Monday October 12, 2026
With the November 3 midterm elections approaching, voters encounter election information from many directions: news coverage, campaigns, social media feeds, friends and family, and now AI chatbots and AI Google summaries. Some of the information is accurate, and most of it is not. Voting rules also change from one election to the next, and false claims about how elections are run spread quickly.
Being VoteReady means knowing how, when, and where to vote, and knowing where to verify what you hear. Here are a few tips to get VoteReady:
Start with the officials who run elections in your state
Elections in the United States are run by thousands of local jurisdictions operating under state law. In Washington, county auditors – and the Elections Director in King County – offices maintain voter registration, mail a ballot to every registered voter, and process the returned ballots first to match each ballot to the information they have on file, and second to count it.
The Secretary of State oversees elections statewide and maintains VoteWA.gov, where voters can check their registration and ballot status. Washingtonians also receive a voters’ pamphlet in the mail, which includes information about voter registration and mail voting, as well as information about candidate races and ballot initiatives.
These officials hold the most current information on deadlines, ballot return options, drop box locations, and will be posting election returns on Election Night. They also are highly active on social media: Follow @wastateelections on Instagram to learn about Mark the Ballot.
Confirm your registration and vote early using a drop box.
Check your registration at VoteWA.gov. If you missed the online or mail deadline (October 26), you can still register or update your registration in-person through November 3 at your county elections office or a voting center.
Return your ballot to an official drop box. Drop boxes are open until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3, and no stamp is needed. The Secretary of State’s website has a map of drop boxes statewide.
If you prefer to mail your ballot, the Secretary of State recommends mailing it more than a week before Election Day and using a drop box after that. Under a U.S. Postal Service rule that took effect December 24, 2025, a postmark may reflect the date mail is first processed at a regional facility rather than the day it was dropped in a mailbox. This matters because more than 20,000 ballots in Washington’s August 2026 primary were rejected because they arrived too late, thousands more than in 2024.
You Voted! What’s Next: Track your ballot.
After you return your ballot, check its status on VoteWA.gov. The status shows when your county has received your ballot and when it has been accepted. Almost all states, including D.C., allow voters to track their ballots.
If there is a problem, such as a missing signature or a signature that does not match your voter record, your county will contact you with steps to fix it. Respond right away, because the window to fix a ballot is limited.
If your signature has changed since you registered, contact your county elections office to update it before you vote.
Verify claims about voting and vote counting before you share them.
Check the claim against your county auditor’s website, the Secretary of State’s elections pages, or the voters’ pamphlet.
Call or email your county elections office. Answering voter questions is part of your local elections officials’ job.
Learn how ballots are protected. Washington election officials audit before and after each election, and county elections offices can explain how to observe ballot processing in person.
Treat AI chatbot responses and AI search summaries as starting points, not final answers.
Chatbots are highly unreliable sources of information, and a prime target for influence campaigns. If you use a chatbot or AI summary to find information, keep an eye for what these tools offer as an “official” source. If it is not your elections authority, then make sure to verify any output by visiting your state elections website. In Washington, this is VoteWA.gov. For the official election websites in other states, visit https://www.eac.gov/voters/register-and-vote-in-your-state.
Be especially careful with answers about deadlines, same-day registration, and locations. These details vary by state and county and change between elections.