Two Jefferson County residents have been rebuked for voting twice in the November 2004 election.
In addition to filing ballots in Jefferson County, Tami L. Mathias of Port Ludlow voted in King County, and Phineas Porter of Port Townsend voted in Snohomish County.
Jefferson County officials spotted one of the duplicate registrations in January 2006, and a public records request filed by a resident of King County revealed the other, according to county Auditor Donna Eldridge.
But while vote fraud is a felony in Washington and carries a five-year prison sentence, a fine of up to $10,000 or both, neither voter is expected to face charges.
County records indicate Mathias registered to vote in September 2004 – about seven weeks before the general election. Porter registered to vote in May 2004, about five months before the primary election. And in both cases, absentee ballots were used to vote in elections outside Jefferson County.
But according to David Alvarez, deputy prosecuting attorney for Jefferson County, proving they voted twice intentionally rather than accidentally is extremely difficult.
“They’d probably come in and say, ‘Oh, I forgot I voted in the other county,’” he said. And the county would have no way to prove otherwise.
Because of the decision not to file charges, Jefferson County Prosecutor Juelie Dalzell has come under fire from some local Republicans still angry about Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire’s victory in the 2004 election despite statewide voter-registration discrepancies and allegations of intentional vote fraud.
Gregoire won the election with a 133-vote margin that was later challenged repeatedly in court. Her victory was finally upheld this month – 16 months after the controversial election that put her in office.
Port Townsend businesswoman Edel Sokol, a precinct officer for the Jefferson County Republican Party, said the two fraudulent votes are evidence of critical flaws in the 2004 election that some believe cost Republican candidate Dino Rossi the governor’s seat. Sokol led Rossi’s campaign in this county.
“All voters were disenfranchised by people such as these,” Sokol wrote in an e-mail to The Leader. “Since we can’t deport them to Belarus, they should lose their voting privilege and serve jail time so they may reflect on what our founding fathers had in mind, and voting twice was not it.”
Names stay on file
While the county prosecutor’s office has no plans to press charges, Alvarez did send the two a letter of warning. In the letter, Alvarez wrote:
“Voting twice will not be tolerated. This office will NOT press criminal charges with respect to the 2004 election on the assumption that you made an honest mistake, but will keep your name on file for likely criminal prosecution in the future if you attempt to vote twice again.”
Alvarez said the point of the letter is to prevent the fraud from happening again.
“We’re saying we know what you did, and we don’t like it. And we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but don’t do it again,” he said.
But Jefferson County Republican Party Chairman Jim Hagen said it’s not enough to just send a letter.
“The prosecutor’s office is responsible for enforcing the law, plain and simple, and should treat this no different from any other type of theft,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Leader. “Brushing off these violations with a ‘warning’ defeats the purpose of having election laws in the first place.”
Better tracking
As both Mathias and Porter are living in Jefferson County, the county auditor’s office has canceled their out-of-county voter registrations.
A new statewide voter database should allow county officials to spot duplicate registration problems in the future, Auditor Eldridge said.
“I think now with this statewide voter-registration database, unless you’ve got a phony ID or something, we’re going to catch it when you register,” she said.
The system allows cross-checking of driver’s license numbers, birthdates and digital copies of signatures filed when residents register to vote. The database also can be used to check for convicted felons who attempt to register to vote before having their voting rights officially restored.
As of January 2006, Eldridge’s office had identified 132 people who were registered to vote in more than one county. Some 80 percent of those were inactive and either had not filed ballots or had filed ballots in only one county.
The discrepancies have since been resolved, Eldridge said.
“I think voters are more aware now, but some people aren’t going to have a lot of integrity and will do what they can to manipulate an election,” she said. “We just have to do what we can to improve the system.”
For "the rest of the story" and full coverage of all Port Townsend and Jefferson County news, events and people, subscribe to our award-winning weekly newspaper.
