FROM THE AUDITOR

With certification of the April 2023 special election, voters passed measures that merged Fire Protection District 11 with District 5 and renewed the property tax levy for Fire Protection District 3. The Aug. 1 primary is next, and your dedicated elections team is ready.

We moved the Vote Center to the second floor of the County Administration Building next to the Licensing & Recording counter where voters will continue to receive terrific customer service. We reorganized the ballot processing room on the first floor for better efficiency and to accommodate more election observers. We have taken steps to improve the security of our Clear Ballot voting system machine and upgraded its software to Clear Vote 2.3 (certified by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission and the Washington Secretary of State). All the while, we continually work to keep the voter registration database current and correct. You can now find statistics summarizing voter roll maintenance activity on the Auditor's Elections website.

We're increasing election system transparency. The first group of elections observers recently visited K&H Printing (vote-by-mail ballot vendor) to witness production of your ballots. During the election, observers will be able to follow Elections staff as they collect ballots from drop boxes and the Shelton Post Office. You will also find links to streamed surveillance video from most Mason County ballot drop box locations on the Auditor's Elections website in addition to the currently available link to ballot processing room cameras.

Are you ready to vote? Please take time to check your voter registration address and mailing address in VoteWA and update it if necessary. You can access your registration information through the voter portal at voter.votewa.gov/WhereToVote.aspx. It's also a good idea to verify the signature we have on file for you with a quick visit to the Vote Center.

To prepare for the 2024 presidential primary and election, we are purchasing a machine that will improve ballot processing efficiency. The machine rapidly captures images from ballot envelopes and sorts envelopes into batches. It will also open envelopes following signature verification by trained elections staff. This machine facilitates signature verification by providing images of voters' signatures from ballot envelopes and from VoteWA for direct visual comparison. Election observers will be able to view these same images on video monitors in the ballot processing room when signature verification is in progress.

The Auditor's Office does more than administer your elections. Your financial services team started work to prepare the preliminary county budget for fiscal year 2024. Once we submit the preliminary budget to the Mason County Board of Commissioners in September, we will post a copy on the Auditor's financial services website so you can review it and prepare any comments you might want to introduce in public hearings prior to budget finalization and adoption by the Commissioners.

Meanwhile, your Licensing and Recording team is preparing to roll out new features on the Auditor's recording website that will improve customer experience with research and retrieval of recorded documents, and more! Stay tuned.

■ Steve Duenkel is the Mason County auditor.