August 22, 2005

Logan unveils improvements to King County Elections

More training for poll workers, increased effort to remove felons and deceased voters from voter rolls and quality control procedures are among the improvements made in King County Elections in preparation for the 2005 elections, Elections Director Dean Logan said in a presentation today before the King County Council.

"We have made tremendous improvements in a short period of time," said Logan ."These improvements directly address the problems in the 2004 elections. I expect we will see a much more efficient and accountable elections process in 2005."

Logan presented the extensive improvements which include:

Added security including the state mandated ID check at the polls, and tightening access requirements.
Provisional ballots that look different from poll ballots and can’t go through the vote counting machines.
More than 850 felons and 6,500 deceased voters have been removed from the official rolls since last year’s election.
Procedures have been standardized with other Puget Sound counties.
Trainings have been revamped and increased and made mandatory for all poll workers and staff.
In addition to training, poll workers will have new, improved and extensive procedure manuals mailed to them in early September.
Quality control procedures are in place to assist staff and poll workers in tracking every poll ballot.
King County was among the first in the state to mail military and oversea ballots and has made it easier for these voters to request a fax or email ballot.
Holes have been punched in every absentee ballot envelope so staff can see, remove and count each ballot.
Staff is double checking each other’s work to better account for absentee ballots.

Last week, Logan announced a new quality assurance manager had been hired. John 'Scott’ Baynard previously held a similar position with Clarke American, a company that made checks and bank-related products for 4,000 banks, credit unions and financial institutions nationwide. As Quality Assurance Manager at Clarke American in Kent , WA , Baynard was responsible for the quality of the company’s printed products and customer satisfaction. His accomplishments include a plant-wide program that reduced plant print quality rejects by 91 percent, set a new company record for fewest number of errors per million checks printed, led a customer-error reduction effort that reduced customer errors by 52 percent in four years and won the company’s Best Overall Quality Award.

Dean Logan’s presentation to the King County Council. (PDF file, 598KB)

Updated: August 22, 2005

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