With less than a week left before the Nov. 3 general election, local and state election officials in Washington are navigating rumors, allegations of non-citizen voting and offers for members of the Washington National Guard to oversee ballot box sites.

In the most populous county of Washington’s contested 3^rd Congressional District, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey chose to accept Gov. Bob Ferguson’s recent offer to send plainclothes National Guard members to ballot drop boxes to provide extra security.

Guard members have been specifically instructed to stay in their vehicles and not interact with voters, Kimsey said.

“Their only responsibility is if they see some bad behavior is to call 911,” he said.

The increase in election security comes after incendiary devices were dropped in ballot boxes in Vancouver and Portland during the 2024 presidential election. Hundreds of ballots were damaged in Vancouver. Authorities have never identified the person, or people, responsible.

In Wahkiakum County, a rural region along the Columbia River, the election office has seen an uptick in comments from residents saying things like “my husband got their ballot, but I didn’t get mine,” said Auditor Nicci Bergseng.

Ballots go from her office to a mail processing center in Portland where they are sent back to voters, she said. Bergseng has had to reissue about 125 ballots out of the county’s 3,600 voters.

Rural Washington counties have been affected by other mail-in voting delays in recent years.

For mail-in ballots to be counted, they must be dropped in a ballot box or postmarked by election day. During the August primary election, U.S. Postal Service delays in postmarking mail resulted in a 32% increase in ballots that were not counted because they arrived late, compared to the 2024 primary, according to the office of Sen. Maria Cantwell. The number of uncounted ballots was more pronounced in rural communities.

Officials are advising voters to use ballot drop boxes whenever possible.

On Monday, U.S. Department of Justice attorneys in Seattle contacted Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs alleging that hundreds of non-citizens have been voting in elections in the state.

A letter sent by Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Pete Serrano included a list of more than 400 individuals provided by the Department of Homeland Security. The federal attorneys said those individuals had voted in Washington for more than a decade.

The attorneys requested that state election officials not tabulate their votes this year until their citizenship could be determined.

More than 5.1 million people are registered to vote in Washington state.

In a press release about the DOJ request, the Secretary of State’s office said it is reviewing the list. Hobbs’ office said that running elections is the responsibility of states, and that federal law limits states’ abilities to remove voters 90 days before a federal election.

It also noted that one of the allegedly illegal voting records provided by the DOJ dated back decades, to 1994.

“The timing of this request — one week before the General Election — is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results,” a statement from the Washington state elections office said.

So far, things are operating normally in Cowlitz County, according to Auditor Carolyn Fundingsland. But, she said, the number of challenges and variables that elections officials are facing has grown over the years.

“If you’re an election administrator, you’re just becoming very desensitized to it,” she said.

Washington voters interested in checking the status of their ballot can visit VoteWA.gov, text VOTE to 868392 with the Secretary of State’s office or call local elections offices.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/27/southwest-washington-election-politics-voting-ballot/