SANDPOINT — Nearly 400 absentee ballots from last month’s general election inadvertently went uncounted, according to Bonner County Clerk Michael Rosedale.

“There aren’t enough (absentee ballots) to change any race so no races are affected, but it’s still something that should never have happened,” Rosedale said on Wednesday.

Rosedale said deputy clerks were reconciling ballots from the November election on Tuesday when they discovered that they had counted fewer absentee ballots than were distributed in advance of the election.

“Somewhere there were some ballots that had not been scanned yet,” said Rosedale.

Deputy clerks scoured the secure vault where absentee ballots are kept and discovered one of the drawers in filing cabinets used to stow the ballots still held uncounted ballots.

“The last drawer in the last one was somehow just not checked,” said Rosedale.

Rosedale said the 389 absentee ballots that escaped tally were received over a half-dozen or so mail deliveries leading up to election. They were sprinkled across various voter precincts, according to Rosedale.

The clerk’s office contacted the Idaho Secretary of State’s office, which advised the ctounty to count the ballots in public with the chairs of the Bonner County GOP and Democrat central committees serving as the resolution board. The count will be conducted at 9 a.m. on Friday at the Bonner County Administration Building.

Rosedale said it’s not clear who overlooked the absentee ballots.

“I don’t know who it was and it could have been me,” Rosedale concedes.

Rosedale said the oversight will not require the county to canvass the vote again, although the overlooked absentee ballots will produce new totals which will be submitted to the secretary of state and published on the county’s website.

“We wanted to get this cleared up, especially before we start swearing in a batch of new people,” Rosedale said, referring to candidates who emerged victorious following the general election.

Rosedale said the clerk’s office is implementing a protocol to ensure that absentee ballots coming in via the mail or from larger precincts are not overlooked in the future.

“I feel terrible that it happened and we have a protocol to never let that happen again,” he said.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.