Yeah, I know. You all thought the election was, thankfully,
over, done, and behind us. And mostly it is. We had a very few wins and a whole
lot of painful losses.
One race, however, remains to be decided in a recount. That
is the race for Island County Commissioner, district 3, with Karla Jacks 143
votes behind Rick Hannold. That’s out of a total of 29,583 votes cast. Do the
math and the difference comes to 0.48% of the vote. By state law, if the
difference is less than 0.5%, there must be a recount. What we don’t know is
how many votes were set aside as “undervotes.” That is what this recount is all
about.
Thanks to Jane Seymour for doing the homework on this one.
Here’s what she discovered:
The recount will be overseen by three sitting public
officials:
County Prosecutor Greg Banks
County Commissioner Helen Price-Johnson
County Auditor Sheilah Crider.
This is a public process and I strongly encourage members of
the public to attend and keep a sharp eye out.
There will not be a recount of every single ballot. The
existing counts, done separately for each precinct, will be “validated”, and
I’m not at all sure what that means. There will be a close and thorough examination
of the log of “undervotes” which was created during the counting process. By law every person whose ballot is questioned (an 'undervote')
must be contacted by the Auditor’s office, so they may correct whatever error
is claimed. Those errors can include:
~ no vote
for the office
~ the mark
is not in the box but near it
~ its not
clear that the mark is intentional
and I’m
sure there are others.
There are also those voters who failed to sign the outside
of the envelope, or who signed with a name different from what’s in the
Auditor’s files, or whose signature doesn’t look the same as the original in
the Auditor’s files.
If you or anyone you know received a phone call or a
postcard from the Auditor’s office, please PLEASE contact them ASAP to correct
whatever error, and make your ballot count.
The recount is scheduled for December 1. It will very likely
take all day, or even longer. Please consider spending a thrilling hour or two
or three participating in this civic exercise.
If you really want to dig into this, the relevant laws are:
RCW 29A.64 dealing with recounts
WAC 434.264 dealing with rules for recounts
You can check out the Secretary of State’s website for more
information:
or you can phone the Secretary of State’s office, Elections
Division, at 360-902-4180
