“In light of our county’s move to an all-mail voting system, as well as the high voter turnout expected in next year’s election, it is imperative that we have the tools necessary to ensure fair and accurate results,” said Councilmember Julia Patterson. “Our request of the legislature is the only method we have to lawfully conduct a more comprehensive, random and customized audit of our elections.”

“Independent sources such as the Brennan Center for Justice say routine, random post-election audits are one of the best tools we have to safeguard our elections from error and fraud,” said Councilmember Bob Ferguson. “The legislature should change state law to allow counties greater flexibility in conducting post-election audits so that we can take additional steps to ensure that every valid vote counts.”

“All King County asks is state authorization to adopt a more thorough post-election audit system,” said Councilmember Dow Constantine. “The current rules were written with small counties in mind, limiting our ability to do all that King County's nearly two million citizens—and well over a million voters—need and deserve.”

State law currently limits the auditing of election results to three precincts or 1,800 ballots. With nearly 60 percent of registered voters in King County noted as permanent absentee voters and the County’s goal of conducting an all-mail election in 2008, members expressed concern the current law does not permit a sufficient number of ballots to be audited and does not require the auditing of a random selection of ballots.

King County has 2,555 precincts, and in the 2008 presidential election King County voters are expected to cast 900,000 ballots. Under current law only 0.12% to 0.20% of those ballots would be audited, far too few to reveal machine malfunction or fraud.

The motion approved today by the Council calls for the revision of state law to give the larger counties in Washington the ability to adopt customized procedures for conducting routine, random, post-election audits of election results. The audit method must be statistically effective in assuring the accuracy of election results as the current procedure directed by state law for other counties. The proposal will be added to King County’s Legislative Agenda for the 2008 session of the state Legislature.