BY PEPPER FISHER
Washington voters who have not submitted their ballots yet should stop submitting them through the mail due to unprecedented concerns that ballots will not be postmarked in time for the election. That’s according to recommendations from the Washington secretary of state.
State law allows mail-in ballots to be received and still counted after Election Day, even if they get to election workers days later, but only if they are postmarked on Election Day or before.
Postal union leadership and election officials say the U.S. Postal Service’s delivery of mail has been significantly delayed by multiple factors stemming from former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s “10-year plan” to reform the postal service.
We reached out to Clallam County Elections Manager Ian Hillway to see if he had a recommendation, and here’s what he told us.
“So, the Secretary of State’s office recommends that people use the mail no later than a week before, which would be yesterday (Tuesday). So, at this point, we are recommending that anybody who want to drop off their ballot, use an official dropbox, and we have those throughout the county. If anybody does drop it in the mail, that does not mean that we won’t get it on time. It just means that our real-guarantee date is a week. We know nothing can go wrong. And we are going to go by the postmark. So, if anybody wants to take it in after this point to the post office, we recommend they go in and get in line and get a hand stamp canceled, because that way a postmark is guaranteed to be there.”
You can see a list of the official county-operated drop boxes on your ballot and online at clallamcountywa.gov.