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Janice Squires was surprised to receive a phone call this week telling her there was a problem with her ballot.
It was an automated message from the state Republican Party, and it said she should contact the auditor's office to find out how to fix the ballot.
"I have never had a call like that before," said Squires, 59, of Kennewick.
The only problem with the call: There actually wasn't any problem. Her mail-in ballot had been suspended, but that's only because Squires, who is blind, voted in person using a computerized voting machine for people with disabilities and the auditor's office didn't want her to be able to vote twice.
Squires' false impression that there was something wrong with the ballot she cast was a byproduct of one of the strategies the Republicans and Democrats use to get out the vote.
Throughout Washington, both parties get daily reports from county auditors -- including the ones for Benton and Franklin counties -- on who has voted and the status of their ballots.
Auditors won't start counting votes until Tuesday. But as the ballots arrive through the mail, the auditor's offices examine the envelopes to make sure they've been signed properly and start prepping them for tabulation.
The information about whose ballots have come in and whether they're acceptable to be counted is public. The parties can use that information to contact people who have a history of supporting their party and urge them to be sure to vote or to take steps to fix a problem with their ballot.
Squires said at first she was bewildered that her voting activity was public knowledge. But then she appreciated the phone call, she said, because she would want to know if she still needed to do something to make her ballot count.
But Benton County Auditor Bobbie Gagner said the parties' efforts can be unhelpful when they give out false information about the status of a voter's ballot.
"It's taking a lot of our staff time away from what we really need to be doing ... to assure people that they don't need to worry about what the parties have told them, that their ballot has been accepted," Gagner said.
Besides, she said, whenever there really is a problem with a ballot -- the signature on the envelope doesn't match the one in the database or there isn't a signature at all -- the auditor's office will notify the voter directly, as required by state law.
When there's a question about a signature, the auditor first will send a letter to notify the voter to come in and address it. Then a few days before the election canvassing in late November, the auditor actually will call any of those voters who still haven't contacted the office to give them one last chance to come by and straighten out their ballot problem.
Franklin County Auditor Zona Lenhart said such problems are common.
"What happens a lot of times, husbands will sign for wives or wives will sign for husbands, thinking it doesn't matter," Lenhart said. "It's very common for people to think that's OK to do. It is not."
Gagner's office reported that through the middle of this week, her office had received 71 ballots that were unsigned, 113 had questionable signatures and 301 were replacement ballots, which also have to be suspended until election workers can verify the originals aren't also counted.
She advised people contacted by the political parties to wait until her office notifies them before calling in to ask about a problem.
"It's the parties' right to contact people. We understand that. But they are confusing the voters, and the voters are uneasy ...," Gagner said.
Lenhart said it hasn't been an issue for her office because she only gives the parties a list of suspended ballots after her office mails out the notification letters to the voters. She waits a day to share the list with the parties because she doesn't think the parties should get the information before the voters do, she said.
Luke Esser, chairman of the state Republican Party, said he would want to work with any county to make sure party workers understand the auditors' notations for suspended ballots.
Giving voters false information would only annoy them and amount to unnecessary work for the party, he said.
An area that concerns him, he said, is that not all counties follow the same policy for notifying voters of problem ballots. Benton County is one of about seven counties that don't allow any outside parties to help voters resolve signature problems with suspended ballots.
In those counties that do allow third-party involvement, the political parties may even send forms to voters for them to sign to get their ballots out of suspension.
The variance in policy from county to county is an area that could result in election litigation, Esser said. If it's harder to rehabilitate a ballot in one county than in another, that creates different chances for votes to be counted, he said.
"You remember Bush vs. Gore. We're supposed to have the same standard all around the state," he said.
The state Democratic Party didn't return a request for comment for this report.
