SANDPOINT — Confusion at the Colburn polling precinct on Tuesday may have caused as many as 52 unaffiliated voters to be denied Republican primary ballots, according to the Bonner County Clerk’s Office.

Clerk Michael Rosedale said polling precinct judge mistakenly told those voters that they were not allowed to affiliate with the GOP on election day. The clerk’s office received word of voters not being issued their preferred ballots, prompting Rosedale to go to the precinct location to make sure that poll volunteers were aware that unaffiliated voters could affiliate with the Republican party.

“The chief judge was mortified,” Rosedale said, referring to the longtime poll worker’s error.

The county’s 33 polling precincts are staffed with volunteers, some of whom have been volunteering on election day for decades. Rosedale said poll worker instructors emphasized that unaffiliated voters could join the GOP bandwagon on the day of the election, but entrenched habits apparently overcame that instruction.

“They’ve been doing it a different way for so long,” Rosedale said.

Rosedale’s office conducted an audit of the Colburn poll book and determined that 52 unaffiliated voters were not issued Republican ballots. Rosedale said its unclear how many of those voters would have actually requested GOP ballot.

The confusion is bringing scrutiny to the race for Bonner County sheriff, although Rosedale is doubtful that it had an impact on the contest.

Incumbent Republican Daryl Wheeler fended off a challenge by retired Idaho State Police Trooper Terry Ford. Wheeler collected 3,547 votes to Ford’s 2,443, a difference of 1,104 votes.

“The current trend was 60 percent to Daryl and 40 percent to Ford. Ford lost by about 1,100 votes so that in itself would not have made any difference,” said Rosedale.

Nevertheless, Rosedale said all of the precincts’ poll books would be audited.

“I just want to make sure that there’s absolutely no possible way that it affected a vote,” he said.

A group of voters that sought to weigh in on the West Pend Oreille Fire District’s levy and general obligation bond requests were denied ballots because part of their road was mistakenly not included in a digital map from the state showing all of the various taxing districts and political subdivisions. Rosedale said 31 voters should have been allowed to cast ballots in the election.

Rosedale said those lost votes would not have caused the levy and bond to pass.

“It still would have failed. It needed two-thirds (majority) — 66.666 percent,” said Rosedale.

The levy, for instance, needed 649 yes votes to pass. If the missed votes were added in — and assuming they were all in support of the levy request — it would have amounted to 614 votes.