Duenkel shakes up election office

Mason County Auditor Steve Duenkel made some changes after taking office in January, including moving the Auditor's offices upstairs in Building 1 of the county downtown campus.

"Everybody has their workstation and office upstairs, allowed us to reorganize and redesign the ballot processing center to really make things more efficient and to accommodate more election observers," Duenkel told the Journal. "(Upstairs), we just wanted to get everyone more integrated with an eye toward better customer service in mind, especially for people who have a need for replacement ballots or who are registering to vote, that type of thing. Downstairs, it's really about making things more open, more transparent and more accessible."

The Vote Center on the first floor underwent changes and is open to election observers. People interested in observing elections can use a kiosk to sign in, state an affiliation if observing for a political party, organization or just an interested resident, take a photo of themselves and then knock on the door to the Vote Center to receive a nametag with the information and are then able to observe.

The process for how votes go through the center starts with them being collected at ballot boxes throughout the county and placed into blue duffel bags. The bags are brought into the center and are processed into bundles. From there, they are put on a tray and a moveable shelf to go to the signature verification corner, an area with three computers where election officials verify the signature through the state database.

The ballots then go to a hand count to confirm the number of ballots in a bundle, and then are removed from their envelopes and placed into a batch to be scanned by the voting machines, with up to 100 ballots per scan. The ballots are then put into a box and then kept in a back storage room in case a recount or audit is needed.

Mason County commissioners approved the Auditor's Office purchase of a Faraday cage last month, and Duenkel said the fabric for the Faraday cages has been built into the wall around the area where the voting machines are.

"One of the concerns that is out there is the potential vulnerability of the election system or the elections network to disturbances, intrusions from radio frequencies," Duenkel said. "So we wanted to take what measures were reasonable and appropriate to try to protect the computers and servers and tabulators and scanners form any outside electronic radiowave services. So we're working with the Secretary of State's office right now with a couple other counties to figure out how we would effectively do some testing to make sure everything is well protected against wireless intrusion, but that's still kind of a work in progress and hope to have some more defined plans within the next few weeks."

There is no history of that occurring in Mason County, according to Duenkel, but he said this is the first time they are taking the concern seriously and approaching the redesign of ballot processing with that in mind. He said he plans to invite election observers to witness the testing of the measures when all measures are in place.

"We're going to have a special cabinet to protect against stray electromagnetic sources for the servers and then we've built in some features with Faraday fabric into the enclosure for the tabulators so we'll be using that fabric in other ways, we're still working our way through that," Duenkel said.

Duenkel said that the layout of the new Vote Center creates more space and is more logically laid out with less clutter in the room. Duenkel said while the Vote Center has changed, nothing about the tabulation process has changed.

"We have plans, (Marie Stevenson) is in the hunt for a ballot sorting machine that we want to implement up front to facilitate the sorting and batching of ballots when we bring them in through the mail," Duenkel said. "That will set the stage for signature verification process that will be more transparent to the public because you'll have a chance to see the image that is scanned off the ballot envelope. Right next to or right above the image that is stored in VoteWa, the voter registration database, so not only will the person responsible for signature verification have a chance to eyeball those things side-by-side, but so will the election observers."

A signature that is exactly the same is a red flag, according to Duenkel. He said an exact signature match could be a stamp, tracing or printing, but when asked if using a stamp was illegal, Duenkel said he did not know.

If a signature is rejected, the voter will be contacted and be given the chance to remedy the situation. Duenkel said it is important for people to come down to the Auditor's Office and ensure their signature is consistent and the signature in the database is still accurate and to update contact information in case a ballot is rejected and the office needs to contact the person.

Author Bio

Matt Baide, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
Email: matt@masoncounty.com

• Email: matt@masoncounty.com