Use of felt-tip pens on ballots dries out

Published 9:00 pm Monday, February 20, 2006

Voters apparently got the message in this month’s election: Felt markers are bad.

“As far as I know, nobody used a felt-tip marker,” county elections manager Carolyn Diepenbrock said. “The ballots were actually very clean.”

Voters cast 74,710 ballots by mail, but used only a No. 2 pencil or a dark ballpoint pen.

Felt markers caused trouble on mail-in ballots in November, bleeding through the paper and confusing machine tabulators.

So election officials changed instructions on the ballots, asking voters to use a No. 2 pencil.

That brought its own worries from voters, who feared their votes could be erased. Election officials relented, telling voters through news stories and advertisements that pencils and ballpoint pens both were OK.

The ballot instructions formally appear on ballots being mailed this week for the March 14 elections.

The Monroe fire district annexation measure will be conducted entirely by mail. The Snohomish School District will have both polling places and absentee ballots.