Some 7,000 voters kept off the rolls by computer problem

OLYMPIA – Nearly 7,000 Washington residents who think they are registered to vote aren’t.

Aging software created a problem at the Department of Licensing when residents were getting or renewing a driver’s license after a name change and thought they also were updating their voter registration. That meant that the Secretary of State’s office never got the information.

The problem goes back at least as far as 2011, and possibly longer, but wasn’t noticed until December when a voter in Skamania County who had previously updated her voter registration discovered she wasn’t registered and contacted local elections officials. What state officials initially thought was an isolated incident turned out to be a statewide problem.

More than 25,000 registrations from the Department of Licensing weren’t properly passed to the the Secretary of State’s office since 2011, which is as far back as the department’s records go. But the majority of those people later signed up to vote and got on the rolls in other ways.

The problem was traced to software that used older COBOL programming language.

State officials announced that the problem with transferring voter registrations from the department to state elections has been fixed, but they estimate 6,969 Washington residents who should be registered weren’t on voter lists in their county.

Of that total, the vast majority – 5,791 – are women.

The unrecorded registrations appear to be spread evenly throughout the state. Information from the Secretary of State’s office Tuesday shows the total includes 623 residents of Spokane County, along with nine in Ferry, 14 in Lincoln, 14 in Pend Oreille, 67 in Stevens and 48 in Whitman counties.

Many are in districts around the state that are voting on school levies next week and have not received their ballots in the mail. State officials said they are working with county officials to get all those voters registered and mail ballots to those in districts with special elections where ballots are due by Tuesday.

Legislators are considering bills that would automatically register eligible people to vote when they sign up for an enhanced driver’s license, which requires proof of citizenship or legal residence. Asked if lawmakers should delay that legislation, State Elections Director Lori Augino said no.

“We’ve already fixed the issue,” Augino said.