Submitted by Secretary of the State
Washington voters have until 8:00 p.m. tonight to register and vote in today’s Primary Election. “Voters who need to register or get a replacement ballot can go into their county election office today,” Secretary of State Kim Wyman reminds voters. “Implementing the new laws across the state has brought big changes to both the access and security of our state’s elections.”
Legislative changes, like Same Day Registration, took effect in July with state and county election officials expanding options for voters. “Each of the 39 election offices will be accepting registrations and issuing ballots to voters throughout the day, in addition to processing ballots for tabulation,” adds State Elections Director Lori Augino. “It is important to note that this new law may also have an impact on the daily registered voter totals for counties throughout the certification period, as new registrants are added tonight and overseas and military voters’ absentee registrations are returned.” Some counties are debuting voting centers as well. Voters can visit www.votewa.gov or contact their county election office for more information.
For the first time in our state’s history, VoteWA allows county election officials across the state to have near real-time access to the state’s nearly 4.5 million voters in the registration database. This system will help ensure each eligible voter has only one ballot counted. “Thanks to the hard work and dedication of state and county election officials across Washington, they now have a powerful tool to implement Same Day Registration — the VoteWA system,” Secretary Wyman adds, “This streamlines the process of voter registrations throughout counties and provides levels of security not possible with the old systems.”
Washington’s Office of Secretary of State oversees a number of areas within state government, including managing state elections, registering corporations and charities, and governing the use of the state flag and state seal. The office also manages the State Archives and the State Library, documents extraordinary stories in Washington’s history through Legacy Washington, oversees the Combined Fund Drive for charitable giving by state employees, and administers the state’s Address Confidentiality Program to help protect survivors of crime.
Featured photo credit: jennlvs2smile
