Washington tested: Under scrutiny amid burned and missing ballots, voter confusion

Burned ballot boxes, hundreds of ballots missing, one woman receiving 16 ballots, the run-up to the election in Washington is testing the rigidity of the state’s election protections.

On Friday, Jami Visaya opened her mailbox to several ballots. On Monday, more ballots were in her box—a total of 16.

“It just didn’t feel right. I’ve been voting for thirty years and maybe have had one or two ballots that weren’t mine come but not that number, that high of number,” Visaya said.

Visaya returned them to the King County Election office which is working to find the status and location of the people whose names are on the envelopes.

“We won’t know until we get into the weeds a little bit but we should be able to figure out what the story is and they ended up going to places when they should have been going to somewhere else,” said Kendall Hodson, the King County Elections Chief of Staff.

If they find the voters moved, they will try to get them replacement ballots by November 5. If they show up on another state’s voter rolls, they will be removed from Washington’s. Jami said she has voted without issue and hopes the people who don’t have their ballots can make their voices heard.

“My real hope is that they somehow find their way to their owner,” Visaya said.

Hodson wasn’t surprised this happened at an apartment complex but says 16 ballots is more than what usually gets reported.

“If you don’t update your mailing address when you move, we’re still going to mail that ballot to your old house and that’s totally fine,” Hodson said.

If someone more nefarious than Visaya tried to fill out the ballots, Hodson said the unique bar code would have verified if the voter was registered, caught if the real voter had already voted and signature verification would catch a fraudulent signature.

“We’re not going to even open that ballot until we’ve done those three things to confirm that they are able to vote,” Hodson said.

Hodson said, in response to the burned ballot boxes in Clark County, King County will now pick up ballots twice a day from drop boxes.

Over the mountains in Whitman County, as many as 300 ballots are missing there. Auditor Sandy Jamison tells KIRO 7, they disappeared somewhere between the vendor dropping them off at the post office in Spokane and arriving at the post office in Garfield.

“I’ve heard frustration from voters, believe you me they are not any more frustrated than I am. I’ve pledged my dedication to investigate this.” Jamison said.

Jamison said the issue seems to be isolated to P.O. boxes in Garfield and many affected voters are making the 17-mile drive to Colfax to vote in person.

“People want to be involved in this election. I anticipate 85-90 % so people are voting, people want to be heard and I want to help them do that.” Jamison said, “So, please let me know if you didn’t get a ballot.”

Voters can go to votewa.gov to track where their ballot is after it was sent out, where it is being returned if it has been counted, and if a voter needs to fix a signature or other issue on their ballot.

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