I realized last night that our election system is broken.

Instead of candidate posters plastered around town that eventually blended with the environment, they should have plastered AUGUST 6, the primary deadline that I completely forgot until 5 pm last night driving through Okanogan. A giant billboard for a candidate caught my eye and I thought, oh, no. It’s today.

I thought voting would be easy. Having covered the candidate’s forum, I had an idea for who to vote for.

I was unprepared for the other offices on the ballot. I have never seen a list of gubernatorial candidates so long. I don’t recall a voters’ pamphlet so thick. This must be good for democracy, but bad if you’re just opening the ballot an hour before the deadline.

I sped read through the most salient points and drove 8 miles to the ballot box. I arrived at 7:50 pm. Two men had just dropped off their envelopes.

I felt embarrassed walking down Glover Street with a bright yellow envelope. I felt a last minute, disorganized, what is the matter with you type of internal judgement if someone were to see me, which turned out to be no one except for the two men that had just voted themselves and another one sitting on the bench.

The man on the bench said he was visiting from Gig Harbor. He asked me what attracts me to a place like this- the heat, the cold, the smoke, the yellow jackets.

While we were talking, two officials exited the Twisp Civic Building. One had a binder, which she started to fill out. I saw a man in flip flops carrying a bright yellow envelope.

“You’d better hurry, ” I said. “The officials are out and it closes at 8.”

“Does it?”

Well, at least I knew the ballot box closes at 8 pm. I didn’t want his effort of going through all of the candidates’ statements to go to waste.

Or maybe he did a design pattern on the ballot, like I thought about doing.

Whatever the case, thank you to the 32.83% of registered voters in Okanogan County that picked up a black or blue pen and filled in the squares. (Update: it’s 46.44% as of Aug. 9.)

There are more people whose ballot is still sitting on their windowsill.

I am the founder and editor of Methow Valley Examiner, an online publication for locals, by locals. MVE explores stories beyond the headlines.

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