Pacific County Auditor Working to Correct Missing Library Levy on Raymond Ballots Ahead of Election Day

SOUTH BEND, Wash. - Washington's vote-by-mail system is facing a turbulent election season across the state's rural corners, as a wave of printing errors, historical boundary oversights, and persistent postal delivery bottlenecks test both election administrators and voters.

Pacific County has found itself amidst a series of compounding errors across the region that has forced auditors into frantic remediation efforts just weeks—and days—before ballots are due. Pacific County Auditor Nicole Deskins has scrambled to fix a major issue for the Raymond area.

Word swirled on Oct. 16 that the Timberland Regional Library (TRL) measure was missing from the ballots of residents in Raymond. Residents took to Facebook to question why the measure was missing, and TRL also released a press release that evening stating they were aware of the issue.

The missing ballot data in Raymond is TRL Proposition No. 1, a property tax levy lid lift appearing on the November 3 ballot across the system's five-county service area. The measure asks voters to reset and increase the library district's property tax rate from its current level of about $0.22 to $0.35 per $1,000 of assessed property value. 

Library officials note that local property taxes account for roughly 96% of TRL's operating budget, and the revenue generated by the lift is intended to fund daily operations, maintain staff and open branch hours, and shorten wait times for digital and physical collections.

Deskins released a statement on Oct. 17 noting that the situation was being addressed as quickly as possible.

"Due to an oversight after the 2015 November General, the annexation of the Timberland Regional Library into the City of Raymond was not correctly reported or recorded," Deskins said. "Because of this error, election precinct records were not correctly updated and this affected 1,828 voters in the City of Raymond."

"This was brought to our attention late yesterday afternoon and Pacific County Elections worked quickly, efficiently, and with due diligence to get this issue resolved. The affected ballots will be reissued to include Timberland Regional Library Levy Proposition No. 1 and will be mailed no later than Tuesday, Oct. 20."

Deskins also added that residents will need to fill out the supplemental ballots to ensure they are counted in the election, with ballots needing to be dropped off at a drop box by 8 p.m. on election night or postmarked no later than Nov. 3.

"If you have not yet returned your ballot..." Deskins said. "Please complete and return your supplemental ballot in its return envelopes. The Auditor's Office has a shred bin available for your use should you like to have the original, incorrect ballot disposed of."

In an attempt to get to the bottom of the issue, the media reached out to Deskins via email on Oct. 17 with questions and received a response on Oct. 19. Deskins was asked whether the ballots were proofread, how the issue was missed, and how long it should take the supplemental ballots to reach voters.

"Yes, the sample ballot is proofread by at least three people before being sent to the printer," Deskins said. "This ensures that each ballot style has the same, correct information on it despite, potentially, having different contests on each ballot style."

"The Timberland Regional Library Levy Proposition No. 1 was left off of the City of Raymond ballot styles due to the precinct information not being updated after the 2015 November General. While I can’t speak to the actions or record keeping of past administrations, I can say that this was not a nefarious or intentional act," Deskins added.

This is the first proposition that TRL has run since 2015, meaning the issue went completely unnoticed until now.

"Because of this, it was not brought to our attention until the current ballots had already been mailed out to voters for the 2026 November General," Deskins said. "While I can’t speak of past practices in previous administrations, I can speak to what we are doing to ensure this doesn’t happen again. We are currently in the process of auditing every single election record we have on hand."

"This means that we are putting our eyes on every single measure and election outcome to ensure that any decision is correctly recorded in our precincts and thus recorded accurately on every single ballot. Going forward, there will be a full audit completed after every election to ensure that our records are correctly recorded and documented," Deskins added.

Deskins did not specify an exact arrival date for when the packets will land in mailboxes, but reiterated they expect to have them all mailed out by Oct. 20.

The issues in Pacific County mirror a wider regional headache. In neighboring Grays Harbor County, ballots ran into multiple errors, including a missing library levy lid lift in Hoquiam, an incorrect proposed rate for Montesano's Proposition No. 1, and a fire district levy entirely missed from ballots in Oakville's Grays Harbor Fire District #1.

Compounding these local printing and boundary glitches are broader mail-delivery anxieties, recalling issues from the August primary when the Thurston County Auditor’s Office disclosed that ballots mailed well in advance arrived after the election.