FROM THE AUDITOR

The Nov. 9 edition of the Shelton-Mason County Journal published statistics for the number of challenged ballots as of 8 p.m. on election night, "Mason County had the highest percentage of contested ballots in Washington's 39 counties, with more that 3.5% of the votes being cast contested." So, what's going on?

The contested ballots included many rejected for "signature mismatch." Signature verification is done by trained, experienced elections staff. Despite training and experience, signature verification is subjective. Our signature verifiers reject a signature when there is reasonable un...