Check to See If Your Ballot Made It

Mine didn't.  I just checked at KC Elections with their handy "ballot tracker."  I mailed my ballot a week ago, from a post office, and it's not there. 

So a pleasant elections worker mailed me a link for another ballot that I filled out online (or you can download and fill in at home) that I am taking to a KC dropbox at Magnuson Park.  (You can also go downtown to the King Street Station to get a ballot from 10 am to 8 pm.)

Comments

Frustrated said…
Also, the ballot drop box at Magnuson wasn't at its Magnuson location this morning???!!! Bunch of people driving around looking for it. Hope it shows up, it was incredibly frustrating.
11/3/15, 10:17 AM
Jet City mom said…
That kind of alarms me.
How many folks dont check to see if their ballot had been processed or do not do so in time to recieve a replacement?
In a former life, I volunteered at the polls and enjoyed watching the community coming together for this critical civic duty.
Im curious as to whether this has been cost effective. Is participation in the process increased since we switched to mail in ballots?
11/3/15, 10:19 AM
Maje said…
The drop box is at Magnuson today 10am-8pm.
11/3/15, 11:23 AM
Anonymous said…
10-8 is clearly not good enough.

We mailed our ballot after looking up the hours. It does only take 1 stamp -- according to the king county election site.

zb
11/3/15, 11:27 AM
Jan said…
Logic tells me that voting by mail ought to make it easier for far more people to vote -- and yet, I have never trusted the post office to not lose my ballot, so I always take mine down and drop it off at the King County administration building drop box. I realized yesterday that the walk there and back also substitutes (for me -- I am old) for the old walk down to my local elementary school to vote. Personally, I wish we still had polling places -- with the ability to vote by mail for only those who didn't want to vote in person. I imagine it is economic -- but actual in person voting on election day provided an element of community/civic involvement that voting by mail simply cannot replicate.

This is ANOTHER good reason, though, to NOT bend to the appeals of folks who want the cut off to be ballots received by election day (rather than ballots postmarked by election day.) The proponents of that change always make it seem like the world ends if we don't have answers by the end of election night on every single race. To me, the bigger issue is (or should be) -- how to get the most votes counted -- how to get the most participation in each election. The delay caused by using postmarking as the deadline is usually only 2 to 3 days -- and then only in very close elections. If it goes longer, it is not an issue of mailing/postmarking; it is an issue of a very close election that may require one or more recounts. The ONLY people truly inconvenienced by using postmarking as the cut off are the media. And their concerns are NOT paramount here, regardless of what the Seattle Times editorial board may think.

Jan
11/3/15, 11:38 AM
Maureen said…
Is there a general link to download a ballot from, or do they have to send it to you specifically? I was a bad parent and didn't forward my college student's ballot to him in time.

11/3/15, 11:40 AM
Anonymous said…
For next time, your student can change their address to their college address. My son did that which resulted in him receiving 2 ballots, one at home and one at school in DC. The one at home had his middle name on it and the one at school did not. I told him to check online for which was current and shred the other one.

HP
11/3/15, 12:03 PM
SF said…
When my daughter checked into her dorm at Western this fall they asked her if she wanted to change her voting address, which was great in theory, but then she received the ballot for Whatcom county, which she did not want. She didn't really realize what she was changing. We've since changed her address back but I think it's too late for this election.
11/3/15, 12:19 PM
Maureen said…
Looks like you can get a ballot here: EveryoneCounts. (Thanks to a Facebook friend with many politically involved college age friends!)
11/3/15, 12:45 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Maureen, they have to send it to you specifically, I think.

It took some doing to find the van. If you go in the main entrance, it's past the first stop sign (with an arrow for the van), and to the left.
11/3/15, 1:05 PM
Jujubee said…
I was nearby, so I drove to the Ballard drop box to deliver my ballot around 9am today. The box was either very full or there was a blockage, because it was hard to insert ballots -- we had to thread them in one at a time, each one making it more difficult for the next ballot to fit! I crammed mine in, but in retrospect I should have just waited and mailed it. Someone who was waiting there said he called the Elections office, and "they were sending someone." I hope it got cleared up quickly!
11/3/15, 2:25 PM
Josh Hayes said…
One of the (few) benefits of my new commute is that it's easy to drive by Redmond City Hall, where there's a drop-box. I dropped my THREE ballots (welcome to the franchise, son!) last week, and all three have been received/verified and will be counted, so says the County.
11/3/15, 4:56 PM
GarfieldMom said…
Maureen, thank you! I think my son was able to use that info to vote for the first time, he was so bummed that his ballot came to our house without enough time to get it to him.
11/3/15, 8:04 PM
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