04/13/2007: "Guest Editorial"

Securing Your Vote in a Mail-in Election
By Milene Henley

San Juan County is committed to conducting our elections in an open manner, accounting for every ballot received, and protecting the security of each vote. To those ends, in 2005, San Juan and Grays Harbor Counties participated in a pilot project for an audit program that tracks envelopes and ballots in a vote-by-mail election. The goal of the new software was two-fold: to improve the reconciliation of voted ballots, and to allow voters to verify that their votes had been counted.

In a vote-by-mail election, not all received envelopes become counted ballots. Reasons they may not include: they arrive without a ballot inside, they include the ballot from the wrong election (sending the primary ballot in for the general election, for example), the signature on the envelope does not match the signature of record, they are marked illegibly, voters write their names on their ballots (we are not allowed by law to count such ballots), and many others. At each step in the process, we reconcile ballots: Ballots received minus ballots rejected = ballots counted. Historically, we always had discrepancies. Now, using machine counting and ballots with control numbers, we have none.

The second goal, to allow voters to verify that their votes have been counted, is equally important. At a polling site, when voters put their ballots in the “ballot box,” they trust that their ballots will be counted. Problems which surfaced after the 2004 gubernatorial election showed that, in fact, not all ballots are counted. With our present system, voters can go to the county elections website, enter their names, and see that their ballots have been counted. They can only tell that their ballots were counted; they cannot tell how they voted. A good analogy is FedEx: customers use a tracking number to find out where their packages are in the shipping process; they cannot tell what is in the package (as neither can FedEx employees).

Part of our impetus for change was the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Passed by Congress after the 2000 election, HAVA addressed the replacement of outdated voting machines; certification of voting equipment; access for individuals with disabilities; voting system standards; and the voting rights of military and overseas citizens. San Juan County has received over $200,000 of HAVA funds for certified elections hardware, software and training. We are proud of the improvements we have made using this money.

Our elections system is currently being tested in court. I have full confidence in the security of the system, as does the Prosecuting Attorney of San Juan County, the Auditor of Grays Harbor County (which still uses the same system), and the Secretary of State. If you have questions about the conduct of elections in San Juan County, please call the elections office at 378-3357. If you have questions about the lawsuit, view a presentation created by Prosecutor Randy Gaylord, accessible online at http://www.co.san-juan.wa.us/prosecutor/ballotsystem/Mail-inBallotAuditSystem.htm Most importantly, if you are aware of any ballot that was not kept confidential, call me at 370-7558.

(Milene Henley is the San Juan County Auditor