Citizen caught in election snafu advises awareness at filing time

BREWSTER – There’s an old joke about the man who said he checked the newspapers’ obituary section every morning, and if he did not see his name there, he proceeded to make breakfast.
The same caution might be applied to checking the list of nominees filing for elective office to verify that your name is not among them, particularly if you did not file for any office.
What would you do if you found your name placed into nomination on an election ballot for an office you neither sought, filed for, nor granted permission for another to file on your behalf?
Even more problematic, what if you won?
Brewster resident Clark Cooper can testify from experience that such an event did happen to him in last November’s General Election and that the ensuing consequences were both unexpected and unpleasant.
Cooper discovered his name as one of two candidates seeking the non-partisan four-year term for Brewster School District 111-203J Director 3 on the November ballot. The other candidate was incumbent Maria A. Maldonado.
Cooper was nominated through the Okanogan County Auditor’s online filing menu on the website www.okanogancounty.org/Auditor. Online filing opened at 9 a.m., Monday, May 15, and closed at 4 p.m. on Friday, May 19.  The auditor held a special three-day filing from May 23-25 when several Okanogan County offices failed to attract candidates. During the latter filing period, an unknown person or persons registered Cooper’s name as a candidate for the Brewster School District Director’s position.
By email, the auditor’s office advises opponents “when another candidate files for the same position.”  Maldonado confirmed that such an advisory was received by her on the last day of filing.
The website also allows the online filer to submit a voters’ pamphlet statement and photo online. Neither item was submitted on Cooper’s behalf.
Clark said his first notification that he was a candidate came by a phone call from the Quad City Herald. When Cooper was contacted for some statements to be included in a newspaper profile about his decision to run and qualifications for office, he informed the Quad that he was neither a candidate nor did he authorize anyone to enter his name on his behalf.
Page 5 of the Candidate Guide for Okanogan County, prepared by the auditor’s office, includes instructions for Withdrawal of Candidacy that state in part:
“A candidate may withdraw his or her declaration of candidacy at any time before the close of business on the Monday following the last day for candidates to file under RCW 29A.24.050 by filing, with the officer with whom the declaration of candidacy was filed, a signed request that his or her name not be printed on the ballot.”
Since the last day for candidates to file is the previous Friday, there is ample time for someone in the loop to reverse course, but it’s a very small window for someone who is not.
Cooper contacted Okanogan County Auditor Laurie Thomas to try to withdraw his name.
“If I had gotten hold of Laurie earlier before the ballots came out I could have put a stop to it,” said Cooper “but I didn’t know to do that ‘til it was too late.”
Thomas told Cooper that the records showed his name was entered into nomination at 7:37 p.m. on May 24.
“Interestingly, that’s almost exactly the time that I go to work,” said Cooper of his evening shift at Gebbers Farms.
The coincidence leads him to suspect that his nomination was possibly an inside job by a co-worker.
For its part, the Okanogan County Auditor’s Office, in accordance with Revised Code of Washington statutes, sent the requisite candidacy documents to Cooper in care of the email address used to submit his name. Cooper does not own a personal computer and does not have an email address, so the information never found its way to him.
If a filing fee had been required for Cooper’s office and had not been submitted by the filing deadline, then his name would not have appeared on the ballot. Since the school district director position is an unpaid post, a filing fee was not required.
Mila Jury, the county’s Chief Deputy Auditor and Election Supervisor, said online filing requires the candidate’s date of birth along with a name, so a database search can verify identity and allow the candidate to complete the filing process. Aside from that, and in compliance with the RCW, no other verification is needed to file online, not even a written signature.
Jury said that candidates have an additional seven days to submit profiles for the voters’ pamphlet in accordance with guidelines stipulated in the statewide Washington Election Information System (WEI).
Cooper said the last time he received paperwork from Olympia concerning his candidacy he returned it blank and told state officials that he was not and never had been a candidate for public office.
“Then they backed off and I haven’t heard from them since,” said Cooper “but I don’t totally trust that because some of these things never seem to go away.”
Cooper later notified Brewster School Superintendent Eric Driessen of the error and of his intent not to fill the position.
When the election results were certified on Nov. 28, they showed Cooper the winner with 223 votes (50.8 percent) over Maldonado with 216 votes (49.2 percent).
“My mom and I both cast ballots against me,” said Cooper, but he won nonetheless.
Maldonado was awarded the position in consequence of Cooper’s recusal.
“I thought it was really strange,” said Maldonado of Cooper’s unsolicited candidacy. “because I had to do so many things to get my name on the ballot.”
Cooper graduated Brewster High School in 1982, went to college in Hawaii, and spent the next 28 years there working in the security field before returning to Brewster in 2010 to continue that line of work.
“Over 140 million people had their information compromised,” said Cooper referring to the 2017 Equifax breach which is one of the reasons he cited for never having a personal computer. “I didn’t want that kind of problem.”
Cooper said his mother also had her credit card information compromised more than once “and I had to jump through hoops to take care of these things.”
While he does not want to cause any problems for election officials and others involved in the registration process, Cooper does want them to be aware of the potential for abuse of the system.
“I just want the system to be changed so it doesn’t happen again,” said Cooper. “I don’t want anyone else to go through this and get threatening letters and phone calls from state government Office of Disclosure, Public Records or whatever that was.”
Jury is not sure any more can be done if the process is going to be kept open and flowing.
“I don’t think we need to restrict it more,” Jury said.
“A lot of the election system is based on good faith,” said Jury and added that in her 42 years in her position, Cooper’s is the first case of its kind she has seen.
“Í don’t know what happened on this one,” Jury said.
As a safeguard against another such incident as Cooper suffered, Jury recommends that citizens check the candidate page on the auditor’s website for an up-to-date listing of all individuals who have filed for office. They can also tune in to their local radio station to hear the names of those running.
“I just want the system to be changed so it doesn’t happen again,” said Cooper. “I don’t want anyone else to go through this and get threatening letters and phone calls from state government Office of Disclosure, Public Records or whatever that was.”
Cooper said he is a member of fraternal clubs that will not serve those who cannot produce a membership card.
“The stakes are much higher in an election,” said Cooper. “I would think there would be greater measures taken to verify a candidate’s identity.”