Elections officials say they have confidence in Washington’s mail voting system

OLYMPIA – State and local elections officials are trying to reassure legislators and all Washington residents that the ballots to be mailed out, cast and returned for the Nov. 3 election are safe and secure.

But for those who still have doubts about their ballots postmarked and returned in time, they offered a simple solution: Put it in a drop box.

For 85% of the state’s voters, one of the 523 drop boxes is no farther away than 3 miles.

In separate state Senate and House committee hearings over the last week, elections officials repeatedly emphasized that whatever concerns may exist nationally about mail-in ballots, in Washington the system is long-tested and well-managed.

“We have a long-standing partnership with the U.S. Postal Service,” Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton told the Senate State Government Committee. “I have them on speed dial. I talk to them all the time.”

David Yao, vice president of the Seattle local of the American Postal Workers Union, agreed Washington has the best mail ballot system in the country. The workers have vast experience working with it and all political mailings – even those from candidates as well as ballots – get first-class treatment even if they are stamped at a lower rate.

There were some concerns about cost-cutting measures ordered by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, including a “no overtime” rule and the closures of some processing plants, but some have been rescinded and others are covered by an injunction issued by a federal judge in Yakima, Yao said.

Washington has some 4.6 million registered voters and each will be sent a ballot by their county elections office by the second full week in October. If it doesn’t arrive by Oct. 19, they can call for a replacement which will be sent by First Class mail, which should be delivered in three to five days.

Return ballots also have envelopes with First Class postage and in Washington ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, but can be delivered and counted for up to three weeks after the general election.

If elections officials see a problem with a certain area or ZIP code, they’ll call the Postal Service to find out what’s wrong.

Before putting a ballot in a blue USPS mail pickup box, be sure to check the time for the last daily collection, Dalton said. If the ballot is placed in the box after the pickup time, it won’t be collected and postmarked until the next day.

Voters who mark their ballots on the Saturday before election or later, should consider taking it to a post office to be postmarked, Chelan County Auditor Skip Moore said. Those who have concerns about something happening to their ballot in the mail should put it in a drop box which “is the same thing as handing it to me,” he said.

Washington has improved security for the state election system, legislators were told. The secretary of state’s office sent some $9 million in federal funds to the counties for security upgrades, David Elliott, policy director for the office, said.

Since 2018, the Washington Air National Guard’s 194th Wing – a special warfare, intelligence and cyber unit at Camp Murray – has been working with the office to enhance election security, Col. Kenneth Borchers said.

The state has a “layered defense” against errors and malicious actors and the paper ballots provide a hard copy if a recount is ordered that would make tampering very difficult, Borchers said.

Counties also have to print multiple versions of their ballot for the different races and issues in districts where their voters live. Dalton said in Spokane they can print up to 700 different versions of the ballot for all the different variations in an election.

That would make ballot fraud difficult because anyone attempting it would have to know what issues should be on the ballot a voter would receive as well as being able to duplicate their signature, Senate State Government, Tribal Relations and Elections Committee Chairman Sam Hunt said.

“You can’t just print up a thousand ballots for Spokane County and expect them to be counted,” Hunt said. “It’s a terribly, terribly complicated thing to do fraudulent voting.”