King County's [the Democrat's strongest county, where Gregoire got 78% of the votes] mail ballot supervisor raised concerns about the county's inability to track ballots as early as spring of 2004, she testified Wednesday in the gubernatorial election challenge trial.
Nicole Way testified she repeatedly told her supervisors that the county elections department couldn't tell how many ballots were being mailed out or received back.
....Way said she repeatedly talked to her direct supervisor, Garth Fell, and his boss, Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens, about the problems.
....She said that she and her supervisor, Garth Fell, agreed to simply add the number of ballots accepted and rejected to get the total number of ballots returned, because the county's tracking system was unable to accurately produce that number.
[GOP Attorney Harry] Korrell asked whether Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens - Fell's boss - knew the report was inaccurate before he presented it to the county canvassing board.
"I thought he did," Way said.
On Tuesday, Huennekens denied knowing in advance about inaccuracies in the Nov. 17 mail ballot report.
"I don't remember specifically" talking to Way or Fell about the report, Huennekens testified. GOP attorney Rob Maguire asked if he knew how the numbers were calculated.
"I can't say that I did, no," Huennekens said.
"Does King County know the true number of absentee ballots returned for the 2004 November general election?" Maguire asked.
"We physically have them," Huennekens replied. "I don't know that we have an exact number."
It was only on the third count that Republican Dino Rossi's initial lead was turned into a 129 vote victory for Gregoire.
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