[NFBWATlk] Helpful news about ballot problems

[Elizabeth Rene]

Hi All,
I just got some comforting news from my county elections office about problems with the ballot. This may not help everyone, because we all come from different counties, but some of this information could be useful nonetheless.
I contacted the king County elections office today Because my ballot tracker inquiry online turn up a message that there was no registered voter information for my name.
The election official told me the county had made an error recording my information and that my birthday, August 12, had been written as 12/21. She fixed that immediately, and my ballot was shown to have been accepted.
I mentioned our NFB experience of people having their ballots rejected because of problems with their signatures. Here is what she told me:

Those whose ballots have been rejected for problems like ours can have them fixed even after election day, until our state’s electors have to cast their electoral college vote. About a month after election day.
At least in King County, election officials are looking for reasons to accept ballots rather than for reasons to reject them.
If one has a drivers license ID, the election officials will be looking to see if the ballot signature and the drivers license ID signature match.
If one doesn’t have a drivers license ID, the ballot signature will be matched to the signature connected to one’s Social Security number.
The secretary of state’s office recognizes that people’s signatures can change as they age or lose vision.
The person I spoke with encouraged anyone with concerns about whether their signature will be accepted to have their ballot signed off by a witness. Self-sufficient as we are, this sounds like a good “abundance of caution“ measure to protect our ballots and give us peace of mind.
I was also told that those whose signatures look questionable will first be sent a postcard alerting them to the problem, then given a phone call or email to offer help. Our ballot mailing envelopes have a space for one’s email address along with the signature line. We should all fill in that email address information as a back up to those “invisible” postcards.
Lastly, anyone worried about whether their ballot has been accepted is encouraged to call their local election office to see if their vote has been counted. In King County, the number is 206-296-VOTE (8683).
So let’s follow Marci Carpenter‘s advice and track our ballots so we can make sure that our voices are heard. And if we haven’t voted yet, let’s do that now.
Hope this helps.
Elizabeth

Elizabeth M René 
Attorney at Law 
WSBA #10710 
KCBA #21824
rene0373 at gmail.com