From July 2024 to June 2025, EPIC is: 

• Mapping services and supports available to at-risk and justice-involved youth across Washington State. 
• Assessing the specific needs of Emerging Adults (ages 18–21) compared to younger youth (ages 12–17) and evaluate whether current services can meet those needs. 
• Analyzing the impact of expanding juvenile court jurisdiction—including service capacity, infrastructure, and provider readiness. 
• Gathering input from stakeholders and conduct cost-benefit analyses to estimate investment needs and potential savings. 
• Publishing two reports with analyses, findings, recommendations for the workgroup 

Coming soon.

• Scott W. Allard
• Amanda Bankston
• Cali Jahn
• Mackenzie Crampton
• Jessika Gill
• Katya Jardim
• Karin Martin

General inquiries about the project may be addressed to: evansepic@uw.edu.

This study poses several research questions to better understand voter experiences with ballot rejection and curing processes:

• How do voters experience the vote-by-mail, ballot return, and ballot curing processes?
• Using longitudinal voter-level and county-level ballot data, how have trends and patterns in ballot rejections varied over time? Do rates of ballot rejections vary by voter demographics or geographic location? How do the reasons for which ballots are rejected vary over time, voter demographics, and geographic location?
• To what extent are challenged ballots cured by voters? How do cure rates vary by voter demographics and geographic location?
• What are common and best practices used by county elections offices to process ballots and support voters’ efforts to cure ballots?

Key study components include:

• Analysis of Ballot Data: The team analyzed voter- and county-level ballot data from the past 10 years of primary and general elections to analyze trends in ballot rejections across the state, with particular attention to variation by age, race, and geography.
• Engagement with County elections Office Staff: The team interviewed county auditors and election staff in Washington State to understand current practices and expenditures around ballot curing and voter outreach as well as offer feasible recommendations based on each county’s unique demographics and resources. The project team also visited several counties in-person to tour and observe office activities during elections.
• Engagement with Voters: The team conducted surveys and interviews with voters in Washington State who had ballots rejected in recent elections to understand their interactions with the curing process.
• Engagement with Community Organizations: The team engaged local and statewide community organizations to understand their work to educate voters about vote-by-mail and ballot curing processes.
• Project Advisory Board: A group of national experts in the field of ballot design, curing, and voter engagement reviewed the study design, commented on analyses, and provided recommendations to reduce the number of rejected ballots in Washington State.

Several key findings emerge about voters’ experiences with vote-by-mail in Washington State:

• From 2012 to 2022, voters in Washington State cast nearly 45 million ballots in primary and general elections.
• Overall, 1.5 percent of all primary ballots cast and 1.1 percent of general election ballots cast were rejected across elections from 2012 to 2022.
• Roughly 25,000 to 35,000 ballots were rejected statewide in each general election since 2012.
• A very small percentage of all ballots cast were rejected for missing a signature or having a signature that does not match what is on file – usually about 0.5 to 0.6 percent of all ballots cast.
• Roughly half of all ballots rejected in primary elections and in many general elections arrive late to county offices.
• There is evidence that voters of color often have higher ballot rejection rates than White voters. For example, Hispanic and Asian voters had ballots rejected at twice the rate of White voters in the 2020 General Election (1.3 percent and 1.2 percent versus 0.6 percent). Black voters experienced ballot rejections in the 2020 General Election at a rate about fifty percent higher than White voters (0.9 percent versus 0.6 percent).
• Self-identifying male voters have slightly higher ballot rejection rates than self-identifying female voters in both primary and general elections.
• Younger voters have a much higher ballot rejection rate than older voters. Nearly 5 percent of voters 18 to 25 years old had ballots rejected in the 2022 general election, compared to 0.8 percent of voters 46 to 65 years old and 0.3 percent of voters 66 or over. Younger voters are much more likely to have ballots rejected due to signature mismatch than older voters.
• In primary and general elections since 2020, about 60 percent of ballots with signature challenges (missing signature or mismatched signature) have been cured before county elections officials submit election results to the State.

The report concludes with recommendations for research, policy, and practice to reduce the number of rejected ballots, increase ballot cure rates, and improve the voter experience in Washington State:

Ballot Envelope Design

• Employ five ballot envelope design principles that would enhance the voter experience:
  1. Make the text easier to read;
  2. Use visual cues to draw attention to important information;
  3. Create space between sections;
  4. Create a clear layout;
  5. Put information where voters will find it.

Future Research

• Continue to examine racial and ethnic differences in ballot rejection rates.
• Pursue research collaboration with county elections offices to measure the impact of innovative practices, such as methods of contacting voters, automatic signature verification, modified cure letter formats and methods of verification, or new ballot processing technology.
• Investigate the impact over time of mailed signature update letters on the voter experience.
• Pursue additional research in collaboration with tribal communities to identify obstacles and barriers facing Native American voters in Washington State.
• Fund the work of the Washington State Election Database at the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology (CSDE) at the University of Washington.
• Test to evaluate areas impacting voters such as timing and methods of ballot cure notices, local contexts like drop boxes and competitive elections, and signature quality across platforms.

A Stronger Role for Community-based Organizations

• Encourage community-based organizations to encourage voters to return ballots early and help voters learn about ballot processing and signature verification.

Strengthening Elections Administration Practice

• Provide greater state funding for county ballot processing technology.
• Provide state support to ensure all county elections websites provide standard information, translated materials, and links to ballot-tracking features of VoteWA.
• Invest in regular peer learning and engagement activities for county elections staff and external groups to share innovative practices and elections administration solutions.
• Develop statewide outreach or educational programs to inform voters about the signature verification process.
• Encourage county elections offices to offer voters regular opportunities to provided updated signatures.
• Create intentional partnerships with community-based organizations that work within historically marginalized communities more likely to have their ballot rejected.
• Provide additional signature verification trainings for county elections staff and modify current signature verification trainings to ensure positive framing.

State Elections Law and Regulation

• Update standards for ballot envelope design and ballot cure notices statewide to ensure they contain language that is easy to understand across all reading levels and for voters who prefer voting materials in a language other than English.
• Move towards greater standardization of county administrative processes pertaining to signature verification and ballot curing.
• Invite voters to provide self-reported race and ethnic identity at the time of voter registration.
• Explore the extent to which ballot drop boxes could be enhanced to prevent missing signatures.

• Scott W. Allard
• Cali Jahn
• Keala Aronowitz
• Megan Ming Francis
• Will von Geldern
• Jessika Gill
• Jake Grumbach
• AK Sterling
• Joshua Varela
• Isaiah Wright

General inquiries about the project may be addressed to: evansepic@uw.edu.

Policy textbooks abound but nearly all cover the same technical topics without any systematic analysis of how values drive policy decisions. In short, we face big questions that ought to center the perspective and experience of analysts who practice the art and craft of policy analysis:

• Did the way you were trained actually translate to the work you do today?
• How were you prepared — or unprepared — for your job as an analyst?
• What does, or could it look like for you — and the policymakers for whom you work — to bring values into your policy analysis work?

These questions are enormously consequential when it comes to the role that policy analysis plays in addressing the urgent policy problems of our day.

In Spring 2025, we brought together policy analysts throughout the Pacific Northwest to explore questions of what policy analysis looks like in the field, how policy analysts perceive their analysis is used for public decision-making, and the type of training analysts need to excel in their work, especially in the context of values-powered policy analysis.

Project Team

Faculty:

Grant Blume

EPIC Staff:

AK Sterling
Amanda Bankston
Julianne Slate Weaver

As governments continue to lean into commitments to equity and anti-racism, they grapple with the challenges of how to actionably update their policies and processes to better collaborate with and service their constituent communities. At the local level, community-led approaches to change have the potential to be particularly effective, but can be challenging to implement in an authentic and effective way. In the Pacific Northwest, there have been many efforts to engage in this type of work by incorporating approaches informed by behavioral science, which attempt to center how people experience and engage with government policies. However, there is still a lack of extensive evidence-based best practices in this space that take an equity-forward approach to the work. Due to this, conversations that center equity and anti-racism often occur separately from conversations that center person-informed design and behavioral science approaches to pressing local issues.

In Spring 2024, we brought together leaders in both the academic and practitioner communities to explore questions of how to provide guidance and evidence-based best practices for those working at the local level on these issues. Through the unique combination of stakeholders engaged we will leverage the current state of the scholarly literature, while also being mindful of the practical constraints and challenges faced by actors within this level of government.

Project Team

Faculty:

Crystal Hall
Ines Jurcevic

EPIC Staff:

AK Sterling
Cali Jahn
Jessika Gill

The Project for Civic Health was initiated by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck invited the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Government, and the William D. Ruckelshaus Center, a joint center of Washington State University and the University of Washington, to collaborate on the design and implementation of the project. The partnership was formed on a shared premise of concern for our democracy’s civic health. The partners agree that this problem is so complex that meaningful progress will require intentional and sustained effort. In other words, this is going to take a while. But we have observed an emphatic willingness to attack the problem, and an inspiring variety of efforts already underway in many Washington communities. So, yes, it may take a while, but we have many reasons to be encouraged. 

The Project initially includes two components: 

Roundtable Discussions 

The Office of the Lieutenant Governor convened a systematic exploration of the nature of the problem, its causes, and possible solutions by undertaking a series of confidential roundtable discussions around Washington State with a diverse set of stakeholders. A contracted author distilled those conversations as well as certain contextual information in the following preliminary report. 

This report reflects the views of the participants in the roundtable discussions. It is not intended to represent the views of the project partners. The report will serve as part of the basis for the Project’s second component, a day-long summit. 

Read the report: Common Ground for the Common Good.

Civic Health Summit 

On October 19, the partners held a day-long summit in which participants engaged in discussions sparked by the report that will be used to make recommendations for sustained action to improve our civic health in the State of Washington.

Read the Civic Health Summit Newsletter

Read the Civic Health Summit Proceedings

• Office of the Lt. Governor
• Evans Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance
• Henry M. Jackson Foundation
• The William D. Ruckelshaus Center

General inquiries about the project may be addressed to: evansepic@uw.edu.