Officials say voting was done legally

A check of state records from Spokane County’s March elections has prompted a West Side think tank to wonder if more than a dozen residents broke the law by voting twice. But local election officials said they’re sure that in all but one of those cases, only one ballot was cast.

One person who voted in both Spokane and Stevens counties was referred to prosecutors for a possible violation of election law, Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton said Tuesday. That investigation continues.

But for the other people on a list compiled by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Voter Integrity Project, only one ballot was cast.

The foundation found 17 pairs of Spokane voters with duplicate or similar names and birthdates, many at the same address, in the statewide voter database, and was suspicious when the records showed a ballot cast by each name in the pairings.

“It appears two ballots were cast under these names,” said Jonathan Bechtle of the Olympia-based foundation.

Appearances can be deceiving, Dalton said. What the records actually show is that the duplications were caught in 14 instances, and the registrations updated so that one record was canceled. Both the active and canceled registration were credited with casting a ballot.

“Nobody sent back two ballots,” she said. Most voters on the list are women who have changed their names at some point during their voting history, but the old registration wasn’t removed.

In one set of questioned registrations, the name and birthday are the same, but the addresses are different; it’s not a duplication, but two women with a common name, Dalton said.

The final set of questioned registrations will take more investigation, she said.

The address and birthday are the same, but the names are slightly different, and so are the signatures on the registration forms.