Some ballots returned to sender

A high-tech glitch in the postal system resulted in roughly 100 completed absentee ballots for next week’s election being returned to voters, officials said Wednesday.

The problem was identified Monday, and elections and postal authorities say they are taking extra precautions to make sure that every ballot is counted.

The news startled school district leaders, whose multimillion-dollar maintenance and operations levies could hinge on a handful of votes Tuesday.

Such is the case for Arlington and Monroe, which both failed to pass levies in March by less than half of 1 percent of the vote.

"It has kind of ratcheted up the stress," said Catherine Russell, a spokeswoman for the Arlington School District, where just 35 more "yes" votes in March would have resulted in a successful levy.

"In our case, there’s no margin for error," said Linda Byrnes, the district’s superintendent. "None. And the consequences are too huge to even imagine."

Monroe School District wasn’t quite as close, but officials there were just as concerned.

"How many people are putting them back in the mail? How many are giving up? How many just aren’t paying attention?" Monroe spokeswoman Rosemary O’Neil said. "We only have one more chance this year to pass this, or our children in our community’s schools will be severely impacted. We don’t want it to be because of the mail."

State law gives school districts two chances a year to renew levies, which can account for 12 percent to 20 percent of district operating budgets.

Arlington, Monroe and Lakewood failed to receive the 60 percent supermajority needed to pass their levies in March. In those three districts, 13,707 ballots were cast, and most were absentees.

Snohomish County Auditor Bob Terwilliger said the problem was caught early enough that it can be easily resolved with additional safeguards. Postal workers are now looking specifically for the county’s purple ballot envelopes to make sure they’re going to the right place.

Terwilliger said he’s confident voters are alert enough to simply remail any ballots bounced back before the problem was identified this week.

"A voter who votes by mail is a fairly knowledgeable voter," he said. "I have to believe that any voter that got that ballot back again would just put it back in the box and send it back to us."

The mail problem is a technical one that starts with how the paper in the ballot envelopes is made. The paper contains varying amounts of phosphorus, which is also in postage stamps. An infrared beam in the automated mail processing machines looks for the phosphorus to identify that an envelope has a stamp on it.

"The phosphorus in the stamp is how the machine knows to key in on it," said Ernie Swanson, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Seattle.

The machine postmarks the stamp and sends the envelope on its way.

Because the envelope, too, has phosphorus in it, the machine gets confused while looking for the stamp.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that Snohomish County’s ballot envelopes have two addresses on them. The voter’s mailing address is on one side and the county auditor’s office address is on the other.

As the machine flipped and turned each envelope in search of the stamp, in some cases it flipped the envelope completely over and shipped it back to the return address.

Terwilliger said ballot envelopes used in future elections will not contain as much phosphorus and have been successfully tested on post office equipment.

Terri Anderson of Arlington was one of the absentee voters with a boomerang ballot.

She is also a voter with a vested interest in the results.

Anderson splits time between being an assistant principal and program specialist at Presidents Elementary in the Arlington School District.

"My job will be cut if the levy doesn’t pass," she said.

Anderson mailed her ballot between April 11 and 13, only to have it come back to her mailbox on April 15. Her first instinct was to wonder what she did wrong.

"It was a little bit of panic," she said. "I wondered, ‘Did this just happen to me? What’s going on here?’"

She examined the envelope. She had correctly placed the 37-cent stamp on it, and there was a postmark on the back.

Anderson reported it to the school district and hand-delivered it to the Arlington post office.

"They are just as concerned as we are," Anderson said.

"I think it’s really important that every vote is counted," she said, "regardless of a ‘yes’ vote or a ‘no’ vote."

Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.

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