Chelan County Preparing for First Election Since Lawsuit

Chelan County is moving into its first election since being named in a lawsuit that claims they discriminated against Latino voters when it come to signature verification.

Auditor Skip Moore says they will have three weeks from election day, August 3rd, to clear up any issues.

"As soon as we find a mismatch we send a letter to the individual asking them to update, but if they don't respond by the day prior to certification, we can't count their ballot. That's the part that really concerns me."

Currently, that letter is only available in English, but Moore believes that will change.

"Federal law is quite clear when we have to do bilingual materials based upon thresholds met in the census. The new data is coming out real soon. I anticipate that we will have reached the thresholds to require us to provide ballots in both English and Spanish."

Moore says they are expecting to be fully bilingual in 2022, but will need to ramp up staffing to make the changes.

Ballots for the August 3rd election are due by that date at 8:00 p.m.