The ongoing controversy of the King County military ballots
Unfortunately, the question whether King County issued all of its military absentee ballots in compliance with the Oct. 7 deadline, has not yet been answered.
A headline in the Seattle Times last Thursday declared "Military ballots sent out on time, county logs show". Yes, but only if you attach the word "Some" to the beginning of the headline. The headline which suggests that all such ballots went out in time was an unfortunate lapse of judgment by somebody at the Times. (This blog also made a mistake on Thursday to interpret the article as settling the question that all the ballots went out on time).
It's possible that all of King County's military ballots went out on time. I've heard credible but as yet unconfirmed reports that a significant number of the ballots did not go out by the deadline, but I need more confirmation to settle the question one way or another. So I'm going to keep asking questions. The latest Times article which only confirms that some of the military ballots went out on time does not in any way put this controversy to rest.
Let's take a close look at the facts. If we give King County the benefit of the doubt and assume that the most recent version of their "Fact Sheet Military and Overseas Ballots" is correct, we learn that:
Number of military/overseas ballots issued on that date:
On Oct.1, 246 ballots were issued
On Oct.7, 3055 ballots were issued
For the Oct.7 mailing, King County prioritized our mail-out to ensure military and overseas ballots were mailed as soon as they were available and within the timeframes required by state law and guidelines from the United State Department of Justice.
Total number of military/overseas ballots issued in the General Election:
15,289 ballots that were issued were designated in voter categories that would include military personnel and overseas voters (any RS, RM, Subs).
First, note that they are not making any distinction in their numbers between military ballots and overseas ballots. These are very different things. "Overseas" ballots would go to non-military expatriates and are handled differently from military ballots. Indeed, we have no idea from county information how many truly military ballots are in question.
The Seattle Times article does not help answer the question. All we learn is this:
The log of outgoing mail shows that 1,853 ballots destined for armed-forces members were delivered to the International Station post office in Seattle on Oct. 7.
and
After delivering the first batch of military ballots to the post office, King County election workers took the remaining ballots to a mailing contractor in Snohomish County later that day and on the morning of Oct. 8.
King County Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens said the last of 3,055 overseas military ballots went into the postal system Oct. 8 — meeting the federal deadline.
An additional 5,478 ballots were mailed to armed-forces members within the United States on Oct. 12.
The county Fact Sheet shows that a total of 3,055 military/overseas ballots were issued on Oct. 7. The article says that 3,055 ballots went into the mail on Oct. 7. The logs apparently did not show how many of these were military. From the Fact Sheet we infer that there are still another 11,988 military/overseas ballots that were issued after Oct. 7. The article seems to explain 5,478 of them. That still leaves 6,510 military/overseas ballots unaccounted for. How many of these were military ballots? We don't know yet. When did they go out? We don't know yet. The county has explained that some of these were sent after the deadline to fulfill requests that were received after the deadline. How many are in this category? We don't know yet.
More good questions continue to be asked. One knowledgeable reader poses these questions:
Why would the military ballots have been given directly to the post office on the 7th, but given to a mailing contractor on the 8th? The International Station is walking distance from the King Co Admin Building (although, of course, one would drive heavy trays of mail down there), about four blocks away. this is also the post office through which the County has their bulk mail permits. Why wouldn't the military ballots be taken both days directly to the nearby post office for the fastest handling -- why on earth would the second batch on the morning of Friday, the 8th be driven to a mailing contractor in Snohomish County, of all places?
..
And since the County received a receipt for the ballots delivered to the post office on the 7th, wouldn't the contractor have a receipt for when they delivered them to the post office on the 8th? Rather than just logs?
The bit about the Snohomish County facility is particularly intriguing. It would be helpful to know the name of the company. The only mailing contractor that any of my sources have mentioned in this context is the PSI Group, whose local facility is in Kent, not Snohomish County.
It's getting hard to draw the line of demarcation between King County's sloppy recordkeeping and the sloppy reporting about the sloppy recordkeeping.
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