A Garth Fell is the assistant superintendent of ballot processing delivery, and Alycia Luke is the supervisor of the distribution center.
There is an assistant supervisor of the distribution center, and I'm having a blank on his name. I'm sure it will -- Marvin Lew.
Political party observers were present or were aware of the opportunity to be present at the warehouse during all activities, and at the admin building during all activities. we did not have political party observers riding in the vehicle when they were transported between those two facilities.
Q When you say, physically removed, you mean, the envelopes are taken out of the bags, but the ballots remain in the security envelope and the outer envelope?
A Correct.
Q Do they also check to see whether the person has already voted by another means?
A That is part of the process. You know, simultaneous to this processing, the staff is also crediting voters from poll books so that -- so depending on where we are at in the processing, there may be -- that is a step that is ultimately conducted before the -- before it's determined whether the ballot can be counted. But we are not able to verify that until after we have given credit from poll books for those people who voted at the polls.
Q Have you completed the process of counting or did you complete the process of counting absentee ballots before counting provisional ballots?
A Not necessarily, no. But the tabulation system is set up in a way that differentiates absentee ballots from provisional ballots. So they're counted at separate processes, but we didn't -- there are provisional ballots counted prior to completion of all absentee ballots being counted.
WAS THE ALARM TRIGGERED AT ANY PIOINT? Let me back up and say the facility itself is a secured and alarmed facility, so it's on an alarm system where we would get notified if -- if the alarm is triggered at any point.
Q And when the alarm goes off the private security company is notified and they contact your office?
A Correct.
Q Who in your office?
A I believe that the first contact is Nicole Way, who is the absentee ballot administrator.
Q Did the alarm ever go off during -- after the election until the hand recount was completed?
A I'm probably not the best person to tell you that. I don't
A No, it was opened to identify the precinct that the ballot is issued from.
Q Issued from. Why do you need that information?
A To determine whether or not -- if we verify that the person is a valid registered voter, we need to be sure that we're counting the ballot in the precinct where they're registered to vote. So we need to know if they've cast the ballot in the precinct where they're registered to vote, or if we're going to have to duplicate that onto a ballot associated with the precinct where they're registered to vote.
Q So when the poll worker removes the ballot from the security envelope and the outer envelope to investigate that issue, they do so prior to verifying that it is a lawful -- cast by a lawful registered voter?
A That's correct. It was done prior -- it was done prior to the verification of voter registration. The people who oversaw that process include Carlos Webb, who is the assistant superintendent of voter registration, Lisa Moore and Vicki Moore, who are the two supervisors within the voter registration system.
A From conversation -- from my staff who oversaw that process when the ballots were processed and through discussions with my communications specialist and her conversations with reporters who recalled it.
Q Who on your staff?
A Carlos Webb, assistant superintendent of registration, and Bobbie Egan, who is the communications specialist.
Q Do you remember generally whether we're talking more than a hundred, more than a thousand?
A The number that's in my head, although I have to tell you that there are so many numbers associated with the work that I do on a daily basis, that I don't know how meaningful this is, but I believe that it was somewhere in the range of 258.
Q Do you ever contact voters directly or individuals directly?
A If there was missing information on the envelope or incomplete information to allow us to do that, there -- we do ask for a day time contact number, and it is -- there are certainly situations by which we would contact the voter again. I don't process those ballots myself, so I can't give you specific examples of where that occurred, but that is one of the means that we would go to, not to verify the registration, but to verify the information that they've provided on the envelope.
Q Who would know about those calls or if any occurred?
A Well, again, the processing of the provisional ballots was overseen by Carlos Webb, assistant superintendent of voter registration, and his two supervisors, Lisa Moore and Vicki.
Q Who does the training?
A It's a variety of people. On the provisional ballot side it would be Vicki Moore and Lisa Moore who train the employees or the staff who were doing the verification. On the absentee side, that was -- I believe that training was provided by Celeste Dorsey.
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Q I'm trying to get an image of the mechanics. Election worker receives a tray filled with provisional ballot envelopes that are still closed. They open up the -- or they, excuse me, compare the information on the outside of the envelope to information in the data base. If it is -- if it matches,
Q Who crates the in-house batch batches?
A Lead staff at our mail ballot operation satellite.
Q Do you know the names of the people who do that?
A Like in the main people are overseen by Nicole Way, who is the absentee ballot administrator, and then underneath her during the November election, there was essentially three leads, Celeste Dorsey, who oversaw the verification process, Mikki Asmundsen, who oversaw the opening process, and Joanne Gardner, who oversaw the -- actually, Joanne oversaw the insertion process.
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Actually, that entire process that I described from verification to opening to tabulation, duplication enhancement, all of that is observed by political party observers, major party observers that we -- that are designated by the political parties and paid by us to be there to provide that oversight as well as any other observers who are provided by the parties.
Q What opportunities do observers have to object to anything they see?
A Again, the observer process doesn't contemplate an objection process. It is an observation process. So keep track of what you observe and form your opinion of what you've observed, but that the law does not -- the interpretation of the law, as we understand it, does not allow for an observer to disrupt that process, or to object to the manner in which that's being conducted.
Q Do you know what an absentee ballot audit trail is?
A Well, I think an absentee ballot audit trail could be many things, and I think I understand the concept of an absentee ballot audit trail, yes.
Q What is your understanding of the concept of an absentee ballot audit trail?
A I would define it as an accounting of -- of the processing of that absentee ballot from time that it was received through tabulation.
Q Are you familiar with the Washington Administrative Code provision governing absentee ballot audit trails?
A I believe so, yes.
Q Did King County maintain an absentee ballot audit trail?
A Yes, we did.
Q What information was contained in King County's absentee ballot audit trail?
A Well, I think there are different portions of that absentee audit trail. Some of that is contained in the records that are tracked in the voter registration and elections management system associated with when that ballot was issued, when it was received back, when it was verified, which batch it was associated with. And once it's associated with a batch, there is an individual batch slip that we talked about that accompanies it through the process, and that maintains an audit record of that as well. I know that the staff at the mail ballot operations satellite maintains some spread sheet records based on the information on those batch slips, and ultimately that there is also an audit trail associated with the ballot tabulation system that tracks the number of absentee ballots that were counted in each precinct, were required to count to differentiate absentee ballots from poll ballots and to be able to report on those by -- by precinct.
Q If somebody delivers an absentee ballot to the admin building, how do you identify the precinct to which you're going to assign that ballot?
A Well, the ballot is already associated with a precinct based on the registered voter who the ballot was issued to and who returned it.
Q So the precinct returned would reflect an absentee ballot, even if it was -- regardless of whether it was sent in by mail or delivered to a particular poll site, or to the admin building?
A That's going to occur when that ballot gets associated with the batch, and then the batch is uploaded to begin the process of verification, opening, and tabulation.
Q Was part of the King County's absentee ballot audit trail a reconciliation that all absentee ballots counted plus all absentee ballots rejected was equal to the total number of absentee ballots received?
A Can you repeat that?
Q Sure. Was part of King County's absentee ballot audit trail a reconciliation that all absentee ballots counted plus all absentee ballots rejected is equal to the total number of absentee ballots received?
A That was reported in a mail ballot -- in a mail ballot report that is produced to the canvassing board in every election. There is a clear record and audit trail of the number of absentee ballots counted, the number of absentee ballots issued, and the number of absentee ballots rejected. I do not believe that there is a clearly identifiable record that -- that other than from the voter registration system based on those batch uploads that would indicate the total number of ballots received.
A Our voter registration section under the direction of the superintendent and the assistant superintendent of voter services.
Q And what are the names of those people?
A Bill Huennekens and Carlos Webb.
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Q The next recommendation listed on Page 48 of Exhibit 3 says: Track the error rate, and if significant, implement procedural and/or technical changes to reduce the errors.First, did you track the error rate in the November 2004 general election?
A To the extent that I just mentioned, yes, we did track where we were able to identify that this issue existed, yes.
Q Did you consider the error rate significant?
A Yes, I do.
Q Who is on the canvassing crew?
A It's led by Linda Sanchez, who is the elections operations supervisor, and she utilized approximately I would estimate between 25 and 35 individuals in that process, temporary election staff that had been hired to work on the canvassing crew.
Q And to whom does Linda Sanchez report directly?
A She reports to the assistant superintendent of elections operations, Julie Moore.
Q Do you know whether Ms. Sanchez passed along information prior to the certification about these unverified provisional ballots, passed it along to Ms. Moore?
A I don't know specifically about conversations between Linda Sanchez and Julie Moore.