When expectant voters checked and re-checked their mailboxes last week, some were disappointed that no ballot was there.

The ballots were all mailed from Coupeville last Tuesday, but some voters had not received them as late as this Monday. While their neighbors were voting, they were waiting.

The mix-up, however, should not prevent Oak Harbor residents from getting their votes in on time.

Island County’s election officials report receiving a dozen calls a day about the delinquent ballots and it’s unclear when the problem began.

Island County Auditor Sheilah Crider, Coupeville Postmaster Randy Bennett and the Seattle District Media Contact for the United States Postal Service Ernie Swanson each presented a different version of the ballots’ path from the elections office to personal mailboxes, complicating an already confusing situation.

The county’s sorting software was not to blame, Auditor Sheilah Crider said. Instead, she cited the Everett postal processing plant as a possible source of the tardy ballots. All Whidbey mail goes to Everett.

Crider said other counties are experiencing similar problems, but Swanson said Oak Harbor was an isolated case.

“The ballots were tendered by the county in Coupeville on Tuesday and turned over to an independent contractor. For some reason, they dropped the Oak Harbor ballots at the Oak Harbor Post Office instead of taking them to Everett with the rest of the Island County ballots, like they were told to do,” he said.

Bennett confirmed that the ballots arrived at the Coupeville Post Office on Tuesday, Oct. 14 and left the same day with a contracted driver from a company called White Buffalo.

The ballots were all properly marked, he said. But Bennett could not confirm if the ballots were, in fact, accidentally taken to Oak Harbor on Oct 14 instead of Everett.

“We ordered additional equipment to handle the large amount of mail,” he said referring to bins used to transport the ballots. “They were marked with 3-by-8 lime-green tags stating ‘United States Postal Service Ballot Mail, Official Election Mail.’”

The 10 specially marked bins left Coupeville in the No. 215 truck, and presumably went to Everett, Bennett said.

The 215 truck only makes two stops along the way, he said, one in Oak Harbor and one in Anacortes. Bennett said it’s highly unlikely that the ballots were accidentally dropped off in Oak Harbor, but that it remains a possibility.

“The Oak Harbor postmaster said he didn’t see them until Wednesday,” he said.

If this is the case, the ballots should have made their way to Everett on Tuesday, gone through the sorting process and been sent to Oak Harbor.

But something was not quite right with the ballot’s sequencing, Bennet said, and the Oak Harbor Post Office sent some of them back to Everett on Wednesday, Oct 15. Either way, they should have been back in Oak Harbor by Thursday, Bennett said.

Everett is responsible for sequencing the ballots so that they can be easily delivered by the postal carrier to the correct address.

Crider maintains that the elections office and Coupeville Post Office were not the source of the problem.

“Obviously something went wrong. That is where the error occurred,” she said of the Everett plant.

Ballots were sent from the Auditors Office on Oct. 14, three days ahead of the deadline for the Nov. 4 election. So when the office started receiving complaints, they knew something had gone awry.

According to Crider, Northwest Washington Unites States Postal Service Manager Todd Fox said she did everything she was supposed to do, but that the ballots were not held in the same order as they were sent.

Fox denied the comment, and said that he only told Crider he would pass on her concerns to the appropriate people.

Consequently, the ballots were returned to Everett were they were automatically sorted, re-sequenced and re-sent, Crider said.

Bennett said that all ballots will arrive in time for the election, and the issue will not affect voters’ ability to participate in the election.

All late-mailing ballots, as a result of the Everett sequencing issue, were delivered by Tuesday Oct. 20, Crider said. If you still have not received your ballot, call the Island County Auditor’s Office at 679-7366.