Executive Sims statement of support for Elections Director Logan

April 4, 2005

Executive Sims statement of support for Elections Director Logan

"I have received a full report on the discovery of ballots and the personnel actions taken in the Records and Elections Division and I am satisfied the appropriate course of action is underway. I continue to have full faith and confidence in Director Dean Logan and believe the people of this county are best served by allowing him to finish the election reforms needed.

"Mr. Logan last week ordered a thorough search of the more than 565,000 archived absentee ballot envelopes from last November's election. This search was undertaken after other work showed there could be unopened ballots inside absentee envelopes. That search turned up 93 unopened and uncounted ballots from the November 2004 general election. As the search progressed, Mr. Logan began reassigning staff from the mail ballot processing center and ordered an independent personnel investigation.

"Mr. Logan is to be commended for ordering the search and for being forthright about the findings. The extent of the search and the personnel actions taken by Mr. Logan were appropriate. He, like all of us, was stunned by the discovery.

"Dean Logan was hired 19 months ago to improve King County's records and elections operation as part of an overhaul of the division after a thorough examination of the operation and report by the county's Citizens' Elections Oversight Committee. Since then he has made remarkable progress to change systems at the same time installing a new primary election, a new voter registration system and counting a record number of ballots.

"Mr. Logan came to King County from the Secretary of State's Office and is considered an expert in elections by his peers across the state and across the nation. He is simultaneously carrying out election reforms while working with existing systems and staffing. These unopened and uncounted ballots are the result of the systemic problems he is working to fix. It is important to let him finish the job he has begun.

"Those who are truly concerned with the successful transformation of our elections operations understand that a change in leadership at this critical juncture would be a set back that would not give us the result we all seek. I believe we are fortunate to have an elections director of Dean Logan's caliber and am convinced it will be proven that retaining his nationally-recognized expertise is the best course. To do otherwise would be destabilizing and a major setback."