Stephen K. Schuck is the guest writer for this article.  He is a Certified Citizen Election Observer for about 5 years and has taken the Auditor's training course.

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On Friday, November 11, insightful community commentator John Servais published on his blog [url=http://www.nwcitizen.us]http://www.nwcitizen.us[/url], an article titled, "Right Shift Debate and Snail Pace Counting." I wish to respond. Some preliminary points:

1) Engineers are familiar with the idea that projects involve cost, speed, and accuracy. Pick any two.

2) Voters have chosen not to give governments, particularly in Washington state, the wherewithal to conduct business in this recession. Two glaring examples are: a) allowing a minority 40% to prevent raising any new income, including closing outrageous corporate loopholes, and b) refusing to apply any sort of levy on super-high incomes. Combined with the state Constitutional requirement to balance the budget, these decisions pretty well guarantee all state jurisdictions and their activities in education, health, social services, parks, etc., etc., etc. will be gutted. As always, it takes a long time to build functioning systems, a very short time to destroy them. The voters have chosen to send Washington state to the bottom of the national heap by a number of measures. It will take a LONG TIME to recover.

3) Thus, we are left with a conflict between speed and accuracy in the vote counting arena. Speed is for the entertainment of those (e.g., the media) who want to move on to other excitement. Most individuals seem to prefer accuracy in vote counting.

4) A lot changed with new federal laws passed after the 2001 "hanging chad" election debacle. New federal equipment requirements and handicapped access rules vastly increased the cost (see point 2) of operating poll-place voting, while new military rules provided improved access for overseas voters.

5) State law provides a set amount of time, depending on the type of election, for all the little details to be ironed out. Critics prefer not to consider these details, but they nonetheless impact proper ballot handling. The "end" of an election occurs when it is "certified" by the local 3-person "Canvassing Committee" made up of the county auditor, prosecutor, and Council Chair. Normally, certification occurs three weeks after Election Day.

6) Media interest in "calling" an election as soon as possible has not changed. In most cases, this call is accurate. In some cases, the results do not become clear until certification, (such as the Crawford/Maginnis race that Mr. Servais mentions, last year's Linville/Buys race, and frequent others) and then possibly lead to a recount. This has always been the case, even under poll voting.

7) In 2011, the last of Washington's 39 counties abandoned poll voting as being too expensive (see point 2). While there are a variety of similar systems used by the counties to process mailed ballots, they all involve a) check-in (registering that the voter actually voted without looking at the ballot), b) opening the ballot, and c) counting.

8) Ballot check-in occurs in a room adjacent to the auditor's office. Glass windows permit anyone to see what is happening, which is: a) form batches of about 120 envelopes, b) register the voters in the batch as having voted, c) verify the batch while verifying signatures. Batches then leave this area to go downstairs. The outer envelopes have been opened, but nothing removed. At least two people are present when any ballot is outside locked and controlled storage. Check-in is usually finished by early afternoon, even on a very big day, and is not a significant part of ballot processing delays.

9) The three machines Whatcom County uses to count ballots are rated at 400 ballots per minute (about 7 per second), and can read both sides of the ballot simultaneously in any of its four orientations. Even considering the non-count time required for accurate tracking of every single ballot, counting is only an issue on Election Day, the first day state law allows previously-received and opened ballots to be counted. Counting is not a significant part of ballot processing delays.

10) Voters affect processing delays by choosing to vote late in the 3-week balloting period. A ballot mailed on Election Day takes one to two days to pass through the postal system before arriving at the auditor's office, so they arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. Mr. Servais' suggestion that ballots be REQUIRED to be IN the auditor's office on Tuesday takes much of the delivery out of voter control, and would nearly obligate that the ballot be mailed BEFORE the final weekend. Success with such a change would require massive voter education. (Good luck! It happens, but slowly.) There would be massive disenfranchisement of Election Day voters, although drop box voters would still have a chance. Meanwhile, voters always have the option of depositing their ballot earlier, and about half do.

11) Voters have ballots in their possession for up to three weeks, as opposed to five minutes at a polling station. One might argue this bodes well for democracy by allowing voters more time to contemplate candidates and issues. Who knows. What is well known is that ballots are returned crumpled, decorated by crayons, peanut butter, egg, soup, wine, or half eaten by the baby or family dog. These ballots do not count well at 7/second, prying them out of the machine produces a lot of downtime, and peanut butter seriously gums up the machine.

12) Washington is a "voter-intent" state, meaning the law REQUIRES every attempt be made to count the ballot as the voter intended; other states don't care. Voters are very inventive in the multitude of ways they mess up ballots so the machines will not count them properly, even without peanut butter or egg. All involve not following directions. A classic mess-up is to fill in the entire thickness of the arrow with enough ink that the mark bleeds through and appears as a vote on the other side. The directions request a single line with black or blue ballpoint pen. Sharpies and glitter pens automatically destroy the ballot. Read on.

13) To protect the machines AND the voters, ALL ballots must be checked after they are separated from their identifying information. Ideally, a batch will check clean and go directly to counting. Thanks to voters, this rarely happens and around 10% (with wide variation) need to be rewritten (duplicated) in a way that the machines can rapidly process and accurately understand. No ballot is ever changed or "improved." ALL ballots, both bad and new, are carefully accounted for.

14) Duplication is a two-step, two-person process. The first person copies the voter's intent into an identical "style" of ballot. There are always AT LEAST 120 different styles of ballot, one for each precinct, often more. The second person verifies the accuracy of the copy. Both people sign for the duplication. A supervisor randomly checks the work. The bad ballot, back referenced in the records, is then stored for later retrieval if needed. More voter mess-ups produce more duplication, and slow the opening process.

15) Write-ins, particularly spurious ones (most are), also cause ballots to be diverted into costly side-processes and many also require duplication. With spurious write-ins, voters are deliberately wasting taxpayer dollars (see point 2).

16) The secure opening rooms in the courthouse basement have a fixed employee capacity. The auditor hires and trains election staff based on her (usually quite accurate) estimate of voter turnout. Large elections run close to room capacity. Opening usually starts the second week of the three-week voting period, and continues until the big Election Day bulge has been processed. Straggler ballots are processed by the auditor's regular staff. The process is complex enough that hiring and training extra employees only for handling bulges within the period would be confusing, error-prone (see point 3), and expensive (see point 2). For an election of this size, which is almost fully staffed, openers can process 5,000 to 6,000 ballots per day without paying overtime (see point 2). At any staffing level, throughput is highly dependent on the voters: more mess-ups, lower throughput.

17) Not processing ballots on Friday saved county taxpayers unnecessary holiday overtime pay (see point 2).

It should be clear the issues Mr. Servais mentions are largely determined by voter behavior within the specifications of state and federal law. Now for his specific suggestions:

a) Prepaid outer envelopes (see point 2): This would charge taxpayers the postage for envelopes that are not mailed, (drop boxes or direct delivery to the auditor's office). This possibility is often proposed, but never gets traction. Voters always have the choice to pay this 44-cent "poll tax" or direct deliver. This suggestion has absolutely no effect on the throughput of the overall process.

b) Distinctive color for outer envelopes: They already have a distinctive color. The post office does a great job with available resources (see point 2), and usually provides next-day delivery within our county. Given the quantity of material they process, it is in their interest to get the material out as soon as they possibly can. It provides them no benefit, but considerable extra cost (see point 2) to set up short-term, separate processing routes within the first class classification. This suggestion would have no significant effect on the throughput of the overall process.

c) Better-designed envelope: Much effort has gone into the design of these envelopes, and the design is under continual review. The flap gymnastic can be eliminated by signing the outside, which has been frequently proposed, and as frequently rejected. This is a voter issue. Simply follow directions. Again, this suggestion has absolutely no effect on the throughput of the overall process.

d) More information on the ballot: The voter’s pamphlet provides this. Machine designs determine possible ballot sizes. There are limits to the amount of material that can be put on a ballot. Make the print smaller? You decide. Again, no effect on throughput.

e) Lack of challengers: Nobody has stopped any voter who wanted to run in any race from doing so. Unchallenged races are common, in fact, rampant outside Bellingham. The June 2010 filing had to be reopened for lack of ANY candidates in some races. Also, if you run a competent campaign, you have a chance of beating an incumbent. While some incumbents should be replaced, effective incumbents tend not to attract challengers. Lay these implied complaints on the voters also.

Outgoing Auditor Shirley Forslof has worked hard for many years to encourage voter registration and turnout, and to increase transparency and citizen participation in election processes. Citizen observers are repeatedly sought and trained alongside elections staff to understand the complexity and details of the process. Her CEAC (Citizens Elections Advisory Committee) is unique in the state. Washington state's voter-intent laws are commended as being some of the best in the nation. We vote in a truly unique county in an unique state, using processes that have received a lot of local thought over the last six years as well as much state and federal thought over a much longer time. Please learn about the processes before deciding to criticize them.