Officials rejected approximately 300 Whitman County ballots for mismatched signatures, late postmarks or other disqualifying issues during the canvassing board review process earlier this week. Another 161 ballots received approval to continue to the final vote tabulation.
As election staff process ballots, they match voter registration addresses and signatures against the information on file. When ballots have issues such as missing signatures or duplications, those ballots get set aside for review by the county’s canvassing board. That board met in a public meeting Monday.
The board — County Commissioner Dean Kinzer, Prosecutor Denis Tracy and County Auditor Eunice Coker — inspected hundreds of ballots prior to certifying the final election results on Tuesday.
The final count of 17,565 ballots put voter turnout at 69.9 percent. Election staff previously sent out letters and made calls to voters to try to fix problems with their ballots. At the time, Coker noted she was “surprised” the returning ballots did not include more issues amid high student turnout.
The Auditor’s Office provided the below summary of problem ballots, which totals the approvals and rejections authorized by the board. Read this Lewiston Tribune piece for more on the recent canvassing board meeting, including the wide variety of ballot errors submitted.
Election staff noted 707 ballots came back overall as undeliverable by the Post Office, including 81 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act ballots for military voters and three deceased individuals.
The board otherwise rejected 61 ballots with postmarks after the Nov. 6 election deadline.
Of ballots with “questionable” signature matches, the board accepted the authenticity of 122 ballots and rejected another 173 ballots. The board accepted 14 other absentee ballots missing signatures while rejecting 25 such ballots.
The board also accepted 25 ballots with miscellaneous issues while rejecting 30 such ballots. Three other ballots returned by email or fax were rejected because no hardcopy ballot was provided.
Election staff clarified the 152 UOCAVA military ballots listed below as received had already gone through tabulation prior to Monday. Five other ballots were rejected.
Total uncounted ballots for Whitman County (General Election 2018) by Whitman County Watch on Scribd