Elma voters will receive a second ballot in the coming days after the Grays Harbor County Auditor’s Office didn’t include a police levy measure on the ballots mailed last week.
“On Friday afternoon, I found out that the measure did not appear on the ballot that went to the City of Elma residents,” county Auditor Vern Spatz said on Monday afternoon. “We’re going to create a second ballot for the citizens of Elma only. That ballot will be mailed out this week — Thursday at the latest.”
The new ballots will be color-coded to differentiate from the ballots already sent out. When the ballots are returned, the county will separate the ballots and count only the second ballot if two ballots are submitted by the same voter. If voters don’t respond to the second ballot but submitted the first, the auditor’s office will bring those ballots to the canvass board for consideration.
As of Monday morning, Elma Mayor Jim Sorensen was frustrated with the situation. As of Monday morning, the county auditor’s office hadn’t yet decided how to fix the situation.
“The county screwed up,” Sorensen said. “Elections are too important to allow a clerical mistake to keep something off the ballot.”
A police levy has been passed by voters every year since 2015. The levy allows the city to maintain the police department at its current staff level.
As the city has in past years, the same levy was set to be on November ballots if it didn’t pass in August.
“It still would have been possible, no matter what, for the citizens of Elma to vote for or against that proposition. They would have only had one shot instead of two,” Spatz said.
Sorensen stressed how important it is for the city to have a chance at the levy twice in an election cycle, especially given recent changes within the city.
“It gives us one less chance,” Sorensen said. “It gives us only one chance. We have a whole new dynamic in this election because of the annexation, so we can’t really count on previous numbers.”
Earlier this year, the county approved annexation of properties from western city limits out to Schouweiler Road and south to the highway. County elections administrator Lori Ochmann said those residents haven’t yet been added to the election base as she hadn’t received official notification.
Initially, Sorensen says he was told there was nothing the auditor’s office could do. By Monday afternoon, that situation had changed.
“I’ve been in communication with Mayor Jim Sorensen and city attorney Dan Glenn, and after more investigation, I found out the city did submit a resolution in time and according to our procedures,” Spatz said.
The issue was caused by a miscommunication between county staff. When the city brought the resolution to the county, it was brought to the recordings department. The recordings department did not forward the resolution to the elections department.
“We’re the ones that are at fault. I don’t think there’s shared responsibility at all,” Spatz said. “We have to make it right. We have to do what we can do. It’ll be a little bit confusing for some people, but we have procedures in place that we will follow. We will make sure every vote that can be counted will be counted. And the city will get two bites at the apple instead of just one.”
In the afternoon, Sorensen said the solution to send new ballots took the situation “from frustration to A-OK.”
“That’s exactly all I wanted,” Sorensen said. “I fully understand people make mistakes, mistakes happen. It’s fixing mistakes that really count.”
If passed, the levy will generate $200,000 total for 2018. That’s down from $250,000 in 2017.
At $200,000 the levy will cost property tax payers 94 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. The owner of a property valued at $150,000 will pay $141. The levy will replace the levy set to expire at the end of the year.
