The controversy surrounding the November 2004 election continues as new of 93 additional untabulated ballots that were discovered in the King County Elections Office last week. The 93 absentee ballots from the 2004 election mistakenly had not been removed from their outer envelopes before they were archived, it was announced Saturday by Dean Logan, director of the Records, Elections and Licensing Services Division.

According to Logan, This latest error was discovered more than a week ago, but not revealed to the public for at least eight days.”Dean Logan is right that these types of mistakes are unacceptable and indicate poor judgment,” Councilmember David Irons said. “As director of the division, he must accept the responsibility for exercising poor judgment. If this was the first mistake, it would be acceptable to allow him to correct the mistake and make improvements. But this is not the first, or second or third mistake. Mr. Logan already has had several opportunities to correct errors and improve processes.””The attempts to cover up and diffuse the significance of this error, nearly five months after the election, indicate a disturbing level of deception in the division,” said Councilmember Irons. “This further erodes the public’s trust in the integrity of King County’s elections process, which already has been compromised severely. Because of incompetence or mismanagement, these 93 voters were disenfranchised, and their votes likely never will be counted.”The controversy has the council looking for solutions to help restore the public’s confidence in the election process including a formal request for a federal investigation into the 2004 general election, charter amendment that would allow elections to by run by a non-partisan auditor, and an Independent Audit of Elections Division.Councilman Reagan Dunn has gone on record asking for Logan to resign in the wake of the controversy. In a letter to Logan, Dunn said, “I am asking that you resign your post and give over the operation of your department to someone who will be better able to manage it, who will be more forthright in admitting mistakes, and who will have the trust and confidence of the people.”While there are different philosophies to the necessary steps to be taken, the overriding sentiment of the council is that an independent body needs to intervene.”Taking a look at the elections process in King County with a fresh set of eyes can only help us find a solution to the challenges we have been facing in the Elections Division over the last few years,” said Councilmember Larry Gossett. “So many accusations have been made since November, I think this will be the only way to get recommendations that everyone will be able to live with.” On Monday, The Council took action by approving a motion requesting the executive to act on a package of legislative measures aimed at improving King County’s elections procedures and restoring public trust and confidence. The comprehensive reforms call for needed safeguards for tabulating votes, the consolidation of election facilities and operations, and increased funding for election worker training. The motion adopted by the Council requests the executive to expedite implementation of legislation introduced earlier this year by Councilmembers Julia Patterson, Kathy Lambert and Bob Ferguson.”While the administrative errors that occurred in the hotly contested governor’s race were identified, these errors are unacceptable,” said Councilmember Patterson, a sponsor of bipartisan reforms. “We need additional common sense safeguards to help prevent human error and improve the precision of our election process.” “Since King County elections errors have been higher than many of us anticipated, we need to be the leading county in implementing change to restore integrity and accuracy in the voting process in order to regain public confidence,” said Councilmember Lambert.”No one specific piece of legislation can fix the problems with our election system, but this is a step in the right direction,” Ferguson said. “We asked a citizens group to analyze and recommend changes to our election system. This reform proposal adopts many of their key recommendations and respects the great work of citizen volunteers who urged the Council to take action.” The reform proposal includes: * Evaluating the training needs of both permanent and temporary elections staff, developing an appropriate training curriculum. * Preparing a space plan for consolidation of elections operations into a single facility, estimating the costs of consolidation and proposing a schedule for consolidation. * Evaluating all of the resource needs for elections and presenting them in a report to the Council by August 1, 2005. * Proposing several options to differentiate provisional ballots from regular ballots, including ways to prevent them from being inserted into optical scanning machines. * Identifying a Countywide election that could serve as a test for evaluating the costs, benefits advantages and disadvantages of conducting all mail elections.* Improved procedures for Election Day reconciliation, at the precinct level, of ballots issued, voters voting, and ballots cast, and presenting them in a report to the Council by July 1, 2005. Councilmembers Send Letter to U.S. Attorney General Requesting Federal Investigation of Election Scandal Metropolitan King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn, a formal federal prosecutor, authored a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today requesting a federal investigation of the 2004 general election.The other five members of the Republican caucus, Councilmembers Lambert, Irons, von Reichbauer, Hague, and Hammond, signed the letter requesting the Justice Department use their “objective resources…to help legitimize the administration of future elections while restoring the public faith that every legal vote counts.” The letter, which states that the errors of this election “continue to threaten the legitimacy of past and future elections,” comes amid many new developments regarding the problems with the general election. The letter said that, “as representatives in King County government, we are working collaboratively to repair many of these failed mechanisms. However, we believe that legitimacy is unreachable without the active scrutiny of a neutral party to independently investigate these complex allegations.”A copy of the letter to the U.S Attorney General is attached. Irons Calls for Charter Amendment and Answers from Executive and Elections DirectorMetropolitan King County Councilmember David Irons was dismayed to learn Friday about additional untabulated ballots that were discovered in the King County Elections Office last week. The 93 absentee ballots from the 2004 election mistakenly had not been removed from their outer envelopes before they were archived, it was announced Saturday by Dean Logan, director of the Records, Elections and Licensing Services Division.”Dean Logan is right that these types of mistakes are unacceptable and indicate poor judgment,” Councilmember David Irons said. “As director of the division, he must accept the responsibility for exercising poor judgment. If this was the first mistake, it would be acceptable to allow him to correct the mistake and make improvements. But this is not the first, or second or third mistake. Mr. Logan already has had several opportunities to correct errors and improve processes.”Irons requested County Executive Ron Sims, who appointed Logan to the post a year and a half ago, to appear before the Council and explain his confidence in Logan’s ability to reform the Elections office and rebuilt the public’s trust in the integrity of the elections process, following the string of failures in management of the 2004 election.This latest error was discovered more than a week ago, but not revealed to the public for at least eight days, according to Logan. Irons expressed displeasure that the discovery of this ballot tabulation error was kept secret by the Executive’s Office last week, even as Logan was conducting several public meetings around the county to collect comments about how to improve the elections process.”The attempts to cover up and diffuse the significance of this error, nearly five months after the election, indicate a disturbing level of deception in the division,” said Councilmember Irons. “This further erodes the public’s trust in the integrity of King County’s elections process, which already has been compromised severely. Because of incompetence or mismanagement, these 93 voters were disenfranchised, and their votes likely never will be counted.”The latest revelations of failure illustrate clearly why the control of elections needs to be removed from partisan politics, Irons said. He renewed his call for King County elections to be run by a separately elected, non-partisan auditor, as proposed in his charter amendment. Irons requested that Council Chair Larry Phillips immediately bring forth the charter amendment ordinance, which has been shelved since Irons introduced it on Jan. 24, 2005. The charter amendment requires a vote of the majority of the 13-member Council to be placed on the November ballot for the voters to decide how best to run King County elections.”King County should call immediately for help from the Secretary of State to run our elections office until an auditor can be elected,” Irons said. All 38 other Washington counties run elections under the authority of a separately elected auditor who is responsible to the voters, instead of to a partisan county executive. The impartial administration of the 2005 election is especially important, Irons said, because all County Councilmembers and the Executive are up for election this year.”The on-going and escalating errors indicate an inability by management to correct the problems that have plagued the Elections Office,” Irons added. “Because of the record closeness of the 2004 governor’s race and the erosion of the public’s trust, there was no room for error. Continuing on our present course is unacceptable.”In the interest of repairing the damage and restoring the public’s confidence, Irons requested that Council Chair Larry Phillips invite Dean Logan to appear before the Council for the third time at the April 11 meeting to explain the latest error and answer questions from the Council. Irons said he expects specific answers about how the elections procedures will be changed to prevent errors, and that sufficient time will be allotted for all Councilmembers’ questions to be answered.Councilmembers Call for Independent Audit of Elections Division In the wake of continuing concerns over the operations of the King County Elections Division, Metropolitan King County Councilmembers Julia Patterson and Bob Ferguson today announced their intention to introduce a motion calling for an independent audit of the Elections Division, a proposal that drew the immediate support of four other members. “This Council has a long record of working with the Elections Division on needed reforms,” said Councilmember Julia Patterson. “But the concerns about restoring voter confidence have been obscured by the politics and rhetoric surrounding the election. It’s time to have an independent organization, without ties to any group involved in the election, to assess what additional improvements should be made to improve the precision of our elections system.””Enough is enough,” said Councilmember Bob Ferguson. “It’s time for an independent review of our Elections office, from the bottom up.” “An independent audit will help us shape an overall strategy for reforming the election process,” said Council Chair Larry Phillips. “We need to regain public trust by targeting specific reforms to ensure the Elections Division practices full due diligence in future elections.” The motion under consideration for introduction at a later date would direct the Executive to hire the services of a major accounting firm, management consulting firm, or an agency that has supervised similar audits to look into the operation of the Elections Division and the processes used to carry out elections in King County. The proposed audit would be independent of any other agency looking into the Elections Division, so that it would not interfere with reconstitution of a King County Election Oversight Committee.”Taking a look at the elections process in King County with a fresh set of eyes can only help us find a solution to the challenges we have been facing in the Elections Division over the last few years,” said Councilmember Larry Gossett. “So many accusations have been made since November, I think this will be the only way to get recommendations that everyone will be able to live with.” “We have made tremendous strides in the Elections Division in the past few years, but we must acknowledge that more can be done,” said Councilmember Dow Constantine. “An independent audit will confirm the improvements while showing where work still needs to be done to make the elections process as error-proof as humanly possible.” “Asking for outside help is the right thing to do. We’re working to improve the bedrock of our democracy,” said Councilmember Carolyn Edmonds. “This is a necessary step to ensure that the emotion is taken out of this effort, returning election reform back to where it belongs, a clear effort to make sure that every legal vote is counted.” Council Acts on Election ReformMembers Approve Motion Directing Implementation of Measures to Restore Voter Confidence On Monday, The County Council, by a vote of 10-3, approved a motion requesting the executive to act on a package of legislative measures aimed at improving King County’s elections procedures and restoring public trust and confidence. The comprehensive reforms call for needed safeguards for tabulating votes, the consolidation of election facilities and operations, and increased funding for election worker training. The motion adopted by the Council requests the executive to expedite implementation of legislation introduced earlier this year by Councilmembers Julia Patterson, Kathy Lambert and Bob Ferguson.”While the administrative errors that occurred in the hotly contested governor’s race were identified, these errors are unacceptable,” said Councilmember Patterson, a sponsor of bipartisan reforms. “We need additional common sense safeguards to help prevent human error and improve the precision of our election process.” “Since King County elections errors have been higher than many of us anticipated, we need to be the leading county in implementing change to restore integrity and accuracy in the voting process in order to regain public confidence,” said Councilmember Lambert.”No one specific piece of legislation can fix the problems with our election system, but this is a step in the right direction,” Ferguson said. “We asked a citizens group to analyze and recommend changes to our election system. This reform proposal adopts many of their key recommendations and respects the great work of citizen volunteers who urged the Council to take action.” The reform proposal includes: * Evaluating the training needs of both permanent and temporary elections staff, developing an appropriate training curriculum. * Preparing a space plan for consolidation of elections operations into a single facility, estimating the costs of consolidation and proposing a schedule for consolidation. * Evaluating all of the resource needs for elections and presenting them in a report to the Council by August 1, 2005. * Proposing several options to differentiate provisional ballots from regular ballots, including ways to prevent them from being inserted into optical scanning machines. * Identifying a Countywide election that could serve as a test for evaluating the costs, benefits advantages and disadvantages of conducting all mail elections.* Improved procedures for Election Day reconciliation, at the precinct level, of ballots issued, voters voting, and ballots cast, and presenting them in a report to the Council by July 1, 2005. Dunn Calls on Logan to “Do the Right Thing” and Resign Councilman Reagan Dunn sent a sharp message to King County Elections Director Dean Logan this weekend. In a letter to Logan, Dunn said, “I am asking that you resign your post and give over the operation of your department to someone who will be better able to manage it, who will be more forthright in admitting mistakes, and who will have the trust and confidence of the people.”Dunn’s letter came the same day that the Seattle Times reported 87 additional ballots were found by King County elections staff during March. The article pointed out that Logan knew about the ballots for at least a week before he admitted they existed. Dunn called it “inexcusable” for the Council and public to hear this development through the newspaper. Councilman Reagan Dunn has gone on record asking for Logan to resign in the wake of the controversy. In a letter to Logan, Dunn said, “I am asking that you resign your post and give over the operation of your department to someone who will be better able to manage it, who will be more forthright in admitting mistakes, and who will have the trust and confidence of the people.””What the voters need is evidence of meaningful reform. Instead, the voters see additional mistakes and evidence of what appears to be a cover-up,” the letter reads.###