Information for Voters - the election process in Island County
We’ve all been worrying about the upcoming general election and how we can have a fair election with the craziness around the meltdown of the US Postal Service. People have been asking me how we could convince Island County’s elections office to mail out ballots earlier, to give us more time to return them.
So on Monday, August 17, I phoned the elections office to ask about it. Everyone needs to know that Michele Reagan, the woman who runs that office, is a jewel. She’s been there since before Washington began the vote by mail system, so she knows every tiny detail of how the system works, and she is passionate about making sure every eligible voter is able to vote, and that every vote is counted. She spent a good deal of time on the phone with me, after hours, to make sure she answered all my questions.
You may remember that we had a primary on August 4. Seems forever ago, but as I type, on August 18, the elections office is tallying the very last straggling ballots, and by the end of business today will certify the final tally to the Secretary of State’s office. The Secretary of State then has until Friday, August 21, to certify the primary results statewide.
There are issues on the November ballot besides the top two candidates for positions coming out of the primary. There are initiatives, referenda, possibly more of Tim Eyman’s wasteful and hated “advisory votes.” I think there will be some state supreme court candidates and maybe some appeals court candidates as well. And then there are other offices for which only two candidates filed, and local issues, usually from “junior taxing districts.” In this election, North Whidbey Fire & Rescue will be asking for a levy lid lift. All of that has to be sorted out before the actual ballots are designed. That is done by the county elections office, based on information provided by the Secretary of State and local results.
By law, the ballot masters must go to the printer 40 – 45 days before the November election, so between September 18 and 24. For Island County that means that the elections office emails PDFs of all the different ballot masters – remember that each precinct may be different – to the printers in Everett. The printers then print out the different ballots, compile the individual ballot packages, and address the outer envelopes. And then they mail them. So, our ballots will be coming from Everett, which should hopefully cut down on transit time. By law those must be in the mail at least 18 days before the election, which would be no later than October 16. It has been the practice to send out ballots as much as 20 or even 21 days before the election. Ms Reagan assured me that she was doing what she could to push up that schedule by a few days, which is all the leeway there is.
She agreed with me that the best way to assure your ballot reaches the elections office is to put it in one of the convenient ballot drop boxes. I always post the locations in my blog, but she pointed out that they are also listed in the county elections website: https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Auditor/Elections/Pages/Home.aspx. Scroll down and you will even find a map of the drop box locations.
It goes without saying that if you are not registered to vote, DO IT NOW! There is information on how to do that on-line on the same web page. If outside of Island County (or even inside the county) check out https://voter.votewa.gov/WhereToVote.aspx or https://olvr.votewa.gov/ Ms Reagan pointed out to me that for people who are traveling, they can go to that VoteWa.gov site and print out a ballot. I asked how they kept track of such printed ballots and she told me the whole story. They can and do track each printout, and if someone really does try to submit multiple ballots, they are set aside and the one with the latest date and time stamp is the one that will be counted.
And back to that question about the post office and slow moving ballots. Ms Reagan assured me that as long as that ballot is postmarked on or before November 3, if it reaches their office by the certification deadline date, November 24, it will be counted.
We often wonder, when we pay our taxes, what we’re paying for. One of the things on which we get a very big bang for not much of a buck is Island County’s elections office. We see the utter chaos in other parts of the country. We can thank Michele Reagan and her team for keeping it clean and smooth in Island County.
