Statewide recount of Washington lands commissioner race gets underway in Spokane County

Spokane County election workers began hand-counting nearly 145,000 ballots Monday to help determine who will advance to the general election in the race to lead the state Public Lands Commission.

Election offices across Washington are in the midst of the first statewide recount in decades, and the first for a primary in more than 60 years. The last statewide recount occurred in 2004, when former Gov. Christine Gregoire edged out former state Sen. Dino Rossi by 129 votes in her first gubernatorial bid. Before a pair of recounts, Gregoire trailed by 261 votes.

This year’s recount was sparked by a margin of just 51 votes, as Democrat Dave Upthegrove hopes to hold on to his narrow lead over Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson to be the second candidate on the November ballot. Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, a former congresswoman who represented Vancouver, already secured her spot with 22.03% of the statewide votes in the August primary.

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton expects her office to be done with their portion of the statewide count Thursday evening, just in time for the county’s deadline to print the physical ballots for the general election. Statewide results should be available around Sept. 3, but that may change depending on when counties complete their recounts.

Mike McLaughlin, the county’s elections manager, said how long it takes each county can vary due to the number of ballots, staffing and how experienced an office may be with a recount.

More populous counties like Spokane and King are no strangers to recounts and have gotten the process down to a routine, which likely means they’ll be done quicker. Other counties haven’t had to conduct a recount in 20 years, he said.

The recount will be conducted by pairs of election workers, who will go through the ballots one-by-one and sort them into one of 10 piles: one for each of the seven candidates, one for write-ins, one for undervotes and one for overvotes. The teams focus on one batch at a time, which can include anywhere from 200 votes to only a handful, McLaughlin said.

In each pair, one election worker sorts and counts half a batch while another counts the other half of the ballots. They record their results privately to compare at the end, after the two switch stacks, sort and count again.

The final count, once both election staffers confirm their results match, is compared to the machine tabulated results from the initial election results. Any differences are noted and reported, eventually making their way to the Washington Secretary of State’s Office to update election results.

The same process will be followed ballot by ballot, batch by batch and box by box until all 144,832 of the countywide votes cast in the August primary are recertified.

McLaughlin said the recount is expected to cost the office around $45,000, which will be reimbursed by the state.

Since it’s a recount of all ballots cast in the county, Dalton noted they can count by batch rather then sorting the ballots into precincts first. She expects that to help streamline what’s otherwise a fairly rigorous process.

“So instead of spending a day, a day and a half taking each ballot out of the box and sorting them into precincts, we’re going to go batch by batch and compare those results to what the team of workers counted,” Dalton said. “It should make everything go faster.”

In addition to the two election workers at each recount station, at least one observer sat by and oversaw the process. Observers are typically representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, or one of the candidates in the recounted race, and are there to ensure the proper procedures are followed.

Most of the observers are retired, like Don Adair and Robert Whiffen, who were there Monday representing the Democrats and Republicans, respectively.

Whiffen said he’s been an observer in past elections, and he continues to volunteer his time because he cares about the integrity of the county’s elections.

“For me, it’s important to make sure they’re doing it correctly,” Whiffen said.

Adair shared a similar sentiment as to why he plans to spend the majority of the week watching others count ballots in silence.

“Democracy has got to be participatory,” Adair said. “And it’s one small thing a person can do to contribute.”

Both Whiffen and Adair invited those who have concerns about the integrity of local elections to come down and volunteer themselves to see the good work done and the safeguards in place at the Spokane County Election’s Office.

“They’ve got it pretty much down to a science,” Whiffen said.