SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — Election workers in Spokane County sifted through boxes and boxes of ballots on Tuesday to ensure the accuracy of the recent election results.
Spokane County was one of several counties across Washington that conducted a post-election audit.
“It’s just one more step that you know the elections go through to ensure that the ballots are being counted the way the voter intended them,” said Mike McLaughlin, Spokane County Elections Manager.
The verification process was part of a statewide and county risk-limiting audit.
“We counted 82 ballots for the lieutenant governor race and the state senator legislative district four race,” said McLaughlin.
A software chose the 82 ballots and races to check at random.
Next, election officials were tasked with finding those 82 ballots from the nearly 300,000 ballots cast, and confirming the results in the system matched what was on the ballots.
Election officials conducted the audit while election observers watched every step of the process.
Tom Barnhart has been a volunteer election observer for several years. He has concerns about mail-in voting, but said he was happy with what he witnessed during the audit.
“I hold the election folks to the highest regard. They’re doing everything that they’re required to do under the law,” he said.
Officials hand-recorded the results into the system and found no discrepancies between their recordings and the machine’s original counts.
“It’s normal to have no discrepancies. That’s what we expect. That’s what we strive for, and that’s what we got,” said McLaughlin.
Official election results will be certified Tuesday, November 26.
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