Clallam County’s bellwether streak is officially over.
National and statewide media outlets looked to Clallam County to predict the 2024 presidential race as voters had correctly predicted 11 presidential elections in a row.
However, Clallam voters opted for Vice President Kamala Harris last month while former President Donald Trump won election.
In Clallam County’s general election, Harris received 25,440 votes (52.3 percent) and Trump 21,632 votes (44.5 percent). The county canvassing board certified the election on Nov. 26 before sending it to the Secretary of State’s office.
Local Republican and Democratic party officials have different takeaways from the end of the bellwether streak.
Pam Blakeman, past chair of the Clallam County Republicans, said they’re OK with losing the distinction.
“Our goal was to get Donald Trump elected,” she said.
“It was fun to be the bellwether, and it would have been great if the county voted for him, but the prize was getting who we wanted.”
Washington’s slate of electors cast their votes on Dec. 17 for Harris as she received 57.2 percent statewide (2.2 million votes). Trump had 39 percent (1.5 million).
Blakeman said local Republicans weren’t shocked by Clallam’s results.
“The reality is, there are more people living in the county who are Democrat,” she said.
She said they’ve been watching trends and see the county turning more blue (Democrat), particularly in Sequim, but they’re not discouraged.
“We see things we can do more of,” Blakeman said.
“We don’t anticipate overnight success. We’re happily moving forward. This is another part of the battle … We’re in it for the long run.”
Denise Mackenstadt, communications and marketing chair for the Clallam County Democrats, said her party was OK with losing the bellwether status because they liked Harris, and many local Democrats won their elections.
“We voted for the candidate we liked the most,” she said.
“We were very supportive of Kamala, and as for the bellwether, we were more interested in winning the election than keeping that status.”
Mackenstadt said candidates like incumbent state Rep. Steve Tharinger (52.3 percent of Clallam’s vote), new state Rep. Adam Bernbaum (51.6 percent in Clallam) and new Sen. Mike Chapman (52.1 percent in Clallam) were elected or reelected because they are high-caliber candidates who spoke to the community.
“With Steve Tharinger and Mike Chapman, their experience in the Legislature is very beneficial for our county,” she said.
“Adam Bernbaum worked very hard to get into the neighborhoods and was very open to having discussions about the needs of our county.”
She said Emily Randall, who won former Congressman Derek Kilmer’s seat, including 51.8 percent of Clallam’s vote, was “very involved in the community and made several visits to Clallam County.”
She said for Democrats to continue to be successful, they’ll need to continue listening to the community’s needs, maintain their philosophy and values, and encourage more people to vote.
“I think we had a good turnout, but we can do better,” Mackenstadt said.
“We need to continue to work within our county with the school boards, county races, mayor races (and more) because they’re all coming up in the future.”
By the numbers
This year was down slightly compared with the 2020 general election, from 86.1 percent to 83.7 percent voter participation. However, this year’s general election did surpass the 2016 election turnout rate of 80.5 percent.
Clallam County Auditor Shoona Riggs said there was a really high interest in this election with people consistently registering to vote and a long line stretching throughout the Clallam County Courthouse’s basement even on Election Day.
“We processed almost 500 in-person voters on Election Day,” she said. “That’s a record for us.”
Some were brand new to voting. Some were new to the county. And some had a mixture of reasons for registering, Riggs said.
Process
Party and League of Women Voters of Clallam County officials, each of whom had observers throughout the election process, commended county election staff members for their efforts.
Mackenstadt said the Clallam Democrats have confidence in the election process.
“We have a very secure election process,” she said.
Bonnie Bless-Boenish, civics education chair with the League of Women Voters, said they started having observers in 2022 and have found the “whole process is very transparent and so impressive.”
“(Staff) do an amazing job of keeping the three election observer advisors (each day) up to date,” she said.
Bless-Boenish also said they do a good job of explaining the process throughout the year and during training.
“(The election is) absolutely safe, secure, accurate and professionally done,” she said.
Blakeman said the elections office is “wonderful” and “very meticulous.”
“The ones doing the work are very careful to do it correctly,” she said.
However, she said the process statewide is lacking in some areas, particularly that it takes weeks to get the final certified results.
“It leaves a sense of, ‘What’s going on?’” Blakeman said.
She acknowledges that staff are good about reaching people who need to update their signatures, but she found there were hundreds of people who had their ballots rejected.
Clallam County had 351, or 0.71 percent of its ballots challenged for various reasons, including signatures not matching, not signed, being too late or not having a ballot inside the envelope.
Riggs said they initially send a letter and contact the voter by email or phone, depending on if they enrolled in text message notifications.
If they haven’t heard from a voter before the certification, they’ll reach out to them by email, phone and text if signed up. Staff do not send a second letter.
She said if a voter has difficulty signing, they can put a mark, such as an “X” and have two witnesses and their signatures to be accepted.
This year’s tally for rejected ballots is on par with past elections, with a higher count due to the turnout, Riggs said.
The Clallam County Canvassing Board (Riggs, attorney Dee Boughton for Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols and commissioner Mike French) spent two days analyzing challenged ballots, she said.
“I’m impressed with their time and care to look over the challenged ballots,” Bless-Boenish said.
“It wasn’t at all a rushed process.”
Riggs agreed with the sentiment that there’s always room for improvement in the elections process, but as for the length of certification, it comes down to changes in the law.
State law dictates counties must certify their elections within 21 days after the election. During that time span, she said ballots are still coming in by mail and a number are returned on election day.
“We begin processing them as they’re received,” she said. “It takes time for signature verification and then to be opened and reviewed and scanned in through the tabulator.
“It’s very time consuming.”
Bless-Boenish said the reasoning behind the time frame for certification is to ensure “people have a chance to make sure their votes are counted.”
“In Washington, we want as many people to vote as possible, but also safeguards in place,” she said.
For Republicans, Blakeman said they hold “a great desire to improve the elections process.”
“It’s a slow process and the Republican Party will continue to labor to have the greatest confidence in the elections process,” she said.
Additionally
Riggs said there were election observers at drop boxes across the county, particularly in Sequim and Carlsborg, who let her office know where they would be daily, and there were no complaints made about them to her office this year.
With two ballot boxes burned in Vancouver, Wash., and Portland, Ore., on Oct. 28, Riggs said staff added an additional fire suppression system to all of Clallam County’s drop boxes. The boxes each had one fire suppression system added about five years ago.
Asked about adding cameras to ballot boxes, Riggs said most are on private property and would require property owners’ permission, and the county would have to budget for equipment, staff and possibly more. The county’s website, clallamcountywa.gov/elections, has a livestream of the elections office and annex.
During her time as auditor, Riggs said she’s proud of the employees and dedication they put into elections.
“They take their job seriously to protect the secrecy of voters’ ballots while providing accurate and transparent elections for the public,” she said.
With questions or to request a tour, Riggs encourages people to call the Elections Office, 223 E. Fourth St., Room 042, Port Angeles, at 360-417-2221.
The Clallam County League of Women Voters welcomes the opportunity to give presentations on civics education or ballot processing to classrooms or groups by emailing info@lwvcla.org or by visiting https://lwvcla.clubexpress.com.
Read more about the Clallam County Democrats at clallamdemocrats.org and the Clallam County Republicans at clallamrepublicans.org.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
