County official fired over November ballot snafu
The woman in charge of running the day-to-day operations of King County elections has been fired over problems in last year's general election.
Julie Anne Kempf, election superintendent for three years, was sacked after an internal review of November's election charged her with deceiving her superiors, the County Council and the general public about why hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots were delayed in reaching voters.
In a detailed report, the county charges Kempf with lying, instructing staffers to hide information about the delay from her boss, creating scripts for county phone workers that had them spreading misinformation to hundreds of voters, and nearly compromising the election by releasing a "complete" vote count that didn't account for more than 1,500 ballots.
"You have demonstrated serious deficiencies in judgment, a reckless disregard for the truth and a pattern of dishonesty and deception that has irreparably harmed the employer/employee relationship," Bob Roegner, manager of Records, Elections and Licensing Services, wrote in a letter to Kempf explaining the report.
In a statement, Kempf's attorney said she would appeal the firing.
"After Mr. Roegner's allegations are scrutinized and a broader view of the issues affecting the elections division emerges, I can assure you Ms. Kempf will be vindicated," said Judy Krebs.
Kempf's termination had been anticipated since it became apparent that more than 450,000 absentee ballots were arriving closer to Election Day than in past elections.
In the two weeks surrounding the election, several reasons were given for why ballots hadn't been received by voters as Election Day drew close. Most notably, blame was placed on a court-ordered change in the Seattle monorail initiative; King County Executive Ron Sims declared that was the primary reason behind the trouble. County officials also insisted for more than a week that all ballots were in the mail by Oct. 26, despite the fact that 163,000 (more than one-third of the total) went out days later.
Soon after Kempf blamed part of the 11-day delay on the Washington, D.C., sniper case — which she said led the governor of Maryland to urge all citizens to vote absentee and subsequently caused a backlog at a ballot printer also used by King County — Kempf was prohibited by Roegner from talking to the media about the election.
As the excuses were disproved and retracted, they were blamed on Kempf. Roegner placed her on administrative leave Dec. 6.
"I can no longer hold you in a position of trust and responsibility," Roegner wrote in the letter to Kempf.
Roegner, who wouldn't comment on the report yesterday, said Kempf's firing is part of a plan to reform the county's election process to prevent a repeat of last year's problems. Although Roegner insists the election was not compromised, a review of e-mails from voters to his office shows that scores, particularly those out of state, claimed to have received their ballots too late to vote.
State law requires all absentee ballots be "ready to mail" 20 days before the general election. Last year, that day was Oct. 16. But a lack of computer expertise resulted in problems creating the templates for the ballots. Final drafts weren't submitted until Oct. 17, a day after all were to be printed and ready for voters. The last ballots weren't sent to the post office until just a week before the election.
Roegner and the office were criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike. Aside from the delay, it was the series of incorrect statements that drew the most fire.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," Paul Berendt, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said at the time.
During testimony to the County Council last December, Roegner apologized for the wrong information he helped spread. He also announced a number of changes to the office, including increasing computer expertise among the staff, and urged the council to back election reforms on the state level.
The council's reaction was to request an outside review of the office. Several members said they still didn't feel confident the problems wouldn't occur again, especially with 600,000 absentee votes expected to be cast in the 2004 presidential election.
Chris Vance, a former councilman who is now chairman of the state Republican Party, said Kempf's dismissal doesn't make him feel more confident about the county's ability to run its elections.
"King County came within a day or two of a complete disaster," he said. "They need to get the system fixed, and this doesn't make me feel any better because the problems still exist. This just adds to the public's lack of trust in what the government tells them."
Berendt, though, said he believes Roegner, the only county election chief in the state not elected, has gone far to regain the trust of voters. "It's time for people to be held accountable in there," he said. "It's a relief that something's being done to solve the problems."
Kempf, who spoke briefly to reporters at last month's hearings, has hinted she will soon release information telling a different story of what went wrong.
Internal e-mail between Kempf and other elections employees shows that she knew the ballots were late.
On Oct. 16, she sent e-mail to employees urging them all to help proof ballots before they were sent to the printer. Earlier that morning, she'd e-mailed Roegner telling him ballots were available over the counter, despite the fact that people who tried to get a ballot were given a sample and told to come back another day.
One of the main accusations against Kempf is that she intentionally kept information about the problems from Roegner. In an e-mail to Sean Bouffiou, who conducted the internal review, Nicole Way, the acting supervisor for absentee voting, recalled an Oct. 23 meeting with the department's managers. After Way told the group the department still hadn't mailed all of the ballots, she said Kempf held her and another supervisor afterward and chastised them for telling about the delay because it would get back to Roegner.
"I was very upset at the time that we were not supposed to be honest with one another," Way wrote.
But another major charge, the report said, had the potential to cause the most trouble. After Kempf surprised a Nov. 19 election meeting by announcing the final monorail tally without first informing Roegner, he said he pushed Kempf to tell him how many votes were still left to count. Roegner said Kempf first told him only a handful remained.
The next day, which was the deadline for certification of the election, Roegner said Kempf told him 281 votes hadn't been counted the day before, and later said the number was closer to 1,000. The final amount turned out to be 1,536, which were later added to the tally but did not change the vote to build the monorail system in Seattle.
"While it had not actually occurred," the report said, "had the more than 1,500 votes changed any of the outcomes, Ms. Kempf's actions would have left the agency open to legal challenge."
John Zebrowski: 206-464-8292 or jzebrowski@seattletimes.com.
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