MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – An error dramatically inflated the number of boxes of papers that Howard Dean sealed when he stepped down as governor.

The sealing of Dean’s papers for 10 years became a major issue in his presidential campaign as reporters and opponents continually questioned the candidate on why he sealed so many papers for so long.

At the time Dean stepped down as governor last January it was estimated that he had left with the state 335 boxes of papers, of which 190 were to be made available to the public immediately and 145 were to be sealed for 10 years under a claim of executive privilege.

In December the Washington-based Judicial Watch filed suit in Vermont state court seeking to force the release of those papers. The group argued that Dean lacked authority to issue a blanket claim of executive privilege over so many documents. A state judge agreed with Judicial Watch in February and that decision is now on appeal to the state Supreme Court.

In the course of preparing for that suit, however, the state determined 59 boxes were mistakenly included in the count.

Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz said Friday that apparently boxes packed up by the Dean administration and meant for general state storage were trucked to the state records center along with the boxes meant to be sealed.

Markowitz said the mix-up happened in the hectic rush to move out of the governor’s office as Dean’s term came to an end.

“In January they were pretty rushed,” she said.

Markowitz said the workers at the state records center were not to blame; the error was made in Dean’s office.

“There is no question that’s where the mistake was,” she said.

William Griffin, the chief assistant attorney general, said that the mistake came to light when lawyers were looking for expense vouchers from the Dean administration and found them in boxes that were among the sealed papers.

Griffin said he called in Dean’s former legal counsel, David Rocchio, who had overseen the process of determining which records were sealed, and they figured out what had happened.

The 59 boxes came from other offices aligned with the governor’s office, such as the office of the secretary of administration, and contained documents and financial records that do not fall under executive privilege but the state is required to keep for a certain number of years.

“It’s pretty simple,” said Griffin. “They were transferring boxes from the fifth floor and they all got on the same truck and ended up at the same place.”

The fifth floor of the Pavilion Office Building houses both the governor’s office and the offices of the secretary of administration and commissioner of finance and management.

The revised count shows that Dean sealed 93 of the 283 boxes he gave the state when he left office, which means he sealed 32 percent of his papers, a figure that is significantly below the figures of his two predecessors. Madeleine Kunin sealed 46 percent of her papers for six years while 40 percent of Richard Snelling’s papers were sealed for seven and a half years.

AP-ES-05-14-04 1423EDT