RENTON, Wash. — More than 36,000 Washington voters are at risk of not having their ballots counted as the presidential primary election nears. The problems are related to a requirement that voters select either Democrat or Republican on their ballot envelope.
“There's no way around it. You have to check a party,” said Kendall Le Van Hodson, chief of staff for King County Elections.
A KING 5 analysis found 36,626 ballots statewide with some issue involving party selection on the envelope, according to a publicly available ballot status report Friday evening.
In some cases, voters didn’t choose a party. In other instances, they selected Republican and Democrat. Election rules state that voters must fill in a box next to one of the two parties.
“Those rules come from the state legislature and from the state parties themselves,” Hodson said.
King County Elections said on Friday it is reviewing more than 11,000 ballots with issues involving party selection on envelopes. Voters can fix their mistakes before election day on March 10.
“We'll send them an email, we'll send them a letter, we'll make a phone call to say, ‘Hey, we really want to count your ballot, but we need you to go ahead and mark that party box,’” Hodson said.