Whitman County still working to mail correct ballots

The Whitman County Elections Office was unable to prepare and send out all 4,300 paper ballots Monday for the race for position 5 on Hospital District No. 3 after it was noticed the position had been omitted from ballots sent out Friday.

The Whitman County Elections Office said in a statement Friday the race would be added to new paper ballots that would be mailed out Monday to voters within the hospital district's boundaries, but on Monday the deadline was pushed back to today.

Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker said the mishap may mean some of the ballots sent out Monday and today won't be received in time to be counted in the first round of ballot counting Nov. 3, but they will be counted at a later date.

Coker said the county will have to pay for the extra postage, envelopes and labor to prepare the ballots, and as of Monday afternoon, four people were working to prepare the ballots.

Coker was unable to give an estimate on the total cost of the mistake, as staff was still working to prepare the final ballots to be mailed this morning.

Coker said the mishap occurred because the hospital district race was accidently included with five other junior district positions that were tabled until the 2017 election to help stagger turnover on various councils and committees.

"Inadvertently, this one race was included with those five other races," Coker said.

The Whitman County Elections Office is asking voters not to combine the two ballots and to return both ballots individually in their attached envelopes.

Coker said the first ballots sent out contain barcodes that can be scanned and automatically counted, while the second group of ballots will need to be hand counted.

Josh Babcock can be reached at (208) 883-4630, or by email to jbabcock@dnews.com.