SPOKANE, Wash — Spokane County ballots will be sent out early for the November election, according to Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton.
Dalton said ballots will be sent out to voters Oct. 9, nine days earlier than expected. She said the decision to send them out early was to give the U.S. Postal Service more time to return the ballots for the General Election on Nov. 3.
Dalton said usually ballots are sent out 18 days before the election. In some areas, ballots will arrive around Oct. 10. In other areas, ballots will arrive around Oct. 17. All voters should have their ballots in hand by Oct. 22.
“Voters have been calling our offices for the past month asking when ballots will arrive,” Dalton said in a press release. “Normally, all ballots would be sent around October 16. Mailing out some ballots even a few days early helps spread the volume over more days.”
By spreading out when ballots are spent, elections officials also hope to reduce the workload on staff, which is important because with social distancing requirements fewer employees can be in the elections office at one time.
"We're hoping that voters will space out the return of ballots more than they generally do," Dalton told KREM.
Spokane County is sending over 340,000 ballots out to voters by Oct. 9. Adams, Pend Oreille, Stevens, Ferry, and Whitman counties will also mail ballots by Oct. 9. Some counties, including Lincoln, Garfield and Asotin, will mail ballots by Oct. 16.
Online voting registration information and resources can be found at the VoteWA Voter website. Online and mail-in registration must be completed by October 26, which is eight days before the election. If you register online, your ballot should arrive within a week.
People can register in-person to vote up to and on election day.
In Washington, all mail-in ballots will provide paid postage, meaning voters don’t need to put a stamp on their ballot. In fact, adding a stamp to your Washington won’t change anything about how it is handled other than wasting a stamp, as it is already handled as First-Class Mail.