Thurston County ballot center to be remodeled, expanded by summer, Auditor says
Thurston County will spend about $3 million to remodel and expand its ballot processing center by next summer.
Each election, ballots are checked and counted at the center, a warehouse building at a complex at the intersection of Ferguson Street Southwest and 29th Avenue in Tumwater.
The center has served it use for decades, but Auditor Mary Hall has said her office needs more space and security at the facility. To that aim, the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a $3 million construction contract with Construct Incorporated of Tumwater earlier this month.
“I’m very excited that we’re finally going to retrofit and expand the ballot processing center,” Hall said. “It’s been long overdue.”
The new contract marks a milestone in the project, which stalled in 2023.
“Originally, we were moving forward with the expansion of the ballot processing center,” Hall said. “As we got closer and closer to this presidential election, we simply didn’t have the money to complete the project or even start the project, nor did we have the time.”
Instead, the county pivoted towards creating a new voter services center at the same complex as the ballot processing center.
The $1.6 million voter services center opened just in time for the August primary and served the county through the November general election.
With that project done, the county has turned its attention back to the ballot processing center.
How is this being paid for?
This time the county has a new funding source: the Public Safety Sales Tax that voters approved in the 2023 general election.
Money collected from that 0.2% sales tax primarily supports law enforcement, but a smaller portion is designated for election security infrastructure.
“So, when the voters approved the proposition last year, they essentially approved funding for this facility,” Hall said about the ballot processing center.
The board decided to issue bonds this year to finance several projects, including renovating the ballot processing center. Those bonds will ultimately be paid for almost entirely by Public Safety Sales Tax revenue, outgoing assistant county manager Robin Campbell told the board during a Dec. 4 meeting that’s available on YouTube.
How will the facility be improved?
Hall said Thurston County’s ballot processing center falls short of similar facilities in the state, but it’s now on track to become one of the best.
“I haven’t been to every single county, but I can tell you that the counties where I have viewed their facility, I was envious,” Hall said.
By the end of construction, the county should get a “substantially” expanded facility, Hall said. There will be more space for additional ballot inspectors as well as more room for resolving paper ballots, military ballots and ballots that are ripped or torn.
The latter ballots cannot go through the county’s machines, Hall said, so they have to be hand duplicated in a very lengthy process.
In addition to more security and efficiencies, Hall said the center should foster transparency.
“We’re making a large area for observers to observe the process and they won’t need to be escorted,” Hall said.
Under current conditions, full-time staff must escort all political party observers. She said the remodeled facility will have a glass division that observers can watch through.
Construction is expected to be completed by the summer, Hall said.
“We really need to be in there by mid-summer because we need that facility to conduct the August primary election,” Hall said.
