The 2019 Washington State legislative session opened this week, and we wanted to share our priorities for this session. As always, our goal is to make voting as accessible and barrier-free as possible. Here’s a look at what Director Julie Wise will be supporting in Olympia over the next three months:

State pays its fair share.

Every other jurisdiction pays their share of election costs. Currently the state only pays for election costs in odd numbered years, the opposite of when there are state races on the ballot. For King County alone, the average unfunded state election cost in these years is about $4 million. New mandates, like additional drop boxes and same day registration have only exacerbated this issue. It’s past time for the state to pay its fair share.

Signature alternatives.

With more and more digital transactions, we are seeing society shift away from the signature as a primary tool for authentication. We need new options for verifying an individual voted their correct ballot. Washington State should get ahead of this issue and be a leader in exploring signature alternatives. This could include piloting options for voters with disabilities and overseas/service voters, both communities significantly impacted by the current signature requirement.

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Tuesday, Sept. 26 is National Voter Registration Day!

Don’t know what National Voter Registration Day is? We’ve got you covered. Started in 2012, NVRD is a non-partisan, unofficial national holiday, on which thousands of community groups and volunteers across the political spectrum register people to vote. It’s designed to create an annual moment when the entire nation focuses on helping Americans to exercise their most basic right—the right to vote.

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King County residents not currently registered in Washington State still have until October 31^st to come by in-person and complete their voter registration.

Feeling crunched for time? We can help!

The King County Elections Office is extending office hours and will be operating:

• Monday, October 10, 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Saturday, October 22, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
• Thursday, October 27, 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Friday, October 28, 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Saturday, October 29, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
• Monday, October 31, 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.

The Voter Registration Annex in downtown Seattle will be open Monday – Friday, October 24 – 31, from 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Don’t forget to check your mail box, ballots will be sent out on October 19^th. We can assist you by phone, 206-296-VOTE (8683) or in-person to:

• Get a replacement ballot
• Return voted ballots
• Resolve signature challenges
• Vote at an Accessible Voting Center

But wait, didn’t we just say that voters receive their ballots in the mail? What’s an Accessible Voting Center? Check out next week’s Election Connection for the answer and more!

 

When will ballots be mailed? Is there a ballot drop box near me? I’ll be out of town for the election, can I still vote? How do I update my mailing address? I lost my ballot, what now?

These are just a few of the calls we often get around election time and you can rely on our incredible phone bank staff to answer your election questions!

Phone bank staffers take a two-day training, ending with a round of phone bank Jeopardy to test their knowledge and skills and help them prepare for the upcoming November General Election.  We quiz them on a ton of elections information so they will be ready to help our voters with any question that comes up.

Our phone bank officially opened on September 28 and we have  total of 37 team members ready to use all they have learned to assist King County voters. Calls are already coming in and so far, the top three voter questions pertain to voter registration updates, general voter registration information and an estimated delivery date for ballots. Each staff member is also at the ready with information on:

• Getting a replacement ballot,
• Using our online ballot marking program,
• Returning voted ballots,
• Locating a ballot drop box,
• Resolving signature challenges, and
• Voting at an Accessible Voting Center

Our phone bank team wants to make voting easier for you! Give us a call – 206-296-VOTE (8683).

As we’ve shared before, our new ballot drop boxes were a big success for the August 2 Primary. That’s why we’re so excited that there are 14 more for the November 8 General Election. New locations include:

• Beacon Hill Library
• Bothell City Hall
• Seattle Central College
• Covington Library
• Highline College (Des Moines)
• Chinatown-International District, Uwajimaya
• Kentridge High School
• Kingsgate Library (Kirkland)
• Muckleshoot Philip Star Building
• Rainier Community Center
• Renton Public Health Center
• Snoqualmie Library
• South Park Library
• Green Lake Community Center

All 43 locations can be found on our ballot drop box map and will be open 24-hours-a-day starting October 20 until 8pm on Election night.

Tuesday, Sept. 27 is National Voter Registration Day!

Don’t know what National Voter Registration Day is? We’ve got you covered. Started in 2012, NVRD is a non-partisan, unofficial national holiday, on which thousands of community groups and volunteers across the political spectrum register people to vote. It’s designed to create an annual moment when the entire nation focuses on helping Americans to exercise their most basic right—the right to vote.

So, what can you do? First, you can make sure your registration information is up-to-date. Next, you can encourage family, friends, neighbors – everyone! – to register to vote.

And if you’re really an over-achiever, you can:

• Use tools provided by nationalvoterregistrationday.org to encourage others to participate.
• Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to help us celebrate #VoterRegistrationDay on social media.

Your vote is your voice and you can only use it if you are registered. So let’s get out there!

UOCAVA. Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. It’s a mouthful. It’s also a very important law that makes it easier for our service and overseas citizens to be able to vote. November 8^th might seem like a long way away, but we mailed ballots today for King County’s UOCAVA voters.

We mail them this early to ensure that they have enough time to receive, vote and return their ballots and have their voices heard – no matter where they are in the world!

Other interesting tidbits about service and overseas voters:

• A service voter is any active-duty member of the Armed Forces, Merchant Marine, Public Health Service, NOAA, and their family members (whether stationed domestically or abroad).
• They can sign up for electronic notification and delivery of their ballot materials for every election.
• They can return their ballot materials by mail, but also fax and email.  Whichever is easiest for them.
• They receive periodic email reminders if we have not received their ballot yet.

Our goal is always to make voting as easy as possible and this is just one way we are removing barriers for citizens living outside the county or in the military.

Ever wondered why there’s that stub at the top of your ballot that you’re supposed to remove? You’re not alone. That’s probably the #1 question we get on tours of King County Elections.

The answer is pretty simple, but important. The ballot stub is used by our printing vendor to make sure that you get all of your correct materials. The bar code on it makes sure that you get a ballot with the correct races, in the correct language, and that it’s mailed with the correct inserts and envelopes. It’s the tool we use for tracking everything before ballots are mailed.

However, when it comes time to tabulate ballots, the ballot stub can’t go through our scanners. So, if voters don’t remove them, our staff have to do it when they are opening ballot envelopes – which is time consuming and costly.

Want to know some other interesting ballot stub facts?

• We actually changed the look of the stub on the August Primary ballots to reflect our new branding and to hopefully encourage more people to remember to remove them.
• It worked! We weigh all the stubs we have to remove each election. For the May Presidential Primary we had 25.8 lbs of ballot stubs. For the August 2^nd Election we had just 7.4 lbs (from nearly 60,000 more ballots).
• We’ve heard anecdotally that some people collect their ballot stubs as a memento of all of the elections they’ve voted in. Do you? If so, take a picture and tweet it at us @kcelections and #ballotstubcollection!

So, the moral of the story is – (a) vote, and (b) remove your ballot stub!

While November 8^th may seem like a long way away, for us it’s right around the corner. Ballots have to go out to our military and overseas voters next week, which means we’re building your ballot for November right now!

The process is a bit of a technical one, but there are essentially five main steps:

1. We collect all of the relevant district and precinct information from our database.
2. Next, all the ballot stuff goes into our Global Election Management System (we call it GEMS), namely 21 local and 9 state measures and 68 races with 130 candidates.
3. We create headers, organize and format everything.
4. Some magic happens and out pops all of the unique combinations of races and measures (because you get to vote on different things depending on where you live). For this General Election there are 109 unique combinations of races and measures. And because we do each in five languages, that means 540 different ballots!
5. Each is proofed and checked to make sure everything is accurate and stays on a single page.

And there you have it – a lot of work goes into creating your personal ballot. So make sure you vote it!