The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

PRESCOTT - Susan Matley, also known as Cimarron Sue in the community, says her "voting rights were compromised" when an error made at the Walla Walla County Au- ditor's Office meant she didn't receive a ballot for the upcoming election.

"It was a serious poten- tial infringement on my right to vote," Matley said.

Matley, known for the cowboy poetry she per- forms with her husband Bruce, also known as Ne- vada Slim, has been vot- ing consistently in Walla Walla County since 2007, she said.

When last week a ballot came for her husband to the couple's Prescott residence, but not to her, she knew she had better call the auditor's office and find out why. She said she had received a ballot recently for the Primary Election in August.

County Auditor Karen Martin said the mistake was made by a part-time employee who had just started working on voter registration for the of- fice. There is a system used to remove duplicate ballots to prevent voter fraud. Martin said when the cross-match was com- pleted, there were two women named Susan with the same date of birth liv- ing in Prescott. Martin said women often change their last names and so the voting records of both Susans, under the belief that they were the same person, were merged and Susan Matley was not sent a ballot.

Martin said this was tru- ly an issue of not looking over records close enough and a new proofing system has been put in place. She added when she found out she was "panicked" and later frustrated with the errors.

She said this has also recently happened to a gentleman who lives in the Walla Walla area and this was the first time in her 13 years at the office anything like this had hap- pened.

"We're fixing what hap- pened," Martin said. "We haven't gotten any more. Hopefully those were the isolated two."

Matley said the office worked hard to understand the problem and as soon as the error was figured out, she received a ballot the next day.

"They're under a lot of pressure to check for duplicate voters," Matley said.

And she was happy to learn that the office had put a new procedure in place to double check the names so no more errors are made.

But, she added that the situation was "really frightening" to her and that her "voting rights have been compromised."

Matley said she was upset because voting is very important to her and the error made her worry that other citizens all over the state may also not be receiving their ballot when they deserve one.

"I hope it gets to be less of an issue," Matley said.

She planned to drop her ballot in the mail last Mon- day after she had done some more research on the initiatives.

Martin urged any oth- er registered voters who didn't receive a ballot to call her office and rem- edy the situation. The best number to call is 509-524- 2530.

"We want everybody's ballot to count," Martin said.