Get ready to vote! Washington counties are mailing out general election ballots
Oct 16, 2024, 5:52 PM | Updated: 5:57 pm
Get ready to pull out your pen and vote, general election ballots are going in the mail.
Auditor Garth Fell told KIRO Newsradio Snohomish County will be mailing out more than half a million ballots on Thursday.
“So they’ll begin arriving in voters mailboxes Friday through the weekend and into early next week,” he said.
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King County mailed 1.4 million ballots Wednesday and over half a million in Snohomish County.
“Will be sending out roughly 520,000, ballots to Snohomish County voters, so over half a million ballots headed just our to our county,” Fell said.
Both counties expect high voter turnout this presidential election year.
“Yeah, historically, we see good participation in presidential elections anywhere between 75 and 85%,” he explained.
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While some states turned primarily to voting by mail during the pandemic, Fell said Washington has been using the vote-by-mail system for years.
“In fact, in most counties, this will be their fifth presidential election voting by mail,” he said.
You don’t even need a stamp, just get your ballot in the mail, or in a drop box, by election day. Fell also stressed that residents’ votes will be more “secure” than ever.
“Snohomish County, we recently opened up a new election center where we focused on ensuring that there was great security for ballots and for staff, but also great transparency,” he said.
He said you can even watch the process.
“Visitors can come and watch us process ballots, see how it’s happening and see for themselves that ballots are being handled accurately and carefully and that election results are accurate as well,” Fell explained.
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He said workers make sure the election is fair and secure.
“We are in the voter registration rolls daily, updating information for voters, removing voters that have passed away, changing addresses for voters,” Fell said. “So our voter registration rolls are very accurate.”
Fell said the county handles ballots carefully, signatures are checked and vote-counting equipment is tested before the election. Also, election results are audited afterward.
“The vote counting equipment is behind layers of security and is never connected to the internet,” he added.
Visit Snohomish County’s website to find more information on what election workers are doing and where.
Contributing: Julia Dallas, MyNorthwest
Heather Bosch is an award-winning anchor and reporter on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of her stories here. Follow Heather on X, or email her here.
