(WSB photo – seen today in Gatewood)

King County Elections sends out ballots on Wednesday, so yours could arrive as soon as Thursday. But what if you’ve moved? A WSB Community Forums member posted that they’d heard ballots wouldn’t be forwarded, so we contacted KC Elections to ask. Not true, responded KCE spokesperson Hannah Kurowski – here’s what people who have moved need to know:

-If USPS has a forwarding address for someone, they will automatically forward their ballot on to them, even if the voter has not updated their address on their voter registration.

-King County Elections receives data from USPS regularly with updated addresses and, after doing voter outreach, makes those changes in our system.

-If USPS does not have a forwarding address for the voter, their ballot would be returned to us as undeliverable. When a ballot is returned as undeliverable, if the voter does not vote in the election another way (i.e. In-person at a Vote Center or by printing out their ballot online and mailing it that way), then their registration record would become ‘inactive’. If this happens. we send a notice to the voter asking them to update their address with us and they will not automatically receive a ballot in the next election – unless we hear back from them first. It’s incredibly easy to move from ‘inactive’ to ‘active’ and prompt that automatic ballot once again, we just have to hear from the voter to confirm their address.

-This is one of the reasons we try to be clear with voters about contacting us if they do not receive a ballot and they believe they should have. If a voter gives us a call before October 26, we can get a new ballot out to their new address. After October 26, they would need to come in person to update their address. Or they can go online and print their ballot from home if they would prefer to do that instead.

If voters want to contact us, they can email us at elections@kingcounty.gov or call 206-296-VOTE (8683).

Once you get your ballot, you can take it to a drop box -(they open Thursday) West Seattle has three, plus there are others nearby including White Center and South Park – or send it via USPS mail, no stamp needed. Not registered yet? Go here.