Legal challenge in mayor’s race could delay mailing of Whatcom County primary ballots
A legal challenge in the race for Bellingham mayor could delay ballot mailings for the Aug. 1 primary election.
Joel Johnson, who took the unusual step of filing a nominating petition instead of paying a candidate filing fee for Bellingham mayor, is seeking to prevent the Whatcom County Auditor’s Office from releasing the names of the candidates in the mayor’s race until the signatures on his petition have been manually verified.
In an email, Johnson said he began a “grassroots campaign for mayor” on April 27 by collecting signatures instead of simply paying the fee as most other candidates do.
Johnson alleged irregularities with the signature verification process held Saturday, including malfunctioning software and a lack of training in its use, in a Superior Court injunction filed Monday and in an email to The Bellingham Herald.
“Within the first 45 minutes of observing I burst into tears because I realized that under the current conditions there was no way the auditor would certify my petition,” he said.
No date has been set for the hearing with Judge Robert Olson, according to online court records and the court clerk’s office.
Whatcom County Auditor Diana Bradrick told The Herald that she couldn’t comment on the case itself because of Johnson’s injunction. But she said the ballots can’t be designed and printed until the candidates have been made official.
“It’s still being reviewed by the prosecutor’s office so we really don’t know if the ballot will be delayed,” Bradrick said in an interview.
Ballots must be designed, printed and ready to mail by June 16 for active-duty military personnel, students and other U.S. citizens living abroad.
Ballots go out July 12 for everyone else in the Aug. 1 primary, a “top two” race where the two candidates with the most votes advance to the Nov. 7 general election.
All elections in Washington state take place by mail.
Candidates for most other races have been decided and ballot order chosen.
A special filing period is set for Wednesday through Friday for 12 races where no candidate filed to run for office, mostly rural fire protection and cemetery districts.
For Bellingham mayor, four people paid a $2,211 filing fee and registered to oppose Mayor Seth Fleetwood during candidate filing week May 15-19.
Johnson, however, submitted a petition instead with what he said were 2,506 signatures at the County Courthouse about 4:30 p.m. Friday, just before the filing deadline.
That meant that 10 employees in the Auditor’s Office had to work overtime on Saturday to count and verify the voting status of people whose signatures appeared on Johnson’s nominating petition.
He must have the signatures of 2,211 registered voters in order to waive the filing fee of $2,211, Bradrick said.
It was not immediately known how much it cost the county to have employees working overtime counting and verifying signatures on Johnson’s petitions.
This story was originally published May 23, 2023 at 1:16 PM.
