Sept. 27, 2005
Voters can help speed mail ballot processing
by following ballot marking instructions
With more than 70 percent of King County voters casting ballots by mail, when the polls close on Election Day, the Mail Ballot Operations Satellite (MBOS) becomes the hub of election activity. It’s here that transparency, new procedures, training and technology meet to provide results in more than 61 races on the Primary ballot.
As the Sept. 30 deadline for certifying the election approaches, King County is hard at work processing the approximately 241,000 mail ballots expected in this election. King County estimates 76 percent of ballots cast this election will be by mail.
"With such a large percentage of people in King County voting by mail, our improvements to mail ballot processing have been central to our efforts to restore voter confidence," said Dean Logan, Director of Records, Elections and Licensing Services. "We increased security and made changes to improve accuracy and efficiency at MBOS."
Improvements made at MBOS include:
- Work flow was expanded and redesigned.
- There is daily reconciliation of ballots verified and challenged for any reason such as a mismatched signature or missing signature.
- An on-site quality assurance coordinator assesses procedures to improve ballot counting and handling processes.
- Voters whose signature on their ballot doesn’t match what’s on file with King County receive a personal phone call and a letter with instructions on how to update their signature so their ballot can be counted.
- Holes were punched in returned absentee ballot envelopes so staff can see, remove and count each ballot. Zip ties are strung through the holes of multiple ballot envelopes as an additional measure to ensure all ballots have been removed.
- Batch slips were redesigned for clearer reading and understanding.
In addition to a security system with alarm monitoring, security at MBOS has been improved by:
- Using entry/activity logs help to track observers and visitors at both MBOS and the King County Administrative building, and
- Adding security cameras to monitor MBOS 24-hours a day.
In addition to these improvements, King County voters can play an important role in helping improve efficiency and accuracy of elections.
"If voters are conscientious in how they mark their ballots, they can help us be even more efficient and accurate," said Logan. "One of the areas where we are taking a lot of additional time to deal with ballots is in following up with voters whose signatures don’t match the signature we have on file and duplicating ballots that have been marked incorrectly so the tabulation equipment can read them."
Voter errors slow ballot counting
About 835 ballots have been returned without a signature and the signatures on 3,205 ballots do not match what King County has on file. Voters who cast these ballots are currently being contacted by King County employees by phone and in writing to give them a chance to sign their ballot or update their signature so their vote can be counted.
Duplicating ballots is another time consuming process. Ballots are tabulated by the AccuVote machine, an optical scanning device that is used both at the polling places and at MBOS. In order for the AccuVote to read the ballot, voters should use a black or blue ink pen to completely fill in the oval corresponding to their vote. If they do not, the ballot must be duplicated by a team of Elections workers, which is a time consuming process that is overseen by party observers. Approximately five percent of ballots are requiring duplication during this primary. Common errors voters make that require duplication include:
- Using pencil, red pen, or felt tip markers that bleed through to the other side of the ballot;
- Tearing or cutting the ballot with scissors;
- Incompletely filling in an oval;
- Circling or checking the oval rather than filling it in, and
- Writing in a name without filling in an oval.
More disturbingly, some voters are signing their ballot, which under a state law adopted in 1965 means that the ballot cannot be counted. Voters should sign the outside (return) envelope, but never the ballot itself.
"We are also seeing a lot of things that voters are doing right," said Logan. "I am very pleased that we are seeing daily averages of more than 90 percent of voters picking a party. And, at the polls, an overwhelming majority of voters were prepared to show identification. Those that didn’t have identification were still able to vote a provisional ballot.
"The partnership we have forged with voters is important in our efforts to restore confidence in elections," said Logan. "We appreciate the willingness with which voters have embraced changes and we are striving to do our part through the many rigorous changes we’ve made."
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