Today is General Election Day 2021. Haven’t voted yet? It’s time to get that ballot in!

Today is Gen­er­al Elec­tion Day in Wash­ing­ton and in sev­er­al oth­er states, includ­ing Vir­ginia and New Jer­sey, which have guber­na­to­r­i­al elections.

Thou­sands of local posi­tions are on the bal­lot here in the Ever­green State, from the city lev­el to the port lev­el to the school dis­trict level.

Most of the state’s home rule coun­ties (like King, Sno­homish, Clark, and What­com) are also hold­ing elec­tions for coun­ty-lev­el offices.

Ore­gon and Ida­ho have no state-lev­el mea­sures on the bal­lot today, but there are a few local posi­tions and mea­sures on the bal­lot in numer­ous jurisdictions.

Have you vot­ed yet? If you have, con­grat­u­la­tions on ful­fill­ing your civic duty. Now, go check up on your friends and fam­i­ly and make sure they’ve vot­ed, too.

Haven’t vot­ed yet? It’s time to get that bal­lot in! You’ve only got a few hours left before time runs out to par­tic­i­pate. There’s no excuse for not voting.

You should have received your bal­lot in the mail a few weeks ago from the coun­ty you reside in. If you did not receive a bal­lot, or if you have mis­placed your bal­lot, you can print a replace­ment at home pret­ty eas­i­ly. Just reach out to your coun­ty elec­tions office. Most have infor­ma­tion on their web­sites about replac­ing a ballot.

Don’t for­get to sign your bal­lot before putting it in a drop box or the mail. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, locate the near­est drop box to you by going here.

If you live in Ore­gon, don’t take your bal­lot to a post office, as it’s too late to mail it. Find a drop box instead, and take your bal­lot there.

Not reg­is­tered to vote? Wash­ing­ton has same-day vot­er reg­is­tra­tion! You can cast a bal­lot if you go to an in-per­son vot­ing assis­tance center.

Not sure who to vote for? If you belong to or pre­fer a par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal par­ty, you may want to con­sult their list of endorsements.

There’s also the Pro­gres­sive Vot­ers Guide main­tained by Fuse Washington.

NPI has tak­en posi­tions on the fol­low­ing bal­lot mea­sures in Wash­ing­ton (we do not endorse or oppose can­di­dates for office).

Tim Eyman’s push polls (“advisory votes”) 

Vote Main­tained on all three to resist Tim Eyman’s mali­cious attempts to under­mine our sys­tem of rep­re­sen­ta­tive government.

King County Charter Amendments 1 and 2

Two house­keep­ing amend­ments are on the King Coun­ty bal­lot. One would make a gram­mat­i­cal cor­rec­tion. The oth­er con­cerns updat­ing the time­frames for coun­ty-lev­el bal­lot mea­sures, includ­ing ini­tia­tives. Nei­ther have any orga­nized oppo­si­tion and make sim­ple changes to keep the char­ter shipshape.

We rec­om­mend vot­ing yes on both.

Local ballot measures

Our team also encour­ages you to sup­port your local levies unless you have a good rea­son not to. Lake For­est Park, for exam­ple, has a streets and parks levy on the bal­lot today. Pas­sage of the levy would fund a new water­front park and allow the city to con­struct more side­walks to improve pedes­tri­an safety.