Last year, I was minding my own business, smug and confident because I’d bucked demographic trends and voted weeks before the election. Then, I got a text. King County Elections. An issue? With my ballot? It hadn’t been counted. I’d forgotten to sign the outside of my ballot.

Fuck! 

The good news is I wasn’t the first illiterate dumbass to bypass simple instructions. And I am far from the last. This happens all the time (and have you seen those reading scores?), including this cycle.

As of blog time, King County Elections has challenged 4,119 ballots countywide because of signature-related issues including not signing the ballot at all or the signature not matching the one King County Elections has on file. In Seattle, 1,794 ballots aren’t being counted yet for similar issues. That’s only a little more than half a percent of the total ballots received—small, maybe, yet enough to make a difference in a tight race.  

Voters across all demographics are fucking up their signatures, but particularly the young people. Voters under the age of 35 account for 42 percent of the current challenged ballots. Surprisingly, the 25 to 34-year-olds are fucking this up more than the 18 to 24-year-olds with 428 challenged ballots. Though, not by much. The youths have 330 challenged ballots. Don’t get all high and mighty, elder millennials, the 34 to 44-year-olds also have 341 challenged ballots. You’re not “adulting.” You’re a mess.

All of your votes matter, of course, but they may really end up mattering in the race for Seattle mayor depending on how things shape up with ballot drops on today and tomorrow. Thankfully, this is an easy fix. 

First, figure out if your ballot was counted.

If you wrote your phone number or email on the front of your ballot, King County Elections will drop you a line to let you know if there’s a ballot problem. You’ll also be notified of any problems if you signed up for ballot tracking. Fun fact: King County voters who tracked their ballots had a 63 percent voter turnout compared to 45 percent of county turnout in this election!

But, if you haven’t signed up to track your ballot—which you can still do even after voting—and you didn’t put any contact information on your ballot, King County Elections will mail you a notice letting you know there’s an issue. You can also check to make sure your ballot is counted by peeping at your voter portal. 

King County Elections will send a link to cure your ballot online. For me, that looked like signing my signature multiple times on an online form. If you do it by mail, you’ll do the same thing on a paper form and send it back to King County Elections to review. 

“We do see more voters use that online option,” Halei Watkins, communications director at King County Elections says. “It's very quick and easy. You get it done in like two minutes, and then you know it's taken care of, rather than filling out your form, waiting for us to receive it, and all of that.” 

Whatever method you choose to fix your ballot, you have until 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 24 to do so. And, for snail mail, that means your ballot-curing forms must be at King County Elections by then, not postmarked by then. 

According to Watkins, around 50 to 60 percent of challenged ballot voters respond and rectify their issues and their vote counts. The rest remain lonely, uncounted. Sad!

Don’t be one of the uncounted few. Fix your shit.