Opinion: Winning elections starts with you

Nancy Churchill shares insights on ballot hygiene and the importance of early voting for registered voters in Washington state.

Nancy Churchill discusses voting issues each registered voter should be aware of

Nancy Churchill
Dangerous Rhetoric

On Tuesday (Aug 20), the race for the second-place candidate for Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands will (hopefully) be decided. As of Sunday evening, Democrat Dave Upthegrove led Republican Sue Kuehl Peterson by about 950 votes. That’s extremely close. The race will probably be decided by the process of “curing” ballots. What does that mean, and how do we prevent the need for it?

In our modern mail-in, high-tech election system, we have to make sure we’re not making simple mistakes that invalidate our own ballots. Let’s call that good ballot hygiene. It’s not just who you vote for; the process of voting has become extra important. What mental and physical shifts do we need to make to ensure our vote gets properly counted? I hope you will share these simple steps with your friends and families so we can have fewer problem ballots in the general election.

OCTOBER is Election Month

Forget “election day”. It’s Election MONTH. Washingtonians have 18 days of voting followed by two weeks of counting. The totals that are published on the evening of “election day” are just an early estimate, not a final. Sometimes the results are decided within a few days of counting, but sometimes it takes the full two weeks to decide the closest races.

That means that the month of October is really “election month!” Start paying attention to election issues and candidates NOW through the beginning of October, because your ballot will arrive right around Oct. 18 this year.

Vote as soon as you can

In the past, I’ve urged everyone to vote on election day. I was wrong. DON’T WAIT TO VOTE! Vote as soon as possible after you get your ballot. For many people, that will be the weekend after ballots arrive in the mail in mid-October.

Why vote right away? You don’t want to lose your ballot in a growing stack of bills and incoming mail. Think about how hard it is to keep track of the ballot, two ballot envelopes and the voters guide for two weeks. It’s so easy to misplace them. Once they’re buried, they are frequently forgotten! Your vote is precious. Vote as soon as you can.

Also, by voting early, you allow plenty of time for your ballot to arrive at your auditor’s office. Every step of mail-in voting takes time; make sure your ballot gets there early, so that it gets processed, signature checked, accepted and properly sorted.

Mark the ballot properly

Improperly marked ballots cause problems for the elections staff and slow down the counting. Don’t make any extra marks. Don’t draw a picture. Don’t write a note to the elections staff. Don’t write in a joke candidate! Don’t spill coffee on your ballot. All of these may cause your ballot to need extra processing, and might cause your vote to be improperly counted. Why take a chance on a mistake? Slow down and mark the ballot with care.

Your goal is a clean ballot with no stray marks. If you are worried that your ballot is in bad shape, you can always go to the auditor’s office and get a replacement ballot… but that’s another reason to vote early, so that you have time to do that if you need to.

Sign your ballot

The most common way people lose their vote is to forget to sign the ballot envelope. When your ballot arrives without a signature, a form letter will be sent to request you to come into the office and sign it. This may also happen if your signature has changed. It takes time to generate the letter, and for the post office to deliver it. You may not pick up your mail every day. You might be out of town. By the time notice that your ballot has a problem reaches you, you may not have time to go in and fix the problem!

Track your ballot, cure your ballot

Fixing a problem with your ballot is called “curing the ballot”. But unless you track your ballot and make sure it’s arrived at the auditor’s office, you may not know that there’s a problem with it. You can track your ballot by signing into VoteWA. The system will tell you if your ballot has been received and if your signature has been accepted. Make a reminder in your phone for the last Tuesday of October, the 29^th, so you remember to check to make sure your ballot has arrived and the signature has been accepted.

Use a drop box, not the U.S. Mail

You may not be aware that the post office now sends all mail out of the county, even local mail, to a centralized sorting center. That means a ballot mailed in Ferry County will travel to Spokane, get sorted, and then come back to the county for delivery. That’s a lot of travel, and lots of handling. Why take a chance that your precious vote might not make it back in time? Use a local ballot drop box, or take your ballot to the auditor’s office.

This month, our elections staff reported receiving a ballot from the February presidential election bundled with the ballots for the August election. Mistakes happen. Use the drop boxes to guarantee your vote is on time.

Vote early, vote often — bring 10

Every vote is precious. Many working people and religious people often don’t vote! If you want to have a big impact on this year’s election, start now. Take action! Don’t let some talking head convince you your vote doesn’t matter. YOUR VOTE is vital if we want to stop this country’s slide into communism.

Go through your phone list and call ten friends or family members and ask them to be your voting partner. Make a mutual commitment to help each other vote early and return your ballots early. Offer to pick up and deliver ballots to the dropbox for friends to save them a trip to town. If you call 10 people and they call 10 people, and their friends call people, we can magnify our networks and have a major impact on this year’s elections. Vote early, vote often, bring ten ballots.

Nancy Churchill is a writer and educator in rural eastern Washington state, and the state committeewoman for the Ferry County Republican Party. She may be reached at DangerousRhetoric@pm.me. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own. Dangerous Rhetoric is available on thinkspot, Rumble and Substack.