From the Auditor

It seems as if 2024 is running at "fast forward" speed. Your elections team certified two of the five elections scheduled for the year, including the March 12 presidential primary.

Many voters expressed concerns with having to identify a political party affiliation on their ballot return envelope. Presidential primaries are conducted for major political parties as part of their respective candidate nomination processes and the parties want to know who voted in their primary.

From an elections team perspective, we basically conduct two separate primaries. Designating party affiliation on the return envelope enables efficient sorting of ballots for processing and verification that the votes cast match declared party affiliation. The presidential primary process is defined in state law (RCW 29A.56.50) and Washington Administrative Code 434-219-155.

The presidential primary was the first election where we offered temporary vote center operations at the Belfair Sheriff's Office. Approximately 30 voters enjoyed the convenience of this vote center during the two days it was open. We plan to make Belfair vote center service available for the August primary, the November general election, and future elections that include jurisdictions in the northeast part of the county.

We remain focused on voter registration database maintenance. I want to remind voters "cleaning the voter rolls" starts with you. Check your voter registration information through the VoteWA voter portal and update it if necessary. When you change residency, update your voter registration information as soon as possible. Submitting a change of address form to the post office does not update voter information. We regularly review change of address data for voters who are registered to vote in other states.

We also send letters to our Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act voters with a request to update their voter registration status and information. UOCAVA voters are members of the United States uniformed services and merchant marine, their family members, citizens residing outside the United States and students. UOCAVA voters can request ballots from their last residence in Mason County even though they may not have resided there for years. So, it's important to ensure that UOCAVA registration information is correct.

In other news, your Financial Services Department is beginning work to produce the Mason County 2023 annual report and to prepare the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2025. Check out the Recording Department website where you will find updated features to search for recorded documents and obtain certified copies of them. You will also find the link to the free subscription for "Fraud Notify" service.

The Mason County Citizen's Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials is underway. Your auditor selected six of the 10 members at random from the voter registration database. The board of county commissioners appointed the remaining four. You can find resolution 2024-002 establishing the salary commission on the county website. Salary decisions for your elected officials will be implemented once the commission files them with the Mason County Auditor's Office. This is one great way to return power to the people of Mason County.