Your ballot travels a long way from the time it’s printed to the time it’s mailed to you and returned to our office. You can track your ballot at three places in the process, read on for the larger lifecycle of your ballot.
Step One: Ballot assembly
Ballot packets are assembled by King County Elections staff about four weeks prior to Election Day at the printing vendor’s location in Everett. Ballot packets are assembled to include: a precinct-specific ballot, security and signature envelope, and any election-specific inserts.
Ballot packets sent to military, overseas or out-of-state voters may also include a voters’ pamphlet.
Step Two: Ballots are mailed
Ballots are mailed to voters about three weeks prior to Election Day.
Ballot packets sent to military, overseas or out-of-state voters are sent about four weeks prior to Election Day to allow a longer transit time for the ballot to reach the voter. (RCW 29A.40.070)
Step Three: It’s up to the voter
Once the ballot packet is in the voter’s hands, they have until Election Day to vote their ballot, seal it in the security and signature envelopes, read and sign the oath on the signature envelope and return it to King County Elections. Voted ballots must be received at a designated drop box
by 8 p.m. on election night, or be postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service by the date of the election.
Step Four: Sorting
Returned ballot packets are delivered to King County Elections where they are sorted and batched by legislative district into groups of 200 to 400. A digital image of the voter’s signature is recorded and used for signature verification.
Step Five: Signature verification
Before it can be counted, the signature on every returned ballot packet is visually compared with the voter’s signature on file, typically taken from their registration form. Trained specialists look for groupings and clusters of similarities, like letter and character height and spacing. If the signatures match, the returned ballot packet is approved to move forward to opening.
Mismatching signatures are not usual and there are many reasons a miscomparison could occur. Approximately 3 percent of ballots returned in each election have a signature comparison issue. Common reasons include natural changes in a person’s signature over time, or a voter initialing instead of signing or simply forgetting to sign the oath on the signature envelope. These issues are all resolved differently and the voter is contacted by mail and telephone by King County Elections. Voters have until the evening before the election is certified to resolve their signature issue and have their ballot be counted.
Step Six: Opening
Once the identity of the registered voter is confirmed, the returned ballot packet is sent to opening where the packet is opened and the contents inspected.
Opening is a three step process:
-
The security envelope, containing the voted ballot, is removed from the signature envelope and set aside.
-
Once all signature envelopes in a batch have been emptied and set aside, the security envelope is opened and the ballot extracted. At this point, the connection between the voter’s name and their ballot is severed.
- A 100 percent visual inspection of the ballot is performed. Ballots are pulled and sent to duplication if there are any stray marks that could affect tabulation, if the voter changed their mind and made a correction, or if the voter used the wrong color of pen or pencil. Ballots that are physically ready for tabulation proceed directly there.
Step Seven: Duplication
Ballots sent to duplication typically contain physical damage that would prevent them from being run through the tabulation equipment.
King County uses the Voter Intent Manual created by the Secretary of State’s Office to ensure consistency when duplicating ballots. Ballots where voter intent is not clear are forwarded to the Canvassing Board for a final decision. Once duplicated, the original ballot is securely stored as dictated by the retention schedule.
Step Eight: Scanning and tabulation
Ballots are scanned as they become available, the final step in the process. Scanned ballot images are tabulated and released at 8 p.m. on election night.
Scanning and tabulation continue and new results are reported daily until all eligible votes are counted.
