Voters guides for the upcoming primary election are arriving late in thousands of mailboxes throughout Snohomish County because of two unrelated mistakes during the preparation and mailing of the booklets.
Election officials learned after the guides went out late last week that approximately 19,000 of the pamphlets meant for homes in Arlington, Darrington and Marysville did not include candidate statements and photographs for seven candidates running for office in the 39th Legislative District.
A separate mistake by the company that mails the pamphlets was discovered early this week. About 17,000 homes in the Mill Creek and Bothell area with the ZIP code 98012 did not receive voters guides at all.
The county is sending out supplemental guides to homes in the 39th District that did not get all the information on those candidates. Carolyn Diepenbrock, elections manager for Snohomish County, said those households should receive the supplemental guide in the mail by today.
Guides that did not include the 39th District candidates slipped by proofreaders before the booklet was sent out.
“The guide is proofread and proofread and proofread and proofread and proofread,” Diepenbrock said. “We missed it. We made a mistake.”
County officials did not immediately know how much it would cost to correct the mistake.
Only one of three races in the 39th District hinges on the primary. John Painter is running against fellow Democrat Susanne Olson in the race for the district’s Senate seat. The winner in the primary will face incumbent Republican Sen. Val Stevens in November.
Olson said she was glad the omission included everyone who is running for office in the 39th District instead of having some candidates’ information included but not others.
“That would have been disastrous,” Olson said.
She said she is worried, however, that some people who get the supplemental voters guide may not realize what it is when it comes in the mail and may toss it out.
Ann Rankin, a voter in Darrington, said the mistake is unfortunate.
“I think honest mistakes can be made, and I think this is probably one of them,” Rankin said.
But she added that a climate of suspicion has hung around the ballot box since the Florida debacle of 2000: “Right now people are so concerned about the privilege of voting.”
Despite the lack of complete voters guides for some, information on the 39th District candidates is available in the county’s online election guide on the Snohomish County Web site, www1.co.snohomish.wa.us.
The county has had problems in previous elections with its voters guides.
In 1999, information on three candidates who were running for the Edmonds City Council was accidentally left out. In 2001, the wrong ballot title was printed in the guide for the “Right to Plow” initiative. In both cases, the county sent corrected information to voters before the election.
The mailing mistake discovered Tuesday should be corrected by the end of the week, Diepenbrock said. Homes in the Bothell-Mill Creek area should be getting the booklets in the mail by Friday.
“The mailing house that we use inadvertently missed the ZIP code 98012 when they put together their list of where these things need to go,” she said.
Ballots are already coming in for the primary election.
The county sent out roughly 187,000 absentee ballots, and an estimated 18,000 absentee ballots have already been returned.
Reporter Brian Kelly: 425-339-3422 or kelly@heraldnet.com.
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