A ballot’s journey at King County Elections headquarters

Placing your envelope in the mailbox or at a drop box may feel like the end of the voting process, but for your ballot, the journey is just beginning. A visit to King County Elections headquarters — which can be done virtually or in-person as an observer — shows just what happens next. 

In all, it can take a few days for a ballot to make it through the stages of King County Elections. That’s because there are several steps in the process.

The first stop for a freshly mailed or dropped-off ballot is the sorting machine. Here, photos are taken of each ballot’s signature, and the ballots — still in their envelopes — are sorted into batches.

Look at those #ballots whiz by! This is one of the ballot-sorting machines at @kcelections headquarters – the first stop on a ballot’s journey from your home to being counted. #VOTE #Election2020 #Vote2020 #IVoted pic.twitter.com/1uuZwPxxQK

— Nicole Jennings (@nicoleKIROFM) October 27, 2020

Next is signature verification, where each envelope’s signature must pass under at least one set of heavily-trained eyes to make sure it matches the signature on file for each voter.

“It really is hard to forge a signature, and this is how we make sure that the integrity of our elections is in place,” said Hannah Kurowski, a communications officer for King County Elections.

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The Washington State Patrol’s fraud unit instructs King County Elections staff members to detect discrepancies in the smallest details of a signature, such as where the stroke of a pen begins and ends.

“We’re looking at the height of the letters, the width of the letters, the slant of the letters — any distinguishing characteristics,” said Jerelyn Hampton, ballot processing manager.

About 2% of the time, a ballot envelope is flagged for a missing or mismatched signature. Of those, Hampton said half will be corrected by the voter and will get counted.

If your signature is challenged, Kurowski stressed that it’s not the end of the world. King County Elections will contact you multiple times by mail, as well as by phone and email if your number and email address are on file. You can also find out if there was a signature problem by tracking your ballot online at the county’s website or at votewa.gov.

A form will be mailed to you so you can verify your signature. Even if you don’t find out until after Election Day, you can still make sure your vote is counted. As long as you submit the form by Nov. 23, before results are certified, your vote will be counted.

Some people’s signatures change over time. If yours has evolved, you can put more than one signature on your file by sending in a new voter registration form, or connecting your voter registration to a driver’s license with the updated signature.

After signature verification comes ballot opening. Here, ballots are separated from envelopes so they will be completely anonymous when counted — that’s where the secrecy envelope comes in.

“We take apart the ballot packet in a really specific way so that it protects the privacy of the voter and their ballot,” said Doug Cooper, ballot processing specialist. “We’ll take away the outer envelope that has their name on it in a specific way, and the ballot is still shielded so we can’t tell who they voted for.”

If a ballot has a problem with it that would prevent a machine from recording it correctly — such as if candidate’s entire name is circled instead of just the bubble filled in, if a color of ink that is not blue or black is used, or if a food spill or tear has damaged the paper — it goes to ballot review. This is where teams of two people manually put in the person’s answers on a computer. Then, other teams review those teams’ submissions.

“We also do a 100% — a second team goes through and looks at all the stuff again … essentially, there are a ton of double-checks by teams of two, lots of rounds of quality control,” said John Keith, ballot review lead. “That’s how we make sure that everybody is doing their job correctly.”

“There are a lot of checks and balances, and that’s on purpose,” Kurowski said. “We want to make sure everyone’s vote is counted and everyone’s voice is heard.”

If there are no problems requiring further verification at ballot review, ballots can be scanned and recorded. The ballots are tabulated in a high-security room that only a few people can access.

“Not even our director, Julie Wise, has access here,” Kurowski said. “It’s an air-gapped room, which means you would have to be physically here to tamper with our tabulation system.”

“We’re really excited for this election — we’re expecting 90% turnout,” Kurowski said. “So far, we are at 56% turnout — that’s over 800,000 ballots returned.”

She said the first five days alone after drop boxes opened returned nearly 200,000 ballots. In 2016 during the first five days, only 10,000 were submitted.

“People are coming out, they’re voting early, and that’s exciting, because that’s what makes democracy work,” Kurowski said.

If you haven’t yet voted or need to register, there is still time. You can go to one of several vote centers around the county, including outside King County Elections headquarters at 919 Southwest Grady Way in Renton. Vote centers will be open weekdays until the election, and Saturday, Oct. 31.

Follow @NicoleKIROFM