If you haven’t registered to vote in the State of Washington, you still have time to participate in this state’s November 6 election by registering in person at your county’s election office, by close of business next Monday, October 29.
King County has two sites taking in-person registrations during business hours: The Election Annex in the County Administration Building downtown, and the Election headquarters in Renton.
Pierce County is taking in-person registrations during business hours at its Election Center.
Skagit County residents can still register in person at the County Admin Building in Mt. Vernon.
Snohomish County residents can still register in person at the County Admin Building West in Everett.
Thurston County is taking in person registrations at the Auditor’s Office, in the County Courthouse in southwest Olympia. Check out Bruce Engelhardt’s rundown on Intercity Transit Proposition 1.
Whatcom County is taking in person registrations at the Elections Division in the Whatcom County Courthouse.
You can peruse STB’s 2018 endorsements from the blog’s top bar now.
For those who choose not to or can not take advantage of the opportunity to fill in your ballot at home and mail your ballot for free, there are accessible voting sites in most counties now open. King County has two sites already open: at the Election Annex in the King County Administration Building (500 4th Ave, Room 440) downtown, and the Elections HQ in Renton (919 SW Grady Way). More will open up, for longer hours, as the election approaches.
Thanks, Brent. But there’s something on my mind about voting in general in this country right now. While I don’t think it’ll be a problem in State of Washington, I think that nationally, we’re looking at a determined and intensive campaign of voter suppression across the country.
Now and for years to come.
With the Administration proudly in favor of it and a Supreme Court majority selected for precisely this purpose- what can we as citizens, and hopefully the US Congress, do about this? Suggestions necessary, urgent, and welcome.
Mark Dublin
Allow more people to live in Seattle and other urbanish suburbs. Then we can get another Congressional district after the next census.
Washington State is already part of the Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote. Getting the last states holding 98 more electoral votes to join the Agreement would reward states that encourage electoral participation, and hopefully incentivize other states to cease with their remaining more nuanced Jim Crow tactics designed to change the demographics of their electorates by subtraction.
Felons on probation, even if no longer incarcerated, are still not allowed to vote in Washington State. That’s the last piece of Jim-Crowishness I can think of in this state, besides overzealously scrubbing voting records (which happened in King County of all places, right after a previous gubernatorial election for which we will never know who was the legitimate winner, and the election administrator who did it amazingly still has a job administering elections, and is still allowed to vote). I see no harm in allowing felons to vote. Oregon seems to have survived felon enfranchisement just fine. It seems like such laws exist only because those who wrote the laws know which demographic groups are more likely to be on the felons list than other demographic groups are.
Just to clarify, if Brent is speaking of the 2004 Governor’s election, the King County official in charge of that election is no longer working at King County Elections. I believe he is in LA.
Yes, and he is working as an election administrator, there, and every bit as controversial as he was here.
Overzealously scrubbing voting records? In King County? I never heard of it.
I don’t see how the National Popular Vote encourages participation or discourages states from voter suppression. It could encourage even more suppression to try to flip the national vote.
It would keep people from having the excuse of “Washington always votes Democratic, so there’s no point in voting in this election.”
I think voter suppression would maybe be a bit more difficult because you couldn’t suppress the vote in, say, one county in Florida and have in change the results of the entire Presidential election.
Even if enough states adopt it, I’m skeptical that the National Popular Vote Compact would really hold up when it really matters. When the polls say that the national popular vote is going one way, but a particular state is going the other way, that state will face immense pressure to defect. And, if just 271 electoral votes sign on, all it takes is just one defection, and the whole deal is off.
Then, there’s the problem that with the national trends favoring Democrats in the popular vote, but the electoral college favoring Republicans, why would any Republican leaning state ever sign on? If none do, it won’t have the electoral votes to go into effect.
“Felons and Voting Rights. If you were convicted of a felony in Washington State, your right to vote is restored as long as you are not under the authority (in prison or on community custody) of the Department of Corrections (DOC). Once your right is restored, you must re-register to vote in order to receive a ballot.”
Brent, this doesn’t look like lifetime non-voting to me. Would be curious, though, how many people even bother to take advantage. Or would complain at all if they lost it. Best idea might be that before they leave prison, they know enough about government and politics to vote away everything unfair that lost them all their rights in the first place. Also, lessons and encouragement to run for office soon as the gate clicks shut behind them.
Also, wonder if your advice on relocating isn’t 180 degrees off. Isn’t the worsening problem that some places now get more voting power than their population should entitle them to? I do not like, and will actively fight, the idea of turning our country into hundreds of miniature forts. I pray that the young woman soldier who still hates me will forgive me, but my duty as a citizen is to NOT avoid talking politics.
Religion? Furious about the silence from the pulpit about what God says will ” REALLY get us wiped out. Old Testament and New…Exactly and precisely what we’re what we’re doing to harmless, helpless people whose rescue God says we owe them. Good thing the Pharaoh wasn’t Donald Trump. Who would’ve sent Jesus and His parents back to Kind Herod. Or separated them and lost Their Child! Holocaust would also have had a lot lower body count if Franklin Roosevelt hadn’t faced same pressures and caved, as he did with our Japanese citizens! “Pulpit” means rabbi’s and synagogues too.
In the first act of the Civil War, when the Fugitive Slave Act forced people in slave-free states to help return escapees, decision as to whether Kansas entered the union slave or free was left to a popular vote. Evidently the New England NRA taught its members some “small arms” before THEY joined the voter rolls in Kansas. And won Round One of the Civil War.
A lot of them had had recent combat practice violating the Fugitive Slave Act back home too. Just a thought. Also. Only good thing to come out of the financial ethnic cleansing of Seattle these last three years is an electorate whose party affiliation didn’t change when their address did. Reason I think Thurston will be in Sound Transit in time to pass next ST-. Anybody know when next vote is scheduled?
And asdf2…isn’t whole point to get rid of The Electoral College in the first place? And a State that can’t withstand immense pressure to do anything…wouldn’t it be better to leave them on the other side?
Mark Dublin
One can also turn in his/her completed ballot at any of the drop boxes made available by county elections offices. This is the method I use here in Snohomish County where we have 16 such drop boxes located throughout the county. (I opt for this method as I’m not keen on the idea of signatures on the outside of the ballot envelope.)
While we are on the subject of election day, I hope it’s okay to post the following link to an important message from former President Obama about the excuses people use for not voting. (If this is a comment policy violation, please remove only this part of my post.)
https://youtu.be/YGJoizYE4Js
Ballots can be dropped in any county’s drop box and they will be forwarded to proper county office. Snohomish County commuters who work in King County can drop their ballots in King County boxes and the ballots will be forwarded to SnoCo for processing.
Yes of course. And there are way more locations in King County to do so.
https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/elections/how-to-vote/ballots/returning-my-ballot/ballot-drop-boxes.aspx
I mailed mine because (1) it is free now, and I want to encourage keeping the free postage, so there is no more soft poll tax (which is more a tax on time to obtain postage or get to a drop box than the actual cost of a stamp); and (2) I feel my ballot will make it to the counting machine more safely via the USPS than via the drop boxes.
I’ll put mine in the drop box again to save the county the cost of postage.
I put mine in the drop box mostly to eliminate any chance of the ballot getting lost in the mail. It saves the county a few cents in postage too, so I guess that’s nice.
Since we’re off-topic and on to voting….
I think it’s odd that we are required to have ID to buy alcohol, to buy cigarettes, to buy spray paint, rent a hotel room, and a license to drive a car, but not to require proof of ID to vote. And voting is the only one of those that requires citizenship.
I do think it’s good that they have postage paid return ballots now. While I believe it was a lame excuse to not being able to vote before (having to buy a stamp or put a little effort in getting it to a ballot drop off), I think it’s a good idea. In early days, when it was actually harder to vote, the turnout was not much different than today: 1828 presidential election was 57.6%, 1832 was 55.4% and so on. The peak was 81.8% in 1878. In 2016 it was 55.5% and that’s been steady on the high side for decades.
I think something that would help voter turnout is term limits for senators and representative. It’s clear (debatable, but clear to me and most I talk to) that career senators or representatives are, more often than not, out of touch with reality, but when elections come around, people more often vote for the status quo. With term limits, it will bring new interest to most races instead of the same old name on the ballot. Term limits unfortunately tho, will probably not stop people from just voting by party without having a clue about the person. Maybe we should just go partyless?
Just my 2 cents.
How will you check voter IDs if they are voting by mail?