Tagged: Elections

With Saturday mail delivery ending this summer, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman says voters should think about getting their ballots in the mail sooner.

She says ballots should be mailed Friday before Election Day to make sure they are postmarked by the deadline.

The Postal Service plans to end Saturday service on Aug. 3, which will be the final weekend before Washington's Aug. 6 primary.

Voters also can return their ballots in drop boxes and many counties say more than half their ballots are dropped off.

Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, the Republican who's challenging Democrat Claire McCaskill for the U.S. Senate seat, said in a television interview Sunday that it's "rare" for women to become pregnant when they are raped.

"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," he said in an interview with KTVI, a St. Louis television station.

OLYMPIA, Wash. – There’s new hope among minority groups in Washington that the state could soon have a majority-minority Congressional district. This fresh optimism follows Tuesday’s unveiling of four competing proposals to redraw the state’s political boundaries – and add a tenth Congressional seat.

Making headlines this morning around the Northwest:

• Where's Spring? Snow Falls in Lowlands, Mountains
• Farewell to State's Last Polling Places
• Seattle Settlement Over Domestic Violence Cases

Hey, it's April 6th!

Brrr. It's chilly at sea level, and if you live in the Cascade or Olympic foothills there's a good chance you've seen some snow flakes fall, as Snohomish County has this morning. Mountain passes are getting a new dumping of snow, as April marches on.

British Columbia is getting get a new Premier.  Over the weekend, the province elected a new leader. The new Premier, which is equivalent to a state governor, is pledging to maintain good relations with Washington State.

Kirby Wilbur is the new Republican Party chairman in Washington, unseating former state lawmaker Luke Esser over the weekend in a party's leadership vote. The former KVI talk radio host beat Esser by a vote of 69 to 36, with seven votes for Puyallup Republican Bill Rennie, according to The Seattle Times' Jim Bruener.

Despite GOP gains in the state, Wilbur told the Times the party's advances should have been bigger: 

Washington would become an all vote-by-mail state under a bill being considered by a State Senate committee.

Pierce County is the last in the state that still allows polling places and some of the county’s voters want to keep it that way.

Lakewood resident Erika Cranmer testified that she has not missed an election since she became an American citizen in 1951. The German native told lawmakers she does not trust vote-by-mail:

There were celebrations in Olympia when news broke Tuesday that Washington state will get an additional member of Congress as a result of the 2010 Census. 

Election geeks take note: we've reached a new level of high-tech politics in Washington.  Secretary of State Sam Reed is offering a palette of e-tools for your election day fun.

They include a new iPhone app created solely for getting the latest results on statewide votes. The free download will allow you to get results at the same time the candidates - and the press - receive them.