Dec. 6, 2004

County election officials discuss recount plans

Election officials from Washington's three largest counties, King, Snohomish and Pierce have plans in place to begin manually recounting ballots this Wednesday. Collectively, the three counties are responsible for counting more than 1.5 million ballots, nearly half of all ballots statewide.

“Our goal is to educate the public about the open and transparent recount process taking place in the three most populated counties in the Puget Sound,” Said Dean Logan, director of King County Records, Elections and Licensing Services. “Fairness and integrity are of paramount importance to any aspect of the elections process and in King County we’ve invited the political parties to join us in ensuring the process of recounting ballots goes smoothly.”

Each of the 80, three-person recount boards will consist of one Democratic, one Republican, and one county election designee. All three members of the recount board will be employed by King County Elections as official election workers. Additionally, official political party observers will provide independent oversight of the process. Observer stations will be provided to allow additional party and campaign observers to view the process.

To accommodate observers, King County will conduct its recount of nearly 900,000 ballots at a 23,000 square foot facility located near Boeing Field in Tukwila. With the additional space and a staff of nearly 300, election officials hope to finish counting ballots by Dec. 22, although pending legal action could stretch the recount into January.

“A manual recount in King County requires twice as many people as a machine recount,” said Logan. “We’re fortunate the parties have agreed to help identify people willing to work during the holidays. With 80 teams we believe we will be able to count ballots and certify the recount before the year’s end.”

Staff is set to begin sorting absentee and poll ballots into voting precincts Wednesday, Dec. 8. For poll ballots, sorting will be done at King County's Recount Facility in Tukwila. The process is expected to take up to eight days to sort and count the 305,000 poll ballots. For absentee ballots, sorting will take place at King County Elections’ Mail Ballot Operations Satellite (MBOS) located on First Avenue. Once sorted at MBOS, some 594,000 absentee ballots will be transported to the Recount Facility for the manual count.

With the ballot counting projected to begin on Sunday, each team is expected to sort and count thousands of ballots a day.

Updated: Dec. 6, 2004

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