Snohomish County should investigate whether any of 1,463 apparently dead voters just purged from voting rolls have cast ballots lately, Republican County Councilman Gary Nelson said Thursday.
“I want to determine when was the last time they voted, and if it was subsequent to their death, I know someone else voted for them,” Nelson said.
“I have never seen a deceased voter come into the polls,” added Nelson, a critic of the county’s scheduled shift to all-mail elections in September.
On Thursday, Nelson e-mailed the County Council and county Auditor Bob Terwilliger, who oversees the county elections division, asking for an investigation of local voters found in a statewide computer sweep intended to remove duplicate or deceased voters.
The analysis was part of the new statewide database merging voting rolls for 39 counties.
Elections officials compared state Department of Health records with county voting rolls, flagging potential matching names and birth dates.
State elections officials said they found more than 1,400 apparently dead people still on Snohomish County’s voting rolls.
“There’s no reason to believe these people have voted,” said Carolyn Diepenbrock, county elections manager. “What it means is we didn’t know they died. That’s all. Just like when people move out of Snohomish County, we just didn’t know they moved.”
In the past, county elections officials have purged dead voters by paying attention to obituaries and vital statistic notices published in The Herald and other area newspapers, Diepenbrock said.
The practice appears to have been somewhat successful. More than 800 of the deceased voters identified by state elections officials apparently already were culled from the rolls before the start of this year. At least, they aren’t present in voting records obtained by the newspaper Jan. 4.
Whether someone cast votes for the dead would require more investigation.
A total of 34 people on the state’s dead-voter list cast ballots in the November general election, records show. About the same number voted in the September primary.
Deaths after the November election were confirmed for the majority of those voters through obituaries and other public records.
However, voting activity was reported for two women whose names match people who have been dead for years.
In one case, voting records going back to 2002 showed no trips to the polls or other election activity until November. That’s when election officials logged an absentee ballot in the woman’s name.
Society is fluid, and it’s probably not surprising that state officials found deceased voters on Snohomish County’s rolls, Diepenbrock said.
“We don’t know where everybody is all the time, and we don’t have the tools or have the authority to be an investigative agency,” she said. “If you’re a registered voter in Snohomish County and die in Arizona, we’re not going to be notified by Arizona that you died down there. The responsibility falls on the family.”
Investigating whether votes are being cast for dead people, as Nelson has requested, won’t be cheap, Diepenbrock said.
“If that’s what he’s asking, I need extra help money, because I’m running a February election now, and it takes time to do that,” she said.
The statewide attempt to clean up voting rolls makes no attempt to identify potentially improper voting by people who receive mail ballots at places other than their registered addresses.
A computer analysis of Snohomish County’s voting rolls by The Herald found thousands of ballots being sent – some even e-mailed – to voters around the world.
Of those ballots, hundreds went to addresses in California and Arizona, including to people who have sold their homes in Snohomish County. State law still may allow them to legally vote.
Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.
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