Tacoma Election Held Together With Cellophane Tape

General election results in Pierce County may hang not by a thread but by cellophane tape.

About 60,000 absentee ballots out of the 160,000 being mailed today in Washington’s second most-populous county are being sent in envelopes that had to be taped shut because of faulty gluing, county Auditor Cathy Pearsall-Stipek said Sunday.

The envelopes were found to be defective late last week, too late to get replacements to lick the problem for the balloting Nov. 4, she said.

Many return envelopes containing marked ballots also will have to be sealed with tape in the county, which has one of the highest rates of absentee voting in the state, the auditor said.

“The main thing is, it’s no big deal,” Pearsall-Stipek said.

“Don’t panic. We want the public to know Scotch tape is more than acceptable.”

Pearsall-Stipek blamed the not-sticky-enough situation on a new envelope supplier from Seattle that submitted the low bid.

“We never dealt with them before,” Pearsall-Stipek said.

“I get so mad. These vendors, because they deal with the government, feel that we’re not going to be picky. They should learn I’m picky.”

Pearsall-Stipek said the vendor agreed to replace about 100,000 envelopes the county purchased for future elections, and she also wants compensation for the extra day of work required to seal the defective envelopes.