The Elections Department has identified about 11,000 Eastside voters whose ballots were not sent out among the 1.1 million general election ballots mailed on Oct. 19, due to a technical error.
The cities of Kirkland and Redmond had the largest amount of voters who were affected, including 3,624 voters in Kirkland and 3,336 in Redmond who did not receive ballots, according to Kim van Ekstrom, Elections chief of communications officer. Another 232 voters in Bellevue did not receive ballots.
Ballots are being mailed to these voters Saturday and they should receive them in the mail early next week. All voters have until Nov. 8 to vote and get ballots postmarked or returned to a ballot drop box.
Kirkland resident Lynda Haneman noticed that she had not yet received her ballot when some residents commented about voting during an event on Sunday.
“I started making calls on this a couple of days ago and I sent an email out to people surrounding my house,” said Haneman, vice chairperson of the Evergreen Hill Neighborhood Association who lives in the recently-annexed Kingsgate neighborhood.
She heard back from several people in her neighborhood who informed Haneman that they also did not receive their ballots.
“I thought, okay, I need to call the Elections Office,” said Haneman. “It’s important to vote for any election, but especially in this election for those of us in this area. I wanted to make sure nobody lost out on that opportunity.”
King County Elections discovered the error, thanks to the many voters like Haneman who contacted the office, said van Ekstrom
“This isn’t a problem that we have ever experienced before,” said van Ekstrom. “Fortunately, we were able to identify every single voter affected by this and many voters contacted us.”
Elections cited a technical problem with the voter database as the reason why the ballots were not sent out.
The department constantly reviews calls to its phone bank to determine if there are any issues arising in the course of every election.
Although call volumes for the current election have been consistent with past elections, in the last couple of days, calls from voters about not receiving ballots in the mail were more concentrated in several Eastside areas than normal.
“We investigated the matter and discovered a technical problem associated with part of our voter database that resulted in exclusion of these ballots from being mailed on the date originally scheduled,” said Sherril Huff, Elections director. “Quality assurance is an important component of our elections processes and while we regret that this event occurred, I’m pleased that the reviews we have in place helped us in identifying and problem solving the issue.”
A small percentage of voters contact King County in the course of every election about not receiving their ballot. The Elections Department encourages voters to call the voter hotline (206-296-VOTE) if this happens.
Voters are encouraged to contact the Elections Department if they have not yet received a ballot in the mail or if they have any questions about voting in the November general election.
