Public commenters press Washington County commissioners for election audit after spreadsheet and ballot-date concerns

Multiple residents used public-comment periods at the Jan. 28 Washington County meeting to call for a public, bipartisan audit of the Nov. 5, 2024 election and to raise specific concerns about ballot processing and voter-roll maintenance.

Jackie Poppin and Jill Latray addressed the commissioners during the work session and public-comment periods with questions about the county elections office's handling and timing of post-election processes. Jill Latray thanked the board for submitting questions to the elections office and said county staff had provided answers attached to an earlier work-session agenda; she offered to meet with county elections staff to review concerns.

Mary Halkiopoulos presented a compiled timeline comparing the dates the county reported mailing ballots (September 20 for UOCAVA overseas ballots; Oct. 7 for out-of-state voters; Oct. 16 for the general mailing) with what she said the county's BP032 report shows for ballots received. On the BP032 output she gave the board, she said, 5,871 ballots were logged as received on Sept. 23, a figure she said exceeds the roughly 27,100 ballots that she said were mailed to overseas voters and therefore cannot be explained by legitimate overseas returns alone. "How does a paper ballot make it to an overseas voter and back within 3 days?" she asked.

Halkiopoulos urged commissioners to "initiate necessary action to make our elections truly accurate and lawful" and warned another election was approaching. She also described data from a public-records request showing the county received 307,020 ballot envelopes overall and noted elections staff had told the board that between about 40% and 70% of envelopes go through manual signature verification. Using those percentages, she calculated that between about 122,000 and 215,900 envelopes would have been checked manually and told commissioners that the manual review can take only "3 to 5 seconds a piece," a point she said raises risks of error.

Bob Terry and John Woods also urged action. Terry, a former county commissioner, cited constitutional and federal voting protections and said the county's voter rolls have long-standing problems; he asked commissioners to exercise local oversight rather than deferring to the secretary of state. John Woods recommended a "complete bipartisan public transparent audit of the voter rolls" and said federal scrutiny could follow if local concerns are not addressed.

Speakers referenced the elections office manager's earlier statement (at a Jan. 21 work session) that county staff believe the Nov. 5, 2024 election "was a successful election conducted accurately and in accordance with all applicable state and federal laws." Commenters presented their own data and expressed doubt that the checks the elections office described would prevent the anomalies they allege.

Commissioners did not take formal action during the Jan. 28 meeting on the requests for an audit; the comments were part of the public-comment periods and were not followed by motions or votes. Several speakers asked commissioners to continue oversight, to review records, or to permit observation of signature-verification processes.

The county elections office and the board did not announce any immediate audit or investigation during the meeting.