Fixing rejected ballots could tip balance in lands commissioner race • Washington State Standard

Dave Upthegrove suspects there are about two dozen voters in the San Juan Islands who cast primary ballots in his favor that were rejected. The Democratic lands commissioner candidate said Thursday he might call friends or local party officials there to help track these people down and see if their ballots can be fixed and counted.

The level of effort and precision in this outreach reflects how tight the race is for the second spot between Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson 10 days after the Aug. 6 primary. It’s a squeaker that could come down to a couple hundred votes – or less – as they duel to move onto the general election.

Both campaigns are scrambling to reach voters who might be able to “cure” ballots with problems – like signatures that don’t match those on file with election offices.

As of Friday evening, Upthegrove was ahead by just 951 votes. His advantage has eroded as votes have been tallied in rural counties where Pederson enjoys stronger support. A Friday count in Walla Walla County narrowed his lead, which was around 1,900 votes in the late afternoon.

Both sides expect a mandatory recount in the contest.

The second-place finisher will compete in the November election against Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler. If it’s Pederson, no Democrat will appear on the November ballot in the race. Five Democrats ran in the primary fracturing the party’s vote.

“We know from all our modeling it’s incredibly close,” said Sam Cardwell, Pederson’s campaign manager.

Upthegrove said Thursday that predictive models he’s looking at in recent days indicate that he could either win or lose the second-place spot by 200 votes or less. Any surprising trends as the final votes are tabulated could easily tilt the race. 

“There was one point a day or two ago where our model showed me down by three votes,” he said. 

“We’re right on the razor’s edge,” he added. 

Curing efforts

Upthegrove said his campaign has more than 400 volunteers making calls, sending texts, and doing door-to-door canvassing to reach voters whose ballots were challenged but are thought to be fixable. He said the best “guestimate” is that this effort could help him scoop up around 2,400 more votes from the roughly 7,000 “curable” Democratic ballots in play on Thursday.

He has performed strongly on his home turf in population-dense King County, where he chairs the County Council. He said Thursday there were almost 1,900 rejected Democratic ballots there. In the county, he’d secured about 46% of the Democratic vote, meaning an estimated 860 or so of those outstanding ballots could break in his favor if they were to be cured and counted. 

Data showed he could potentially pick up 175 votes in Kitsap County, 149 in Clark County, and 130 in Whatcom County, he also said.

The Des Moines resident said his condo had become the “war room” for the ballot curing campaign and that he’d been spending time trying to recruit volunteers to help with it.

Cardwell was less forthcoming about Pederson’s ballot-curing operation. “We have a pretty robust strategy,” he said. “We’re focused on the smaller counties in eastern Washington.” 

“We’re super excited and super encouraged by how many people are helping,” he added.

He declined to provide details about the strength of volunteer numbers or what projections the campaign is looking at are showing.

If the difference between the candidates is less than 0.5% of the total votes cast for both of them and also less than 2,000 votes, a machine recount is required. A hand recount is triggered if the difference is less than 1,000 votes and under 0.25% of the total votes cast for both candidates.

Upthegrove said he expected it could be at least Monday before the outcome of the race is clear. County election officials have until Tuesday to certify their ballot counts. Next Friday is the deadline for the secretary of state to certify the primary results.

“We all work so hard for a year, to get to election night, and you gather and there’s all this tension, and you want it to be over, and then all of a sudden it just dribbles out for another week or so,” Upthegrove said. “It can be a little frustrating.”