Voters who need to fix ballot signatures will get letters

Published 10:10 am Friday, November 13, 2015

Voters whose ballots from the Nov. 3 election were rejected for signature errors will get letters asking for corrected signatures, but won’t get the actual ballots or ballot envelopes.

People who get such letters are those who had either returned their ballots without signing the return envelope or returned ballots with signatures that don’t match signatures in voter registration records.

Each Voter gets a letter to sign and return to provide the information that Snohomish County elections officials need to process their ballot. County Elections Manager Garth Fell said Thursday that this ensures that officials always have the ballot and that votes can’t be changed.

Voters must return their ballots with corrected signatures by Nov. 23 so officials can check signatures and count ballots before final certification of results Nov. 24. Elections officials must match each signature to the signature on the registration record for the vote to be tallied.

Snohomish County elections officials have sent the letters to more than 500 voters whose signatures were missing from their ballot envelopes and at least 100 whose signatures did not match the signatures on file.

Voters with questions can call the elections office at (425) 388-3444.

Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.