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Elections

election ahead road sign
Video voters’ guide now available

Video voters’ guide now available

In partnership with TVW, the Office of Secretary of State is proud to present a new Video Voters Guide to help voters make informed decisions in the 2018 Primary and General Elections. At the Video Voters Guide, which the Yakima Herald-Republic calls “must-see TV for (the) 2018 election,” viewers can watch unedited candidate statements for the four statewide races on this year’s ballots — three Washington state Supreme Court justice positions and a seat in the United States Senate. Twenty…

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Gov. Inslee and Sec. Wyman
Student Voter registration challenge 2018

Student Voter registration challenge 2018

To encourage as many young adults as possible to make their voices heard in the 2018 General Election, Secretary of State Kim Wyman and Gov. Jay Inslee have launched a special Student Voter Registration Challenge to sign up Washington’s college students as new voters. As Gov. Inslee’s office describes here, the Student Voter Registration Challenge is a competition open to students at all 40 of Washington’s public universities, community colleges, and technical colleges. Student teams must register by Aug. 1 to…

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1960 petition signature gatherers
Paid petition signature gathering in Washington: What’s legal and why

Paid petition signature gathering in Washington: What’s legal and why

A recent news report in the Everett Herald noted that June is a prime petition-gathering month for four statewide initiatives now in circulation. According to the story, workers collecting signatures to put a referendum on Seattle’s new job tax on the November ballot are being paid $6 per signature, and anyone who gets 75 or more signatures a day gets an entry in a drawing for a four-country trip to Europe. “Too good to be true? Or legal? Maybe,” the…

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Elections program specialist Heather Sorgen drawing names for ballot order
Filing week 2018: Look who’s on the ballot now

Filing week 2018: Look who’s on the ballot now

Now that filing week for candidates to get onto Washington ballots for the 2018 August Primary and November General Election has passed, along with the May 21st deadline for candidates to withdraw their names, here are a few quick facts about this year’s election lineup With 596 races to be decided on levels from local to federal, 1,151 candidates filed to run — including 30 candidates for U.S. Senate, which is one of the largest fields in Washington history. It…

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Candidate filing week
Time to sign up to run on the 2018 ballot

Time to sign up to run on the 2018 ballot

Although fervent politicking began weeks ago in races across the state, the official start of election season arrives Monday, with the beginning of Candidate Filing Week 2018. From May 14-18, candidates for federal, state, and local offices from county commissioner to U.S. Senator must register with county elections offices or the Office of Secretary of State to get their names onto ballots for this year’s elections cycle. The 596 races on this year’s Washington ballots include legislative races in every…

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Al Swift and Ralph Munro: How motor voter went national

Al Swift and Ralph Munro: How motor voter went national

Tacoma native and former U.S. Rep. Al Swift, who died April 20 at 82, was a national leader in expanding voter participation across the political spectrum. The motor-voter bill President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993 was authored by Swift, as was the version that had been vetoed by President George Bush in 1992. In a career that also included the legislative victories of restored Amtrak service between Seattle and British Columbia and mandatory handicapped access to polling places,…

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John Hancock's Declaration of Independence signature
Signatures and state law: The enduring power of the pen

Signatures and state law: The enduring power of the pen

Even though the routine act of signing your name to authorize credit-card charges will soon become history, it is perhaps premature to consider the pen-and-paper signature doomed to obsolescence. Across the U.S., government at all levels remains legally reliant on hand-signed names in an immense number of ways. Federally, you might be able to electronically sign a tax return for the Internal Revenue Service, but a U.S. Passport and a Social Security card each require a written signature. The rationale goes back…

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Time to vote clock
April special election is underway

April special election is underway

For about 20 percent of Washington voters, today marks the beginning of the chance to cast ballots in a special election. Ballot boxes opened this morning for the April special election, the second of four election cycles for Washington voters in 2018. There’s plenty of time to participate: Election day is April 24, and the deadline for in-person voter registration with county election officials is April 16. So what’s on the ballot? For voters in 15 of Washington’s 39 counties…

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After the session: The OSOS report on the 2018 Legislature

After the session: The OSOS report on the 2018 Legislature

Going into the 2018 session of the Washington State Legislature, Secretary of State Kim Wyman presented a list of proposed changes to state law to improve our state’s elections process. Now that the state House of Representatives and Senate have adjourned sine die, here’s a look at how proposals supported by Secretary Wyman fared. Presidential primary date change: Washington’s quadrennial (every four years) presidential primary would have moved from May to March under Senate bill 5333 and House bill 1469, which were…

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February 2018 Special Election: Turnout insights

February 2018 Special Election: Turnout insights

All but two of Washington’s 39 counties held special elections earlier this month, and the results have now been certified. As of Friday, Feb. 23, the counts became official: 896,507 of the state’s 2,761,020 eligible registered voters had weighed in on hundreds of local issues, largely related to government structure and tax propositions. Those figures provide a few insights: The 32.5 percent voter turnout rate is the lowest for a February special election in the last decade, which is as…

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