Yakima County elections officials were expecting hundreds of ballots from the U.S. Postal Service this morning. They received four.
The low total, received less than two days after the deadline for voters to mail ballots, perplexed officials who were expecting hundreds. Then this afternoon, the Postal Service found between 250 and 350 extra ballots that didn’t get lumped in with the others and delivered them to the Auditor’s Office.
Auditor Charles Ross said he was told the late delivery was the result of an error in how the Postal Service processes the mail. Postal Service spokesman Ernie Swanson in Seattle said only that the additional ballots “accumulated” at some point in the day and the mail service made a special delivery this afternoon.