The close District 2 Island County commissioner race generated a mandatory hand recount which began on Dec. 1 and ended on Dec. 4. 42,597 ballots were recounted. This task required the painstaking efforts of 9 full-time workers and 9 part-time workers from the Island County Auditor’s Office under the watchful eyes of Loann Gulick, elections administrator, Michelle Reagan, assistant elections administrator, and Anne LaCour, chief deputy auditor.

Voter intent was uncertain in only 8 ballots (0.01878 percent) and these ballots were selected for review by the Canvassing Board, scheduled to meet Dec. 8.

Official observers from the Democratic Party of Island County attended this recount process and were impressed with the overall care, skill and professionalism exhibited by the entire Elections Office staff. The observers had received either a comprehensive training session for the general election on Oct. 28 or a focused manual recount orientation on Nov. 24. These training sessions were led by Sheilah Crider, Island County Auditor, who did an outstanding job of presenting the information that the observers needed to perform their functions.

Given what we witnessed at the training sessions and during the recount itself, we can only conclude that our election process is a model of transparency, security and reliability, one that should be emulated by other jurisdictions in the state. To all of the conscientious workers in the Elections Office, we simply say thank you for a job well done.

Marshall Goldberg

Chair, Island County Democrats