Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
A piece of primary election history
The Mason County elections department set up the conference room of the Mason County Public Works building to manually recount Mason County's results in the statewide Commissioner of Public Lands race. Just 51 votes statewide separated Dave Upthegrove and Sue Kuehl Pederson, mandating a hand recount of the race in all 39 of Washington's counties. Ten two-person counting boards tabulate the ballots to compare with the initial machine-counted votes.
The Mason County elections department team on Saturday after setting up the Public Works conference room for the manual recount. From left, Marie Stevenson, elections administrator, Kailey Chappell, elections technician, Mike Lubomski, elections technician, Susan Blankenship, assistant elections adminstrator.
By the time you read this, the manual recount for the Commissioner of Public Lands race will be well under way. The last time there was a statewide manual recount in a primary election race was 1960. This recount was triggered by a 51-vote margin between the second-place candidate in the primary, Dave Upthegrove, and the third-place candidate, Sue Kuehl Pederson.
This is a 0.0064% difference in vote totals, less than the 0.25% threshold required in RCW 29A.64.021. The winner will face the top finisher, Jaime Herrera-Beutler, in the November general election.
Manual recounts are taking place in all 39 counties in Washington. In Mason
County, the manual recount was scheduled for Aug. 27 and 28 at the Public Works facility at 100 W. Public Works Drive in Shelton. This recount was conducted by 10 counting boards. Each counting board was composed of one member from the Democratic Party and one member from the Republican Party (each recruited by the respective county political party chairs), or two members of the County Elections Department staff.
Recount procedures are defined in RCW 29A.64.041 and WAC 434-264-110. Each counting board counted one batch of ballots at a time, where board members sorted the ballots according to votes received by each candidate in the race along with any overvotes, undervotes or write-in candidates. Then each board member hand-counted the sorted ballots stacks independently and recorded their results. If the results were confirmed between the two board members, those results were recorded and compared with results previously tabulated. If their results didn't match, the counting board counted and compared results again. If the results still did not match, that batch of ballots was given to another counting board to be counted. The results of the manual count were not shared until the count for each sorted stack in the batch was confirmed between the two board members.
Any deviation of the confirmed manually counted batch results from the machine tabulated results will be investigated and documented by the County Elections Canvassing Board. The entire process was completely transparent and open to the public. Mason County will certify the results from this recount at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the elections ballot processing room on the first floor of the County Administration Building. Hope to see you there.
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