whitman County Elections Office staffers say they simply can’t explain what happened to 80 ballots said missing from the Feb. 11 special election.

After the office was notified by 80 voters that their ballots did not arrive in the mail prior to the election, the office could not locate the ballots, according to Debbie Hooper, director of the elections office.

She noted the voters who did not get the ballots were not concentrated in one particular location in the county. All were registered and on the rolls.

Of the voters who notified the elections office about the missing ballots, 71 eventually voted when ballots were subsequently provided.

In several instances, one voter in a household received a ballot and another member of the same household did not receive one.

“We don’t know what happened,” Hooper said. “I have no explanation as to why it happened.”

The county has used vote-by-mail since 2005 but the entire state has been vote-by-mail for just a few years.

In the November election, a number of Oakesdale voters didn’t receive their ballots, but this instance is the largest and most widespread, Hooper said.

Hooper said she has spoken with the Secretary of State’s office to address the issue.

“The Secretary of State’s office is very aware of the situation,” she said.

The state office suggested ballot tracking, but then decided the county was too small for that procedure. She said that ballot tracking is when each ballot receives a bar code and is tracked like an online order.

She said the office is still investigating how the ballots went missing.

Hooper also said she plans to talk to other counties in June at a statewide conference about the missing ballots issue.

She said mailing ballots from the office has a standard procedure that includes downloading information from a special program with all ballots done in alphabetical order and then done by precinct. Colfax postal personnel pick up the ballots at the back of the elections office which is in the Public Service Building. The local post office keeps the Colfax ballots and the rest go to Spokane to be distributed and delivered.

“This is real frustrating to us and frustrating to the voters,” Hooper said. “We’re looking into it and we’re working with a lot of people.”

“We work hard and it’s a lot of money and we don’t want to waste money,” she said.

Hooper said in Tuesday’s mail the office received two ballots, one from Garfield and one from St. John, postmarked Jan. 27.

“There’s no reason it should take 20 days to get here,” Hooper said.

“I have to say I’m proud of our voters in this election. They’ve been very understanding,” she said.

Hooper said she’s unaware of any other county having this problem.

“I honestly don’t know what happened,” she said.