Greg Kimsey really doesn’t want to have to put a ballot box in Heisson
Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey sent Gov. Jay Inslee earlier this month asking him to veto a bill that would require more ballot drop boxes to be set up in the county.
Last week, SB 5472 was delivered to the governor’s desk for his signature. The bill is intended to improve voting access in Washington and according to its summary: “The county auditor must establish a minimum of one ballot drop box for each 15,000 registered voters in the county and in each city, town, and census-designated place in the county that has a post office.”
But Kimsey wants the governor to veto the bill. In his letter he argued that it will micromanage his office and saddle it with more costs that come from installing and managing more ballot boxes.
At a recent county council board time meeting, Kimsey said that if the bill is signed he’d have to set up a ballot drop box in Heisson, a tiny unincorporated community outside of Battle Ground. Kimsey said that everyone there travels to Battle Ground once a week, where there is a ballot box. He said that the Legislature has been considering this issue for the last five years and the bill on the governor’s desk is the “worst.”
Kimsey also commented that under Washington’s vote-by-mail system “everyone has a ballot drop box; it’s called a mailbox.”
