Contradictions continue from the United States Postal Service regarding the Garfield vote by mail ballots that were lost last fall.

About 250 ballots for Garfield never made it to voters in November. Whitman County Auditor Sandy Jamison is charged with overseeing local Washington elections. Jamison says she was told by an executive at the Postal Service sorting facility in Spokane that they did receive the ballots that eventually disappeared and the federal agency launched an investigation.

The contradictions from USPS started earlier this week when Customer Relations Manager Janella Herron in Federal Way told Jamison that their “extensive investigation” was completed. Herron informed Jamison that they could never confirm that the post office ever received the ballots so they couldn’t explain what happened. Herron had previously told Jamison that the United States Postal Service Office of the Inspector General was going to investigate. She never received any information from that office and instead was told by customer relations that the probe was completed with no answers.

Jamison informed Eastern Washington Congressman Michael Baumgartner’s office about the lack of answers from the Post Office. Pullman Radio News reached out to USPS spokespeople for more information. Earlier this week PRN received another contradiction from the federal agency indicating that the investigation might be ongoing. USPS spokesman Zachary Laux in Wyoming stated that the Office of Inspector General is in fact involved only stating that the “ballots issue is with the USPS OIG.” Media Relations with the OIG have failed to respond to several requests for more information from PRN.

Jamison’s staff scrambled just days before the election to replace the lost ballots. She believes that her office was able to get ballots to most of the effected voters in Garfield.