Challenged ballots could drag out Sawant recall another week

A relatively small number of unusual ballots could determine the outcome of the attempt to recall Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant.

On Thursday, three-term Councilmember Sawant pulled ahead in an effort to keep her seat against a ballot measure to recall her on charges related to her activism and use of city funds, after narrowly trailing the first two days of the count.

Though the anti-recall side — represented by “no” votes — has claimed over 60% of the votes posted since the original count on Tuesday night, she’s just squeaked past the recall with a 232-vote lead.

With a gap that small, the hundreds of ballots with challenged signatures, those delivered late by mail and so-called “not curable” ballots could drag definitive election results out another week.

“It’s actually pretty normal,” King County Elections Chief of Staff Kendall Hodson said Thursday morning, as a handful of workers finished verifying ballots at Elections’ Renton headquarters.

“There’s usually somewhere around 1% or even 1.5% of ballots that get challenged,” Hodson said. “But people don’t usually pay attention to these small categories of ballots that get added to the count late, unless there’s something super close like this.”

Hodson was referring to the 591 ballots that have been challenged for missing a signature or bearing a potentially invalid one, as determined by two separate inspection teams since the Tuesday election.

“Those are ‘curable’ challenges, meaning the voter can fix them,” she said, noting that on average 50% of those challenged get resolved and are counted.

“But in an election like this, I expect a higher resolution rate because people are more motivated since this small number of ballots could change the outcome,” Hodson explained.

In the 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday’s result drops, 65 ballots were resolved.

In addition to the several hundred ballots Hodson expects to be resolved through signatures, a “trickle” of legally mailed ballots will continue to arrive and shift results in coming days.

“Again here you have a really small number of votes that are coming in like normal, but can add up in this situation,” Hodson said, noting that nearly 40 such ballots came in on Thursday.

Finally, the elections office has a small number of “not curable” ballots that may make it in the count, but cannot be acted upon by voters at this point.

“So an example is the address confidentiality program, which is a program through the Secretary of State where certain people — like victims of domestic violence or stalking — shouldn’t have their addresses be public record,” Hodson said. “So those are done with a code and go through Olympia, and that takes longer.

“So there’s like these 10 weird ballots hanging out there that no one would normally think to care about, except in a couple of races that are this close.” she said.

Other examples of “not curable” ballots are those with precinct changes or signed by someone other than the voter.

As the final “not curable” but valid ballots are counted, Hodson said the number of such ballots will actually rise as ballots postmarked after the Dec. 7 deadline are received.

“The number will grow and people who are watching may get confused, but those are just ballots we cannot count because they were late,” Hodson said. “We’ll just reach out to those people and try to get them to vote earlier or at a drop box next time.”

Election results will be certified on Dec. 17, making the deadline to remedy signature challenges Dec. 16.

Either side could call for a recount, dragging the process later into the month.

“It’s on our brains, that’s for sure. We just don’t have a plan yet,” King County Elections Ballot Processing Manager Jerelyn Hampton said Thursday.

Since there is no automatic recount triggered by ballot measure results — including recalls — if either side wanted a recount, it would have to be requested by Dec. 21, and the campaign asking for it would foot the bill.

Hodson says the department hasn’t figured out a cost estimate for a recall yet, but it would involve multiple days of labor for a not-yet-determined number of regular and temporary employees, who earn from $20-$30 per hour, plus materials and operational costs.

Additionally, Hodson notes the county could struggle to find staff around the holidays.

“The timing’s tricky because we’d have to find the people to do it and our staff is very committed and dedicated, but with certifying on the 17th and heading straight into the holidays, it’s certainly unique,” she said.