WAGOP Election Integrity Committee Election Observer Report for the WA State August 6th, 2024, Primary Election
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In an effort of full transparency - the following is the WAGOP Election Integrity Election Observer Subcommittee Report for the WA State August 6th, 2024, Primary Election:
September 24, 2024, by the WAGOP EIC Election Observer Subcommittee
The Washington State Republican Party (WAGOP) Election Observer Subcommittee, under the WAGOP Election Integrity Committee, had election observers in several counties during the 2024 primary election.
OVERVIEW:
County Auditors must request that observers be present during the processing of ballots at the counting center. Observers can participate on behalf of a party/candidate. State law also requires observation by the public. Observers are permitted to view ballot processing during elections per RCW 29A.40.100. Observers monitor the conduct of an election: they watch that laws and rules are followed and that nothing inappropriate happens. This helps ensure a fair and lawful process and helps build confidence in our elections.
The Republican observers that participated in this effort kept in contact and shared concerns, compared notes, and discussed the differences in each county. Through this, observers learned that rules and procedures vary significantly from county to county. Some counties allow better observation than others, some are more accommodating.
In addition to in-person election observing, several counties allow election observing via security camera live footage displayed on big-screen monitors outside the counting rooms. Also, many counties offer people the opportunity to observe through a live camera streamed online. Most of these have no sound and do not offer the same experience as one gets from attending the ballot processing in person. We do appreciate this effort, however.
We understand that limited space can limit the number of observers present. Some counties have a very small workspace which can only fit so many people at any time. With that in mind, it still appears that some counties limit observer access and only allow the minimum.
Additionally, some counties require observers to remain too far away to have any meaningful observational oversite.
Some counties require observers to attend a training session prior to being allowed to observe ballot processing whilst others offer training but do not require it. Some require separate “recount” observer training even if regular observer training has been done. Overall, election observers’ experiences vary across the state.
After the primary election was certified, the Secretary of State (SoS) called for a statewide hand recount for the Commissioner of Public Lands race per RCW 29A.64.021. There was a difference of 51 votes (between the second and third place finishers) with over 1.9 million votes cast, therefore necessitating a mandatory hand recount. It was the only statewide race in the 2024 primary that required an automatic recount.
Each county conducted their own hand recount of the paper ballots. According to RCW 29A.64.030, this is to be done by precincts (note that this RCW was changed in 2013 after the courts decided Zapotocky vs Dalton). See, SB 5518 Bill Reports and RCW 29A.64.030 Session Law, pg. 42, sec. 67 (the wording was changed to “precincts” for recounts).
Washington Administrative Code 434-264 details the procedure the counties are required to follow for conducting the recount. Most people would expect that each county would have a similar process of conducting the recount. However, this was not the case. Some counties performed the recount by precinct and some counties counted by batch.
One thing that became clear is that there are no uniform rules for observers or even for the process of recounting the votes. WAC 434-264-090 states that ballots must be sorted into precinct, unless the county uses a system which produces batch results, in which case the ballots can be recounted by batch. But see above for RCW and read the WAC wording carefully – the previous batch report is not usually put into the canvassing certification so it cannot be used for comparison.
This is the first major difference in how counties recounted the ballots. Only counties using the Clear Ballot Voting System (including Spokane, Snohomish, Pierce, and King) counted by batch because that is the only system used in the state that produces a report at the batch level. 18 of the 39 counties currently use a Clear Ballot system.
This raised a question as to how the counties using a different system can perform a random batch audit if they don’t have the ability to view batch-level results.
Counties using Clear Ballot and counting by batch were able to start counting right away. Counties using another system spent quite a bit of time sorting the ballots into precincts before they could begin counting.
For example, in Spokane, when calculating the time spent doing the recount, if they had followed the law and sorted by precinct, they would have been done in 3 days instead of 3 ¾ days. This is because Spokane pre-sorted their ballots before processing them. In that situation, counting by batch doesn’t save any time and only obscures the verification process for observers.
The impact of this difference that has on observers is significant. Precinct results are available online for all counties. Therefore, observers in counties that counted by precinct could print the precinct results and have a record to compare the recount results against.
Observers in counties counting by batch could not print batch reports as they are not available online, and therefore had no record to compare the tallies against.
Another important aspect of the recount that varied from county to county was whether observers could verify that the results matched certified election record counts. Some counties allowed observers to view the official results report (by batch or precinct) and verify that the tally from the recount matched. Other counties did not allow observation or verification of this part of the process.
In some cases, some employees would allow observers to verify the results while other employees would not.
After all counties completed their recount, the SoS certified the recount results Sept 4, 2024. The results changed slightly but still had Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler and Democrat Dave Upthegrove making the top two general election in November.
The emphasis appeared to be on the fact that the number of votes between the two candidates in question only changed by two votes. However, it is important to note that there were many changes to the results in nearly every county in the state because of the recount.
The recount indicated a 49-vote margin separating second and third place. After consolidating the amended results certified by each of the 39 counties’ canvassing boards, Upthegrove gained 4 votes and Pederson gained 6 votes. Some county results are listed below for your review. This is not a complete list of all county changes, just a sample to show there were numerous changes.
LANDS COMMISSIONER ELECTION RE-COUNT DATA:
Benton
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 4593 4593 -
Jamie Herrera Beutler 14895 14895 -
Dave Upthegrove 3622 3623 +1
Sue Kuehl Pederson 16753 16753 -
Patrick DePoe 4257 4258 -1
Jeralee Anderson 2009 2008 +1
Kevin Van De Wege 2676 2676 -
Write in 52 51 -1
Chelan
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 1444 1443 -1
Jamie Herrera Beutler 6991 6992 +1
Dave Upthegrove 4110 4110 -
Sue Kuehl Pederson 5469 5468 -1
Patrick DePoe 1652 1652 -
Jeralee Anderson 705 705 -
Kevin Van De Wege 763 763 -
Write in 19 19 -
Clallam
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 1953 1953 -
Jamie Herrera Beutler 5361 5361 -
Dave Upthegrove 4398 4399 +1
Sue Kuehl Pederson 6473 6473 -
Patrick DePoe 2778 2778 -
Jeralee Anderson 840 840 -
Kevin Van De Wege 7047 7049 +2
Write in 14 14 -
Clark
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 12938 12938 -
Jamie Herrera Beutler 31930 31931 +1
Dave Upthegrove 16083 16083 -
Sue Kuehl Pederson 37885 37885 -
Patrick DePoe 18433 18433 -
Jeralee Anderson 5440 5440 -
Kevin Van De Wege 9470 9470 -
Write in 118 118 -
Island
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 2552 2553 +1
Jamie Herrera Beutler 6522 6523 +1
Dave Upthegrove 6950 6951 +1
Sue Kuehl Pederson 5740 5744 +4
Patrick DePoe 3710 3710 -
Jeralee Anderson 1524 1525 +1
Kevin Van De Wege 1673 1674 +1
Write in 32 31 -1
King
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 58307 58305 -2
Jamie Herrera Beutler 74418 74416 -2
Dave Upthegrove 186313 186309 -4
Sue Kuehl Pederson 58920 58920 -
Patrick DePoe 98895 98900 +5
Jeralee Anderson 22350 22350 -
Kevin Van De Wege 35406 35406 -
Write in 370 373 +3
Snohomish
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 18230 18,232 +2
Jamie Herrera Beutler 43,278 43,282 +4
Dave Upthegrove 35,034 35,039 +5
Sue Kuehl Pederson 37,235 37,237 +2
Patrick DePoe 31,007 31,014 +7
Jeralee Anderson 11,216 11,217 +1
Kevin Van De Wege 19,005 19,007 +2
Write in 181 180 -1
Statewide
Candidate Original Recount Difference
Allen Lebovitz 194,114 194,118 +4
Jamie Herrera Beutler 419,297 419,309 +12
Dave Upthegrove 396,300 396,304 +4
Sue Kuehl Pederson 396,249 396,255 +6
Patrick DePoe 267,924 267,944 +20
Jeralee Anderson 84,351 84,353 +2
Kevin Van De Wege 143,170 143,174 +4
Write in 1668 1658 -10
Below is from a spreadsheet which can be found on the Secretary of State’s website. Then we added the total changes by adding up each of the changes in each row.
As you can see, according to the official results posted by the Secretary of State, Snohomish County had the most changes due to the recount. Then Okanogan, then Island.
After all the adjustments, Pederson gained two votes in comparison to Upthegrove. However, what is not being discussed is the many changes that were made to all the other candidates and the many changes at the county level.
COUNTY REPORTS:
In Spokane County, the original certification report had a “range” of 34 to 178 over votes for the Public Lands contest. The amended certification document had just 70 over votes, but somehow no changes to the candidate counts were recorded. Also, after multiple requests from observers, there was no explanation given for the change of count of the over votes nor for a different certification abstract report format.
Statewide, it appears that most of the changes were due to something the voter did while filling out their ballot. For example, some corrected votes, where a voter crossed out their original selection, or a write-in where the voter wrote in a candidate’s name were among the corrections made during the recount.
A new style marking not addressed in the Voter Intent manual that observers saw in Spokane County was interpreted different ways depending on the subjective judgement of the supervisory employees. This marking is a “0” with a “/” through it. The “0” is on its side as a voting oval. In the manual this is designated as a stray mark.
Many of these would have been counted correctly the first time if they had the element of human review. Machines, it appears, cannot correctly determine voter intent as well as a person looking at the ballot can.
OF NOTE: Most all county vote number changes in that race easily exceed the federal standards required by the Help America Vote Act. The legislation refers to the standards set by the US Federal Election Commission Section 3.2.1 – Which states - The system shall achieve a target error rate of no more than one in 10,000,000 ballot positions, with a maximum acceptable error rate in the test process of one in 500,000 ballot positions.
If you refer to the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines which were later adopted by the Election Assistance Commission, section 4.1.1 simplified the error rate calculation. Instead of the more complicated ballot position calculation, the VVSG uses a single vote or single race to calculate the error rate, which is to be no more than 1 in 125,000.
Snohomish County found 23 errors during the recount. There were 195,186 votes cast for this race, but 204, 356 accepted ballots. To calculate the error rate, we take 204,356/23 = 1 in 8,885. Which is 125,000/8,885 = 14 times over the allowable limit.
If we do the same calculation for Island County, the error rate was 39 times the allowable limit and Okanogan was 143 times over the allowable error rate limit as described by the VVSG.
Another issue that became painfully obvious is the fact that dozens and potentially hundreds of late arriving mail-in ballots that were postmarked on or before the August 6th deadline were not counted. This is because the ballots arrived in the county elections offices after the August 20 certification deadline. Even though it was a mandatory re-count, and they were mailed and postmarked in time, the ballots not counted in observance of state law.
In Walla Walla County we know that 97 ballots fall into this category. This is most unfortunate and once again goes to show that the US Postal Service is not reliable. It is very important that until we can ban mail-in voting that voters be advised to vote their ballots using the drop boxes or in-person at the county elections offices.
Some county groups have drop box election observer programs such as in Pierce. In 2022 Pierce County Elections worked the political parties to create a formal program for the observation of drop boxes. This initiative centered around our 50 county-wide drop boxes.
Election observers are stationed at key locations around various drop boxes, monitoring conditions, making sure drop boxes are not overflowing, proper chain of custody is being followed, and that only election workers are touching ballots per RCW29A.84.510. If there appear to be other “helpers” taking voter’s ballots, observers take photos and submit to election officials.
In Pierce County 94,000 voter pamphlets never went out to the registered voters. This was due to a vendor error using the incorrect voter address file. Thousands of Clallam County voters reported the same issue.
Also in Clallam, on August 5th, an observer noticed ballot collectors delivering US Mail and drop box ballots, bypassing the designated sorting room and going directly into the back area of the registration office where observers were not permitted (the room is not covered by cameras).
In all, 3 deliveries of ballots were taken to the back of the registration office that morning, including 3 black rolling bins of ballots, 3 green ballot bags, and two long trays of USPS mailed ballots - all bypassing the sorting room.
It appears these ballots, approximately 1,500 ballot box ballots and over 850 mail-in ballots, hidden from camera and observers for 1 hour and 9 minutes were processed in the early afternoon on Aug 5.
King County (once again) had many notable issues and discrepancies. On August 19th, the day before certification, it appears they were processing last-minute ballots during regular business hours, then stopped around 4:35 pm. However, between 8 pm and 9 pm, it appears they resumed scanning more ballots when (because of late notice) observers were not able to be present in person. A few observers were able to document the late-night workers via the live stream video. Without observers we must rely on Public Records to piece together what took place during that time. We will follow up on this topic once we are provided all necessary records.
SUMMARY:
It should be noted that there was a “Risk Limiting Audit” Pilot/Training program in all counties for the 2024 primary election, however according to the SoS there were no official reports done or provided.
Election Observation helps keep election workers accountable and the public informed.
Observers in some counties had a successful experience and were able to have faith in the process through the transparency of the county elections office, whilst others were left with unanswered questions and left out of the loop as to what was going on.
Observation should be fully accessible across the board. Counties who want to foster trust can do so by having an open process and meaningful viewing for observers. Elections should be trustworthy through transparency and not require observers to have to rely on trust with the people working in the election’s office.
Respectfully Submitted,
WAGOP EIC Election Observer Subcommittee
Bill Bruch
Bill Bruch is the WA State GOP Election Integrity Chairman, WAGOP Executive Board Member, 4-Term Skagit County GOP Chairman, Citizen Journalist, Blogger, Business Owner, “2021 Citizen Activist of the Year” award by the Olympic Conference, 2020 WA State House Representative Candidate, Former Council Member, and WA State 2016 & 2024 RNC National Convention Delegate.