Friday, July 17, is the deadline to register as a write-in candidate for the Aug. 4 primary election.
Registered write-in candidates have their votes counted even with minor misspellings or with wrong or missing party preferences.
Potential write-in candidates register at the Snohomish County auditor’s office in Everett. They must pay the same filing fee as candidates on the ballot – 1 percent of the annual salary for the position – or submit petitions with signatures from a number of voters equal to the number of dollars in the filing fee.
Candidates also can run as unregistered write-in candidates, but votes for unregistered candidates require exact spelling and party preference.
Candidates in the primary – registered or unregistered – can qualify for the Nov. 3 general election by placing first or second in the primary with at least 1 percent of the votes cast for the position.
Last year Republican Mark Davies, a registered write-in candidate in the primary, qualified for the general election for a position in the 1st Legislative District, a position in which an incumbent Democrat was alone on the primary ballot. Davies had qualified for the general election two years earlier as an unregistered write-in candidate for a different legislative position but ended up on the November ballot with no party preference.
Primary write-in campaigns work best against otherwise unopposed candidates for partisan offices. The only unopposed partisan candidate on local ballots is incumbent Democratic District 3 County Councilwoman Stephenie Wright, who represents Lynnwood, Edmonds, Woodway and nearby unincorporated areas.
Nonpartisan offices with only one or two candidates appear only on the November general-election ballot.
Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.
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