Pencil isn’t safe enough, voters fret

In essence, there has risen a stink in favor of ink.

Snohomish County election officials sent out new mail-ballot instructions this week to 164,000 voters telling them to use only No. 2 lead pencils to mark their ballots.

The trouble is, 10 voters who had just received their ballots called election officials worried that their votes could be erased.

“They were upset that the instructions say to use a No. 2 pencil, and are afraid (someone) might erase their vote and change their vote,” county elections manager Carolyn Diepenbrock said.

Voters used to be able to use either a black ink pen or a No. 2 pencil.

But that caused problems in November, when some people voted with felt pens that bled through some paper ballots, making it difficult for election machines to accurately tabulate their votes, she said.

So in with pencils, out with pens. The instructions are atop the absentee ballots just mailed out.

Given the concerns, election officials will allow voters to use black pens so long as they don’t bleed through the ballot, Diepenbrock said.

“If you’re going to use a pen, make only one line, and don’t use any sort of ink that will bleed through the paper,” Diepenbrock said. “That’s way too much information to put on a ballot, but that’s what we’re trying to get at.”

The ballot instructions might change again before the March 14 election to clearly tell voters to avoid felt pens, she said.

And no one is altering or erasing votes, Diepenbrock said.

“We assure (callers) that whenever ballots are touched, there’s a group of two individuals, one being a Republican and one Democrat, and it still concerns them,” she said.

Erasers are not allowed in ballot counting centers, nor are black or blue pens or pencils, she said. Only red pens are allowed on the ballot tables, and red ink can’t be read by the vote tabulation machines.

Voters are seeing another change, with specially designed purple envelopes. State law now requires a larger flap to shield a voter’s signature to protect it from potential identity thieves.

Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@ heraldnet.com.

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