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Elections

Baseless attacks on voter-registration partnership weaken us all

Baseless attacks on voter-registration partnership weaken us all

By Secretary of State Steve Hobbs A one-of-a-kind national resource for state elections leaders like me is being torn apart by partisanship and misinformation. The voters of Washington are worse off for it. Like dozens of states, Washington’s elections rely on collaboration to help keep our voter rolls valid and guard against double-voting. That’s accomplished through the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which Washington founded with a bipartisan group of six other states in 2012 as a shared-cost, independent, and…

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Collage of people holding signs to "Support your 18 yr. old vote" and campaign buttons.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY 26th AMENDMENT: “Right to Vote at Age 18″ turns 50

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 26th AMENDMENT: “Right to Vote at Age 18″ turns 50

“Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.” “You fight & die but can’t vote at 18.” These were just a couple of the slogans from the movement to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, which ultimately led to the 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states: The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by…

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Timeline of election process in Washington state from poll places to vote by mail.
Paving the Vote-By-Mail Path

Paving the Vote-By-Mail Path

As we celebrate the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States, it has become apparent that Washington state has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to voting rights and processes, and others have benefitted from seeing us set the pace and disprove false perceptions. Over the last few decades, utilization and preference for Vote-By-Mail (VBM) elections has substantially increased to the point where in 2018 general elections across the country, over 31 million voters, or 25.8%…

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Group of Washington Talking Book and Braille Library staff and volunteers recording audio versions of the General Election Voters' Pamphlet.
WTBBL Makes the Voters’ Pamphlet Accessible

WTBBL Makes the Voters’ Pamphlet Accessible

In preparation for the General Election on November 5, the Audio Book Production Department at Washington Talking Book & Braille Library (WTBBL) recorded the statewide voters’ pamphlet. Every voter deserves the right to learn more about the candidates and issues before Washingtonians this election, and for those who can’t read the print edition of the voters’ pamphlet, the audio version makes it possible. Narrators Rachel Glass and Gregg Porter spent over 53 hours recording the text, and editing required an…

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February special election ballots have been sent to 1.6 million voters

February special election ballots have been sent to 1.6 million voters

Although not all of Washington’s voters reside in a district that’s having a local election in this cycle, 32 of Washington’s 39 counties are conducting elections for local districts, such as school bond issues. Check our MyVote site to find out if you’re among the nearly 40 percent of registered Washingtonians who will receive a ballot for this election, the first of four scheduled for 2019. All ballots were mailed by Jan. 25, and the deadline to return them via…

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Grays Harbor 1970s poll workers
How the 1970 election set Washington’s midterm turnout record

How the 1970 election set Washington’s midterm turnout record

The county-certified election returns for the 2018 General Election came very near setting a new state record for voter participation in a non-Presidential election cycle. Of the 4,362,454 people on Washington’s voter rolls, 71.83 percent cast ballots, which was just under the 71.85 percent turnout for the 1970 midterm General Election. Had just 1,101 more Washingtonians voted, that 48-year-old record would have been eclipsed. That the 1970 turnout stands as the state’s high-water mark is noteworthy in several regards. First, the record…

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How Washington recounts ensure every vote matters

How Washington recounts ensure every vote matters

As 2018’s closely-watched General Election draws near, it may prove useful to read up about how recounts help ensure fair and secure elections for Washington’s candidates and voters. Nearly a decade ago in this space, we were prompted by a handful of very close election outcomes to summarize the basics of the process, which is also described on our Elections page here. Under state law RCW 29A.64.021, recounts are required in elections in which an apparent winner’s margin of victory…

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Washington sets a record with National Voter Registration Day 2018

Washington sets a record with National Voter Registration Day 2018

Since 2012, elections officials across America have made National Voter Registration Day an annual focal point of public-awareness campaigns to get more eligible citizens to register to vote. In Washington, as in other states, the effort has concentrated largely on getting young adults to sign up as registered voters. This demographic is targeted for two key reasons: First, the U.S. Census Bureau regularly finds that young people who are eligible to vote are registered at much lower rates than citizens in older…

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Drawing of two winners
Washington’s top-two primary: What it is and how it works

Washington’s top-two primary: What it is and how it works

Voting has begun for Washington’s 2018 Primary Election, for which ballots can be submitted in county drop boxes or via postage-paid U.S. Mail until Election Day, August 7. This year, Primary’s ballots include groups of candidates vying to collect enough votes to make the General Election, for which ballots are due Nov. 6. Across America, states use a variety of systems to winnow down fields of candidates to finalists, as the National Conference of State Legislatures describes here. In 2004,…

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online voter registring
Online voter registration reaches new heights

Online voter registration reaches new heights

A decade after Washington became the second state in the country to take voter registration online, 35 states and the District of Columbia (that other Washington, as some know it) have followed suit. Under current law, the deadline for online voter registration is 30 days before Election Day, so the deadline for registering to vote in the August Primary Election passed this week, on July 9th. Thanks to the excellent work by our Elections Division, thousands of Washingtonians registered to vote…

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