Provisional ballot count still unclear

OLYMPIA – The exact number of provisional ballots that were improperly counted at King County polling places on Election Day may never be known, King County Elections Director Dean Logan said in a deposition.

Logan answered questions under oath last week as part of Republican Dino Rossi’s legal challenge to the 129-vote election victory of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. Rossi’s campaign released the deposition transcript this week.

About 785 provisional ballots, which are given to people who aren’t listed as registered at the polling place they go to, were fed straight into the vote-counting machines without being verified first. The 785 number comes from documents submitted by King County in the election challenge case; during the deposition, Logan said he believed fewer than 660 provisional ballots were improperly counted.

“Why can’t you identify a specific number?” GOP attorney Robert Maguire asked.

Logan replied that the county was getting its information from poll workers who filled out documents in “an inconsistent manner and sometimes indecipherable manner.”

Only five other counties have vote-tabulating machines at the polling places, so accidentally counting provisionals that way isn’t a danger for most counties.

Pierce County has identified 164 unverified provisional ballots that were fed straight into tabulating machines. Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy was unavailable Tuesday to explain how exact that number is.

Democrats said King County’s number is shakier simply because county officials have investigated further and raised more questions there than anywhere else in the state.