Nearly 6,000 Spokane County voters were sent ballots missing tax measures in the Aug. 4 primary.

The issue affecting the most voters is in Airway Heights, where voters decided in August 2023 to join the Spokane County Library District. All 5,064 ballots sent to Airway Heights voters were missing a property tax measure for the district.

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton said the error was discovered Tuesday afternoon. All Airway Heights voters will be mailed a supplemental ballot on Thursday with the library measure.

Another almost 800 voters in Colbert were mailed primary ballots missing Spokane Transit Authority's tax renewal measure, despite living inside the tax district. Nearly 400 voters in Colbert and an area south of Liberty Lake were mailed ballots that included the STA measure even though they live outside STA's district.

Dalton said the STA measure errors was reported by voters to the election's office on Monday. Election staff doubled-checked the STA boundaries and verified the problems.

The Spokane Transit Authority has 309,646 registered voters, of whom 1,156 were sent erroneous ballots.

Spokane County is divided by voting precincts that help in the organization and counting of ballots. Precinct 6038 in Colbert is a horizontal rectangle that includes Midway Elementary School. It has a southern boundary of Midway Road and western boundary of Hatch Road. The western half is inside the public transportation benefit area, which is STA's tax district, and the eastern is out. But Dalton said that when the county election system was transferred to the state system in 2019, it was improperly switched, and county officials did not catch the error.

"In 2019, we went on to a new elections system, and although the lines were loaded properly into the system, the designation for the individual voters was not," Dalton said.

This is the first STA election since 2016.

"STA is one of those that gets very little activity because they don't have elected positions, they only have tax issues, so that's why it wasn't discovered sooner," said Dalton, who issued an apology about the ballot errors.

The auditor's office mailed replacement ballots Tuesday correcting the omission.

Voters who receive the replacement ballot are instructed to completely fill out and return the replacement ballot, even if they have already returned their initial ballot.

"If they've already sent us a ballot back, we're going to be able to capture that and hold that return envelope and not open it, waiting for that second correct ballot to come to us," Dalton said in an interview. "If they don't send us the second correct ballot, then we'll open and count the first ballot."

Only the second ballot will be counted if voters send in both ballots.

Voters who are not within the STA district but received ballots that included the STA measure will not receive new ballots. Their votes on the STA measure will not be counted even if it was marked, but the rest of the ballot will be. That includes some voters in Precinct 6038 in Colbert as well as Precinct 9005 south of Liberty Lake.

"We are grateful the auditor's office caught this error in time, and we trust the issue will be properly resolved," said Carly Cortright, the STA's chief communications and customer service officer. "It's important that all voters within the Spokane County Public Transportation Benefit Area have an opportunity to vote on STA Proposition 1."

Washington's secretary of state will not play a role in overseeing the process.

"As this is a local issue, we don't have much of a role here aside from offering support if the county requests it," said Helen Smith, spokesperson for the secretary of state spokesperson .

Spokane Business Association President Gavin Cooley, who opposes the proposed 0.2% STA tax renewal, accredited the ballot distribution error to the complex discrepancies between transit and precinct boundaries.

"I'll mention I have the greatest respect for Vicky Dalton. She's just been a phenomenal auditor for the county. I don't know the details of how that happened, but she's one of the most capable people I've ever known," Cooley said.

Cooley has argued that STA can maintain services with its main 0.6% sales tax. He and others who oppose the measure also point to STA reserve funds that they say are unnecessarily high. Most STA leaders say the extra 0.2% helps attract grants from sources that want to make sure investments can be sustained with stable operations money. Supporters add that the tax keeps STA out of debt when making hefty purchases, like buses and will be essential for improving service.

Government editor Jonathan Brunt and Teen Journalism Institute interns Miller Coyne and Cimarron Waldo contributed to this article.

Benedikt Larson's reporting is part of the Teen Journalism Institute, funded by STCU with support from Comma.

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