Primary Election Deadline Day Is Tuesday
Fill Out and Turn in Your Ballot! Call Your Friends. It's Time to Participate.
I intend to publish this both today, Sunday, and again at the usual time (5AM) on Monday to encourage my readers and others to be sure to participate in our Washington State August 2 Primary Election.
According to the Spokane County Elections webpage as of last Friday, July 29th at 2:30 PM, only 68,204 (19.05%) of the 357,994 ballots that were mailed out to active registered voters in Spokane County had been filled out, received, and accepted at the County Elections Office. That’s pretty dismal. Ballots have been in the hands of the voters for two weeks—and only 1 in 5 of us voters have done our homework.
Let’s look at the (somewhat twisted) bright side: the lower the ballot turn-in number the more each of our votes counts (proportionally) in the outcome. Do your own homework and then make it your business today to call at least five of your friends and remind them to vote their Primary ballot and either get it postmarked or, better, deposit it in a Drop Box by 8 PM Tuesday, August 2nd. (For a list of Spokane County’s active Drop Boxes click here. There are some new ones and a couple of currently “closed” Drop Boxes listed. Don’t find yourself at a closed Drop Box site at 7:59PM Tuesday.)
If you’ve already sent in your ballot, check to see that it has been received and accepted (that is it passed the signature verification step), but signing in at vote.wa.gov and clicking “Ballot Status” under “My Ballot”.
Need more information? I published (and discussed) a number of get-to-know-the-candidates voter guides in last Friday’s email. Click here to go back to that post. One addition: I think a good argument can be made for the position of Secretary of State to be non-partisan. The only non-partisan candidate for Secretary of State is Julie Anderson, currently the Pierce County Auditor. Especially for any middle-of-the-road or Republican friends you might urge to vote today, suggest they check out Ms. Anderson’s interview with Kent Adams from July 27 on “Spokane Talks”. The interview is just 18 minutes long. Judging by multiple Republican ads that follow the interview (ads that I presume are also torturing TV watchers these days), Mr. Adams’ audience leans Republican. The interview is a great civics review of the job of Washington’s Secretary of State. Ms. Anderson makes a compelling argument both for her expertise and for her non-partisan stance, an argument that ought to appeal to sane voters of all parties.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry