NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021

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.

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