ENDORSEMENT | Matt Barker for Yakima County Auditor
We wanted to take a moment to give our resounding support and endorsement to Matt Barker, candidate for Yakima County Auditor. The Yakima Herald-Republic is trying to make anyone who questions our election process look like they're insane...again (shoutout to the 2020 Presidential election) – and we're calling them out for it.
The Yakima Herald Minimizes Voter Concerns
The Yakima Herald-Republic posted an article on July 25, 2026 in an underhanded attempt to make Matt Barker look delusional and uneducated about the office he's seeking. The Herald's title of choice was, "Yakima County Auditor says ballots were properly mailed and opponent's claims are misleading."
Normalizing Yakima County's Election Fragility
The Yakima Herald's article attempts to normalize some all-too-common issues that local voters continue to encounter:
- Receiving multiple ballots
- Failed address changes (in-state, or out-of-state)
- Failed name changes
The article also minimizes frequent concerns about outdated and bloated voter rolls, and voter fraud. The voter fraud examples the Yakima Herald presents are especially diminished, concerning only a ballot or two.
Why are Washington's Elections Unsafe?
A significant part of the Herald's article is spent denouncing Matt Barker's story about a Marine receiving Yakima ballots in Idaho as "misleading" and "untrue."
According to Yakima County's current auditor, Charles Ross, we don't need to send ballots out with caution:
"The accusation that because a person receives multiple ballots, the whole system is flawed – that's simply not true. Sending out a ballot is not a fraudulent activity."
-Charles Ross, quoted by the Yakima-Herald Republic
However, Matt Barker is picking up on an election truth we all know but may be struggling to express:
Voter Integrity vs. Voter Immediacy?
Per the Yakima Herald, if you change addresses, the Auditor's Office may send you two ballots. Charles Ross claims that's fine. Allegedly, the Auditor's Office knows to void one of the duplicated ballots. The same is supposedly true if you have a legal name change.
We believe citizens have a right to vote. But post-2020, where a substantial amount of U.S. citizens were vilified for even questioning election integrity, telling the People "the government's got this, just trust the bureaucratic process" hasn't been a valid answer for at least 6 years.
Anyone who's ever paid their taxes knows bureaucracy fails all the time. Our existing election system walks a fine line between freedom and chaos.
Creating Chaos | You Can Print Duplicate WA Ballots Online
The real kicker is that it's entirely possible to print yourself a ballot at home. All you have to do is go to VoteWA, and enter your name and date of birth. You can print your ballot, mark it up, send it in, and now we have to rely on the government to exclude your original.
The original purpose of VoteWA was to help people who lost their ballots. But with that level of security, you could (theoretically) put in the Governor's own legal name, date of birth, and vote for him.
We'd have to rely on the King County Auditor to figure it out, and they'd probably just find more ballots in a drawer somewhere...
Similarly, AI could scrape basic info for a few thousand people, print their ballots, and vote for them. It would then be on local auditors to untangle the chaos.
One Crackima's Own Election Mishap Story
Matt Barker isn't the only one with a story of election mishaps. We have brief, but interesting tale as well about a voter registration card.
A Suspicious Yakima County VoterID Card
In June 2025, two rental tenants received a voter registration card for someone who did not live at their residence. However, a couple quick Google searches showed the registration likely belonged to a previous owner of the home.
Front and back of a Yakima County Voter ID card that was registered to the wrong address after 4 years. Redacted for the sake of privacy.
The Yakima Herald-Republic makes it sounds like voter discrepancies are typically resolved by the Auditor's Office in a few months, maybe 2 years max. This is grossly inaccurate.
Yakima County's parcel search showed us that the previous homeowner had sold the property in 2021. It had been 4 years, and the VoterID was reissued to the wrong address.
Why We Endorse Matt Barker for Yakima Auditor
Charles Ross has been Yakima County's Auditor for 12 years – and after 12 years, the People of Yakima are still asking the same question: Why did I get two ballots?
Ross may have upheld what Washington State required for election integrity, but he has made it clear that he's no longer asking questions and is unwilling to evaluate Yakima's election process.
Similarly, the Democrat candidate for Auditor, Maria Cuevas, has no interest in changing what Ross has propagated:
"My perspective is that (Ross) is doing his job. Why I am running is to expand the education and outreach that the community needs."
-Maria Cuevas, quoted in the Yakima Herald-Republic
Cuevas can educate all she wants, but a sloppy system will still allow chaos to ruin election integrity.
