State Official Visits County Auditor

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs made the trip to Colville on Oct. 6 to visit Auditor Lori Larsen and observe how ballots are counted in Stevens County.

“I feel that as Secretary of State, I should visit all the counties, and so this is my way to do that,” Hobbs said, adding, “And on top of that, it’s the county auditors that do the lion’s share of the work for elections.”

Larsen showed Hobbs the system that the county uses to count ballots and the two discussed recent doubts in elections, specifically around “dead” or noncitizens voting. “I understand (it) because, I…and sectors across the United States, we have not done a really good job of talking about elections.”

Hobbs said state election offices use a system called Electronic Registration Information Center which helps election officials maintain more accurate voter rolls and detect possible illegal voting. “We’ve caught people where (they have) signed for somebody,” Hobbs said, elaborating that it typically happens out of ignorance – such as someone signing for their spouse – rather than intentional fraud. Both Larsen and Hobbs emphasized that voters should sign their own ballot and have the option to sign up for text messages to track their ballot’s progress. Larsen also said it’s important for voters to get their ballots in the mail or ballot dropbox early.

Hobbs also said that every five years, each county in the state conducts an audit of their elections office. “So typically when there is a discrepancy, it’s really left up to the county to determine if they’re going to have the county prosecutor involved or not,” he said. According to Hobbs, Washington state has had 15 cases of voter fraud from 1985 to 2025, and they were caught quickly.

Speaking to Stevens County Elections Office, Hobbs said, “The auditor here (Larsen) is doing a fabulous job…She’s doing all these