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Nearly 1,000 test ballots — technically 910 — sped through three scanners at the Election Center in Bellingham for the Logic and Accuracy Test of the ballot counting equipment for Whatcom County in early July.
The test deck of ballots was designed to include at least one ballot from each precinct and ballot style, one blank ballot, at least one ballot created by each printer used by the county — the list goes on. Essentially, every variable was to be tested within the matrix.
The scanned images were then sent to the Administration Room — which is not connected to the internet to protect it from cyber attacks. There, the server tabulates the results, which are compared to the known results of the test deck.
In this way, election officials are able to ensure the system is reading every bubble correctly.
“It has to match exactly,” Whatcom County Auditor Stacy Henthorn said, confirming that was the case in the July 8 test.
In an election entangled by polarizing rhetoric and concerns about the future of democracy, Henthorn said she wanted to focus on the positives: a secure local election process that will produce valid results.
She said too much focus on election mis- and disinformation threatens to increase voter apathy.
While 2024 is a presidential election year, with voter turnout anticipated to be robust, Henthorn emphasized the importance of empowering voters. Part of this is increasing the transparency of the election system so residents can be confident that their choices are counted, from school board members to the next U.S. president.
“It’s a system with multiple checks and balances, with video surveillance and preservation of ballots. There is a complete record of every step in the process,” said Andrew Reding, the Whatcom County Democrats chair. “I cannot imagine a more transparent and secure system. I love that it is bipartisan, and I have complete trust in our auditor and her staff.”
Transparency of elections
Whatcom County elections, under the purview of the auditor, are run by a 15-staff team, which includes five certified election administrators — three more than required by state law.
In an effort to increase election transparency in Whatcom County since 2022, the office has given roughly 75 Whatcom County residents, including Reding, a tour of the Elections Center and the ballot counting process.
“Everybody that has come through the tours — and they see how we process their ballot — they are encouraged and they have confidence,” Henthorn said.
Election staff are hosting additional tours from July 30 to Aug. 2 to allow residents to “observe the election process in Whatcom County firsthand.”
The 30- to 45-minute tours provide a detailed look at the security measures in place in the county and all aspects of the ballot processing. This includes demonstrations of how each step works, from envelope sorting to signature verification. (Pre-registration is required and can be done by emailing Kellye Conner at kconner@co.whatcom.wa.us or calling her at 360-778-5108.)
During the tours, community members have the opportunity to ask questions about what they’re seeing and the election process. People are also welcome to observe the office on Election Day, but there isn’t time to answer the public’s questions, Henthorn explained.
For those who can’t observe in person, the county has live webcams set up for various steps in the process, from envelope sorting to reviewing the ballots. The cams went live starting with the Logic and Accuracy Test and will continue running 24/7 through the Canvassing Board Certification.
“We’re constantly putting stuff on our website,” Henthorn said. “Unfortunately, I don’t think people are reading that.”
Wrangling rumors, misinformation
Dispelling rumors and misinformation around elections is a full-time job, which is why websites such as PolitiFact by the Poynter Institute and FactCheck.org by The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania exist.
These nonpartisan services offer straightforward fact-checking of trending rumors in the election sphere. This includes confirming photos were altered of Secret Service agents allegedly smiling during the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, to identifying misleading statements made by President Joe Biden during his July 12 NATO press conference.
“A lot of misinformation or rumors or disinformation are intended to confuse us and or to shape our impression of what social consensus is,” Rachel Moran, a senior research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, told Cascadia Daily News.
Moran and other researchers will be working with local journalists in the fall to help combat election-based rumors or misinformation.
Henthorn and Whatcom County Chief Deputy Auditor Amy Grasher, who was the elections supervisor for the previous 12 years, highlighted several election misinformation tropes that they hoped to squelch before getting traction in the run up to the 2024 election.
A common catalyst of election misinformation is images of someone depositing more than one ballot into a dropbox. This has been the alleged motivation for militant ballot-box-watching campaigns – which potentially intimidate legal voters – and controversy around unstaffed ballot drop boxes in states such as Arizona.
In Washington, it is legal for an individual to deposit multiple envelopes in a dropbox because the envelopes will still go through the county’s signature verification process before the ballot is counted.
Grasher used the example of someone working at an assisted living facility dropping off ballots for a group of residents. However, “anybody can return your ballot to a ballot box” if you ask them to, she said.
Concerns around signature verification are also a common issue raised.
In Whatcom County, only auditor staff complete the signature verification process. All of them have gone through the Washington State Patrol signature training — many of them have done so multiple times, Henthorn confirmed.
This staff of 15 ultimately has the responsibility of reviewing the signatures of the 160,000 registered voters who cast a ballot.
They compare the signature on the unopened ballot envelope to the signature in the Washington state database, looking for three or more aspects of a match. These can include individual letters, spacing or even the slant of the signature.
“It’s like a matching game, you don’t even pause until it doesn’t match,” Henthorn said.
If it doesn’t seem to match, the envelope will be subjected to multiple, closer reviews to determine if the signature is a match.
Even if it doesn’t match, that doesn’t mean the ballot is immediately rejected. Whatcom County still wants the vote to count — if it’s a valid vote, Henthorn said.
The county will then send a letter to the voter, asking them to provide a new signature. The county also follows up with a phone call. In fact, the state has a text alert system for all voters in the county to get updates on the status of their ballot throughout the process.
“We want to count your ballot, we want you to go ahead and sign that letter and return it to us,” Henthorn said.
In the 2023 primary, 647 ballots were rejected in Whatcom County. A total of 124 of those were rejected in Bellingham for unresolved signature issues, while 169 were rejected because they were late.
Another rumor that circulated in Whatcom was that the county was accepting live ballots after Election Day in 2022, which Henthorn explained was “simply not true.” Even ballots that are rejected for being late are still accounted for in the system, though they are never opened or counted.
Election security in chain of custody
The Logic and Accuracy Test on July 8 is just one of myriad tests and safeguards put in place to ensure the security and validity of the elections. These range from hardware solutions — seals and locks on ballot dropboxes to ensure they’ve not been tampered with — to system solutions, such as a hand recount of six groups of ballots randomly selected by Republicans and Democrats.
By maintaining a chain of custody from where ballots are submitted to the Election Center, the team is able to ensure that none fall through the cracks. Those envelopes are then run through the signature verification system, after which — if they pass — they are sliced open and the secrecy sleeve removed.
Those sleeves are collected and taken to another location within the Election Center, where a different group of election workers remove the ballot — in this way ensuring both the legitimacy of the ballot, as well as the anonymity of each vote.
The ballots are reconciled by ensuring the number of ballots counted and the number of return envelopes are the exact same, minus those that were rejected for being too late, unsigned or with an unmatched signature.
The tabulation system, which was tested on July 8, is not connected to the internet, one of the strongest safeguards against cyber attacks. Access to the room with the system requires “password upon password,” said Henthorn, noting that the results are disabled until 8 p.m. on Election Day.
The results are then printed out and taken to another computer outside the Administration Room where they are uploaded to the Washington Voter Registration and Election System.
While the vast majority of the results are counted on Election Day, many valid ballots trickle in late either because they were mailed in on the day or because it’s taken additional time for the county to collect ballots from boxes that were closed on time that Tuesday.
“There’s just a lot of security protocols to make sure that everything in this election environment stays in the election environment,” Henthorn said, noting that even recycling materials and garbage collected during the process is kept to ensure nothing is unaccounted for.
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the year that 647 ballots were rejected in Whatcom County. It also misstated the region for the 124 ballots rejected for unresolved signature issues and the 169 for being late. The story was updated to reflect these change at 3:35 p.m. on Aug. 6, 2024. Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
