My ballot matches my kitschy kitchen rug of three Italian chefs and I think thats beautiful.
My ballot matches my kitschy kitchen rug of three Italian chefs, and I think that's beautiful. Nathalie Graham

Someone set a ballot box in Los Angeles County on fire earlier this week. Firefighters extinguished the flames. Inside was a soggy mess of ballots. Local election officials salvaged what they could and attempted to track down the voters whose ballots were compromised. They urged anyone who placed their ballots in that box after the last ballot collection to check the local ballot tracker.

In King County, a potential vote-threatening incident occurred over the weekend. It was, um, slightly different than the LA County one. Halei Watkins, a spokesperson for King County Elections, said her team was alerted on Twitter by the West Seattle Blog about an incident at the Alaska Junction dropbox. Someone had tried to jam shit into it. Like, shit shit.

Two members of the elite dropbox team went to check it out. Yep, someone tried to shove poo-coated cardboard into the ballot box. The dropbox team cleaned everything up and checked to make sure the ballots weren't affected. They weren't. But, if they had been, or if someone had lit them all on fire, voters could check to make sure their votes were okay by tracking their ballot.

If you're one of the over 460,000 King County voters who already returned their ballots, it's time to stop using your Ring camera to spy on your mail carrier and start making the ballot tracker your homepage.

Keep tabs on your vote

You can find out where your ballot is in the vote-counting process by checking this link. Look, even KIRO's Essex Porter did it!

King County Elections says it should take three to four days for a submitted ballot to be marked as returned. Voter turnout has been unprecedently high (you can keep up with those numbers here) and is expected to reach 90% by election day. With that amount of civic duty coursing through the elections office, there are bound to be delays, so keep your eye on that tracker. And, if nothing happens to that tracker, give King County Elections a call at 206-296-VOTE (8683).

Haven't voted yet?

What are you waiting for? Open that baby up, find our cheat sheet, and start bubbling. In King County, you can use any color pen you want. A pink sparkly pen or a green highlighter works just as well as a black pen, the Seattle Times reports. Keep in mind, other counties aren't as fun-loving as us and are stricter about pen hues.

Once you do all the voting, turn in your ballot. Plop it in a mailbox or any of the drop boxes across the county. Here's a map. Either option works, but if you've got mail-induced anxiety thanks to the President, maybe you should opt for a drop box to calm your nerves. If you're waiting until election day to submit your vote, then you should also err on the side of the drop box because ballots must be postmarked on election day to count and post offices may be too slammed to mark your ballot on time.

Here's how I did it back on Sunday:

If your ballot still hasn't come and you're still stalking your mail person, then don't fret.

No Ballot, no problem

By now, your ballot should have made it into your mailbox. If it hasn't, quit waiting around. You can easily request a new ballot on VoteWA.org. You can also print off your own ballot and mail it in yourself, or vote in-person at any of the five King County voting centers.

Make sure you're registered

The last day to update your voter registration online or by mail is Oct. 26. However, you can register to vote in person at a voting center all the way up to election day.

Okay, I think that's everything. Make sure you get those ballots in. What if we surpassed the 90% voter turnout projections? Wouldn't that be hot?