The Thurston County Auditor has begun to mail ballots to registered voters in our county. Unfortunately it appears that today some students have also received address verification notices in the place of their ballots. What does this mean? Ballots for an unknown number of students and residents in our area are not being delivered and instead will be retained by the auditor until address confirmation is received. Essentially, voter rolls are being purged at the last minute, leaving very little time for voters to provide the requested verification.

If you have received a letter from the County Auditor or the Secretary of State that indicates your ballot will not be mailed on time, please respond to the verification request as soon as possible. Additionally, I ask that you please take the time to reply here so that we can begin to assess the scope of this problem. One step you can take includes filing a report with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington State by calling (206) 624-2180 during business hours.

Additional points of contact include:

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed: (360) 902-4151 http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/ Thurston County Auditor Kim Wyman: (360) 786-5408

The Olympian Reporters:

Rolf Boone 360-754-5403 rboone@theolympian.com

Venice Buhain 360-754-5445 vbuhain@theolympian.com

Matt Batcheldor 360-704-6869 mbatcheldor@theolympian.com

Brad Shannon 360-753-1688 bshannon@theolympian.com