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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (91044)	12/17/2004 3:28:23 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793801

And another from King Co Land of OZ...At least 127 ballots missing? Friday, December 17, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. By Keith Ervin seattletimes.nwsource.com Seattle Times staff reporter A new mystery has emerged in King County's vote recount. Earlier this week, county officials announced 573 ballots had been improperly disqualified because election workers didn't find voter signatures that they should have found in their files. But Elections Director Dean Logan last night said the county's computer system indicates more than 700 absentee ballots had been rejected because of the missing-signature problem. The difference is not accounted for, he acknowledged. Here's where it gets more interesting. The list of 573 disqualified voters contains no one with a last name starting with A or B and only two names starting with C. Election observers from both parties have been wondering what happened to the A's and B's. Logan said he had ordered a review of what happened, including a search for the ballot envelopes that haven't been accounted for — at least 127. Logan said he expects the review to show those votes were counted, but for some reason that information wasn't put into the computer system. But former King County Elections Superintendent Julie Anne Kempf has another theory. She said the number and alphabetical sequence of votes suggest a postal tray of ballots was misplaced, possibly on a shelf in a locked cage at the Mail Ballot Operations Satellite in South Seattle. Kempf said the discrepancy between 573 and 700 is about the same number of envelopes that would fit in one of the trays that King County uses to organize absentee ballots. "It could be something as simple as this tray is on a top shelf and has gotten pushed back and nobody's seeing it immediately when they look," Kempf said. Kempf was fired two years ago after the county mailed thousands of absentee ballots late, and she was accused of lying about the mailings, an allegation she denied. Logan, who was part of a management team hired after the departure of Kempf and her boss, said he thinks the ballots will be found properly filed. "I don't believe that we've lost track of anything," he said. The 573 ballots are already at the center of controversy in the governor's race recount. King County officials Wednesday moved to begin verifying and counting those votes, but Republicans said yesterday they would go to court to stop the King County recount. Logan said last night he would order workers not to separate the 573 ballots from their envelopes — a step in the counting process — pending a hearing on the suit. As for what happened to the A's and B's, Logan said county workers had not had a chance this week to investigate. He said his office had focused only on the 573 accounted-for ballots because "we knew as fact" those voters were improperly disenfranchised. Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com