Pepper Fisher

CLALLAM COUNTY — We reported yesterday on a warning put out by Washington’s Secretary of State Kim Wyman about a dubious website that offers to voters ballot information and voter turnout by county. It also lists voters who’s ballot have been “rejected”, something she says is not happening.

Wyman’s office reported the site to the Department of Homeland Security as misinforming the public, and pointed out that the website does not state who created it and the site’s owner appeared to have taken steps to hide their identity.

Today we’ve learned that officials with the Department of Homeland Security were able to identify the site developers, and coordinated a virtual meeting between them and the Office of the Secretary of State Wednesday afternoon.

As for ballots being “rejected”, Wyman explains it this way; No ballot that has been returned for the 2020 General Election has been rejected. The term ‘rejected’ is a system code that signals to county election officials the ballot cannot be tabulated until some issue has been resolved.

Most often, ballots marked as ‘rejected’ are missing a signature or the signature applied does not match the one on file in the voter’s registration record.

County election officials reach out to voters whose ballots are missing signatures or the signature does not match to resolve the error. Voters have until 20 days after Election Day to ‘cure’ their signature.

Clallam County Auditor Shoona Riggs says letters to voters began going out on Monday if their signature on their ballot envelope has been challenged. She says they will be receiving a letter in the mail very soon.

Voters are reminded that VoteWA.gov is the state’s official voter registration and information portal.