It is voting day in Washington. Pierce County and the State have recently made changes to allow anyone to vote who is eligible to vote, whether they are registered ahead of election day or not. Every library branch can assist folks to get
registered, get a replacement ballot, and to vote. Let’s make sure our clients (and our coworkers) know about this opportunity, and that we help them get to any Tacoma, Puyallup, or Pierce County library so they can vote. Democracy has its privileges, and
its obligations. Below is some additional information presented by the Pierce County Auditor last Friday:
Voting in Pierce County
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Julie Anderson, Pierce County Auditor -
pcauditor@co.pierce.wa.us
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This Information is just for Pierce County – mostly
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Long term changes
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Voter Registration Portal – the State went from a County by County to a giant, top-down voter registration system. I no longer own pierce county voters – I own all 4 million Washington State voters. All the County Auditors
co-manage that new portal. I have visibility in King County, Clackamas County, etc.
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The Portal is at https://votewa.gov/ - you and your customers can go there –
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you can do self-serve so much of what you need to do
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Name change, no problem, go in and change it yourself.
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Change your address
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You can go there to register yourself.
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You can print your own replacement ballot if you’ve misplaced it.
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You can still come in to the election center, but much is self-service.
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Much of the information in the site comes from my office, just the voter rolls are shared.
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Demo of https://votewa.gov/ – on-line for our military voters – can replace a ballot.
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Voter’s guide is available – you can see all the County issues – it is customized for just your ballot when you log in. You can see local and state-wide information
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You could see my ballot if I hadn’t voted. Can actually mark the ballot on the computer and print it and submit normally.
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Available in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Korean
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http://PierceCountyElections.org/ – local resources and one-on-one services
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You can participate in your primary language – Spanish, Vietnamese or Korean.
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Registration forms are available in Spanish, and a Spanish language video on how voting works in Washington State is available -
https://youtu.be/63RtHM3DLbI
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Brochure is available in the different languages – can be shared – put on a website, e-mail, download,
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Today we are moving to telephone lines – direct toll free numbers where callers are greeted in their primary language – I’m hoping that will be stood up by Monday, that phone number will be in language resources. Your answer
– http://PierceCountyElections.org/ – help with primary language – resources are there. Have a video about how to use the
http://votewa.gov/ – we’ve done an instructional video in many primary languages.
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For the November election –we are in the 8-day period where on-line tools don’t work – need to come in in-person to register to vote. In Pierce County, we’ve arranged for every single public library be an extension of our election
center. All 27 branches have trained library staff, kitted out, from opening to 8pm. Anyone can walk in for any voting needs, such as:
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Immediate registration – get a paper form which is filled out, the librarians verify eligibility over the phone, and then get a PDF packet is sent to the librarian, who prints it, the customer votes, and it gets submitted. This
is available on election day only.
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Library staff are knowledgeable, friendly, and can access primary languages
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On election day, Libraries are a great place to go if you’ve lost your ballot, or if you need help understanding it.
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We did a soft roll out in the libraries in the August primary – for people that came to the library, we saved them 28 miles of travel time to our office to get the help they needed.
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I need to be back here more often
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Al – could I create a ghost voters – say a “Glen Garfunkle”? What safeguards do you have in place to prevent that? Julie – don’t do that, it is a Class C felony with a $10,000 fine and 5 years of prison time. When a library staff
person calls in this information over the phone – we do checks against the other voter registrations, felony counts, and other checks.
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Felons – no longer in custody of department of corrections - not confined, not under DOC supervision, have earned their franchise back – but need to re-register. When they were convicted, their registration was cancelled. If
they are nervous about this, or confused about if they are in custody or not, we can verify their status.
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I brought a ton of felon cards for you last time – let me know if you need more.
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Question – does restitution need to be paid? Julie – no, you just have to making good faith efforts to pay it down, and there is a whole due process around this.
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Theresa – In Maine you can vote while incarcerated – any plan in Washington? Julie – there is a caucus of Democratic Legislators doing background research on this – so there is a workgroup with the Secretary of State, the Department
of Corrections, and more.
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Brandon – your scenario, if someone was registering with a similar name, what happens in that situation? Julie- for a new registrant – we’d compare address, voting histories, birth dates. We have lots of john smiths - and Julie
Andersons. We are used to doing this. We like middle names to be included.
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Maureen – Homeless people can vote – do we all know what to do? Julie – yes, send them to a library – they are all schooled up on this. They will talk them through that process, and that they don’t need a residential address
to vote. They don’t need a residential address, just a mailing address. We do need to know where you’re living – we have to precinct you. That residential location can be approximate, like the meeting of two streets. The mailing address is where we send
future ballots- it can be a shelter, mother-in-law, payee. We know people more around a lot. We’ll inactivate people if ballots bounce – so they’ll need to reactivate. And you just call us or on election day go to a library.
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Do you have to wait until election day to go to a library? Julie – yes. We just want them to do it for the 13-hour period on one day. The libraries are for stranded voters. We are the only county doing this, so there is lots
of attention paid to their work.
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Question –how do we get information on topics in the election? Julie – ask a librarian. It is in the librarian nature and training to help folks start researching candidates and issues on the web or by looking at voter pamphlets
and such.
Gerrit F. Nyland
Director of Client Information Systems, SW
Catholic Community Services of Western Washington
Mobile: 253-304-5105