Hundreds of Whitman County ballots lost in the mail

By Emily Pearce, Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Editor’s Note: Rachel Sun contributed to this report.

Hundreds of Whitman County vote-by-mail ballots were recently lost by the U.S. Postal Service, according to the county’s auditor.

Sandy Jamison, the Whitman County auditor, announced in a news release Tuesday it was brought to her attention that several Whitman County constituents never received ballots for the Nov. 5 general election.

Jamison estimates 250 ballots, primarily voters with P.O. boxes in the town of Garfield, Washington, went missing after being processed by the Postal Service.

“I’m optimistic that these ballots will be found, but time is of the essence now,” Jamison said. “We’re asking people to be proactive and call us right now if they don’t have a ballot.”

All Whitman County ballots were sent out Oct. 16, Jamison said. The main Spokane postal office received and marked the ballots “successfully scanned,” but the problem lies after that step in the process.

“I’ll give the post office generally a good week to get things out. We dropped them on Oct. 16. We know they made it to the post office. We know they were scanned in there,” Jamison said. “But then a week later, we’re getting calls from folks generally from the Garfield, Washington, area saying, ‘Where’s my ballot?’”

Jamison said she is unaware where the ballots may have ended up and said investigators are looking into it.

The highest level of Washington state’s Postal Service administration were made aware of the incident, according to the news release. Postal Service personnel are working to retrace the distribution route of the ballots in hopes to reveal their location.

Jamison is investigating the missing ballots. Her goal is to ensure every Whitman County registered voter receives a ballot and has the opportunities to participate in the election.

Constituents who haven’t received a ballot are asked to call auditor’s office at (509) 397-5284 to be reissued another, Jamison said. Voters can also print out a replacement ballot by signing into votewa.gov.

Pearce can be reached at epearce@dnews.com.