Think back on how you voted on your paper ballot in November. If you filled in some boxes and checked others, some of your votes might not have been counted.

Emergency state rules that were put in place just as the county was sending out absentee ballots resulted in a significant number of votes not being counted because of voter intent issues.

Determining the number of individual votes that were not tallied would require going back over each ballot one by one, said Michele Reagan, Island County Auditor’s Office voter registration deputy.

“We’d have to go through them ballot by ballot,” Reagan said. “It would not be an insignificant task.”

More than 1,000 ballots were sent to the Island County Canvassing Board, which ultimately makes the decision to accept the ballots or reject them. With the new state rules, it was conceivable that an entire ballot was accepted, but no votes were counted.

“It could have been that none of the votes on the ballot were counted,” said Anne LaCour, the Auditor’s Office chief deputy who sat on the canvassing board. “The ballot wasn’t rejected, it was still processed.”

Mac McDowell, Island County commissioner, and David Jamieson, chief deputy in the county prosecutor’s office, rounded out the canvassing board.

McDowell said in the past, before the emergency rules were put in place by the Secretary of State’s office, the canvassing board was able to judge based on what they believed was the voter’s intent. This year, the board members had their hands tied.

Rules require consistent marks

“The rules said everything had to be consistent,” McDowell said. “That’s easy to follow.”

He added that he hoped other counties were following the new laws as fervently as the canvassing board in Island County. In tight races like the Barbara Bailey and Tim Knue showdown, the outcome could have been swayed by other canvassing boards deviating from the rules.

“Here is my one hope, because a couple of races were close. With the Bailey and Knue race you had three counties involved,” McDowell said. “You’re thinking, ‘Gosh, I hope the other counties are doing this the same way.’ Since they were so close, if everybody’s following the same rules, it should even out. But if you have one county that tends to be more conservative or liberal than the other one not following the rules, that could have swung it one way or another.”

McDowell was disheartened by rejecting votes in which he was certain the intent was clear.

“In my best heart, I knew this is what the voter meant to do, but with the new emergency rules, the first time for this election, if it wasn’t 100 percent consistent, we couldn’t count the votes,” he said. “It was frustrating to the extent that you knew you weren’t counting votes that you absolutely knew was the voter’s intent. That was the frustrating part.”

If a voter were to completely fill in every box but one, placing a check mark or “x” in a lone box, the one vote would not be counted. In some cases with the double sided ballots, voters might have used check marks on one side and upon turning over the ballot and reading the instructions, filled in the box correctly on the second side. If they did not go back and fill in the checked boxes, those votes were nullified.

Parts of some ballots uncounted

“Parts of those ballots were not counted because no one knew what the voter’s intent was,” LaCour said.

Some voters initially placed an “x” or a check mark in the box and then attempted in vain to fill in the square. Those votes could not be counted.

“It’s impossible to hide it, so we said, ‘If there’s these four corners sticking out, that’s an ‘X’.’ And most people didn’t stay completely within the box,” McDowell said. “We had to throw out all of these votes where we knew the voter intent. It has to be 100 percent or it’s considered an illegal vote.”

McDowell advocated three changes for the next election. He suggested using a small oval in place of the large box, as most Americans are conditioned by standardized exams and other documents to fill in an oval and place an “x” or check mark in a box. Any pictorial instructions used in conjunction with the written prompts should only show how to correctly fill out the ballot. One picture on the ballot visually demonstrated how to change a vote by placing an “x” through the box, which upon a cursory examination could have been taken by the voter as the proper method to fill out the ballot. Thirdly, McDowell said the ballot should clearly state that if the document becomes too “marked up,” writing next to the individual candidate a notation clearly identifying in words the intent would suffice.

“I think the process will get a whole lot easier if these three things are implemented,” the commissioner said.

More than 30,000 ballots were counted. Although only a small percentage went to the canvassing board, the emergency administrative codes still made for some meetings of unprecedented length.

“There were some marathon sessions,” Reagan said. “We had one session that went from 1:30 in the afternoon to about 10 o’clock that night. And they reconvened the following morning at about 9:30 and went until 10 o’clock that night. Then they came in on a Saturday and met from 9 until 4 p.m. Then they met the following Monday from 8 to 4:30.”

The canvassing board has a short respite on Thanksgiving but then came back for two more meetings. LaCour attributed the extended sessions to the new rules.

“I think it’s confusing for the voters,” she said, adding that discerning voter intent was difficult under the stringent guidelines.

Comparing the recent general election to past elections is like comparing apples to oranges.

“It was a totally different animal last time,” Reagan said of the punch cards used. “This was the first federal general election that we’ve had since going to paper ballots. Punch cards had their own issues that you had to deal with. This is just growing pains getting used to the new system.”

“And you can’t compare it to the primary. That was a different issue because you had to mark your party,” LaCour added.

Other reasons ballots rejected

Fifty-six ballots were rejected because of unresolved signature issues, Reagan said.

“That means either the voter didn’t sign it or that the signature didn’t match the one that we had on file. Those voters were sent letters and contacted, but they did not respond.”

Ballots with unresolved signatures by law are required to be passed to the prosecutor’s office.

“They look to see if it’s just somebody who didn’t get around to doing it or if it’s actually a case of voter fraud,” Reagan said. Earlier this year, an Oak Harbor woman was charged with voter fraud for filling out her daughter’s ballot in a school election.

Thirty-five provisional ballots that were cast in the November election did not have valid registrations in Island County, the voter registration deputy said.

“Of those, about half were currently registered in other counties,” Reagan said. “It was up to that county where the person was registered whether or not to keep it or reject it.”

Ninety ballots were rejected because of late postmarks. Reagan and LaCour speculated that some people may have believed that dropping the ballot in the mail on the last day would suffice. Depending on the last pickup for the mailbox, that may or may not have been the case.

“Any post office is going to tell you what their last pickup is for the day,” Reagan said. “They have to post it. If you get it in by their last pickup of the day, it’s going to be postmarked for that day. If you don’t, you’re out of luck.”

Some people used their personal mail meters, but the federal postmark was late. The latter determines the ballot’s validity.

“The reality is, if I have a postage machine, I can put any date I want on there,” Reagan said. “It just means that we have to go by the one that’s put on there by the postal service.”

One ballot was rejected because even though it was in the correct envelope for the general election, the ballot inside was for the primary. Another ballot received was a Xeroxed copy, which was rejected for obvious reasons.

“By the time you find that out, you’ve separated the secrecy envelope from the outer envelope, so you have no way of knowing if that person already voted using a different ballot or if it’s maybe a spouse’s,” Reagan said.

Three ballots were rejected because the voters signed the ballot itself, not the envelope.

“Revised Codes of Washington are very clear about it,” Reagan said. “If a voter signs a ballot or puts an identifying mark on the ballot, I can’t count it.”

Next election, the Auditor’s Office should have more time to educate the public on how to properly fill in the their ballots. With the emergency rules being implemented at the last minute, personnel worked feverishly to get the word out, but the tight timeline precluded them from reaching all voters in time.

“Next time we want to get the word out well before the absentee ballots are sent,” LaCour said.