Report · Kittitas County

Unopposed Elections in Kittitas County, WA

41 of the 52 races on the November 2025 general election ballot in Kittitas County had exactly one candidate — 78.8% were decided before anyone voted.

78.8%

of races in Kittitas County had no opponent on the 2025 ballot — 41 of 52

A race counts as uncontested when exactly one candidate appeared on the ballot. Write-in lines and ballot measures are excluded.

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, November 2025 · as of 2026-08-07

01

By kind of office

Not evenly distributed. The seats with the highest rates are mostly the ones with the lowest profile — park, cemetery, water and fire districts, where a filing fee and a handful of signatures is the whole barrier.

Uncontested rate by office type
Office type Races Unopposed Rate
Water/Sewer district 8 8 100%
Park/Cemetery/Library 1 1 100%
Fire district 8 7 87.5%
School district 15 12 80%
City 16 11 68.8%
Hospital district 4 2 50%

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results · as of 2026-08-07 · 6 office types

02

The seats that went unopposed

Every one of these was decided by a single person filing. The full list is here rather than a sample, so a specific office can be looked up instead of inferred from a rate.

Seats elected unopposed in Kittitas County, November 2025
Seat Type Elected unopposed Votes
City Of Cle Elum Council 1 City Cassidy Buechle Curtis 282
City Of Cle Elum Council 4 City Jon Cornelius 257
City Of Cle Elum Council 5 City Steve Harper 266
City Of Kittitas Council 1 City Sean Crabb 148
City Of Kittitas Council 2 City Hannah Woodiwiss 157
City Of Kittitas Council 5 City Joe Scoleri 148
City Of Kittitas Mayor City Richard D. Hink Jr. 121
City Of Roslyn Council 3 City Tom Uren 268
City Of Roslyn Council 6 City Janine Shinkoskey Brodine 243
Town Of South Cle Elum Council 1 City David Allenbaugh 147
Town Of South Cle Elum Council 5 City Cory Mcguire 141
Fire District 1 Commissioner 1 Fire district Roberto Rivera 319
Fire District 1 Commissioner 2 Fire district Craig A. George 311
Fire District 3 Commissioner 2 Fire district Terri Campbell 92
Fire District 4 Commissioner 1 Fire district Barb Nichols 20
Fire District 6 Commissioner 1 Fire district Timothy Penelerick 220
Fire District 6 Commissioner 2 Fire district Michael Johnson 214
Fire District 7 Commissioner 1 Fire district John P. Keffer 1,107
Hospital District 2 Commissioner 2 Hospital district Auren O'connell 1,946
Hospital District 2 Commissioner 4 Hospital district Floyd Rogalski 1,942
Cemetery District 1 Commissioner 1 Park/Cemetery/Library Wayne Gulley 275
Cle Elum-roslyn School District 404 At Large- Al#1 School district Jennifer Simons 1,945
Cle Elum-roslyn School District 404 Position 2 School district Claire Hein Nicholls 2,040
Damman School District 7 Position 4 School district Stephen Nicholas Haberman 287
Easton School District 28 Position 1 School district Christopher Helgeson 231
Easton School District 28 Position 2 School district Jen Phillips 235
Easton School District 28 Position 3 School district Hailey Rarden 225
Ellensburg School District 401 Position 4 – At Large School district Jeff Dermond 5,072
Kittitas School District 403 Position 4 School district Ellen Cartwright 657
Kittitas School District 403 Position 5 School district Jerry Lael 775
Thorp School District 400 Position 1 School district Lois Bell 317
Thorp School District 400 Position 3 School district Anne Cubilie 316
Thorp School District 400 Position 5 – At Large School district Kim Rivera 333
Water District 2 Commissioner 1 Water/Sewer district Vernon Swesey 27
Water District 3 Commissioner 2 Water/Sewer district Michael Gerber 45
Water District 4 Commissioner 1 Water/Sewer district John R Matthews 38
Water District 4 Commissioner 2 Water/Sewer district Greg Shelley 37
Water District 5 Commissioner 3 Water/Sewer district Joyce Jones 43
Water District 6 Commissioner 2 Water/Sewer district Benjamin Stockdale 20
Water District 7 Commissioner 2 Water/Sewer district Jeff Schultz 37
Water District 7 Commissioner 3 Water/Sewer district Letha Ihrke 46

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, November 2025 · as of 2026-08-07 · winner named for 41 of 41 seats

03

What this page will not compute

Each of these is a number a reader might reasonably expect. None of them follow from the records we hold, so we do not publish them.

Whether a seat was winnable
We know one candidate filed. We do not know whether anyone considered running and decided against it, so we cannot say a seat was conceded rather than simply uncontested.
Why a seat went unopposed
The result export records the outcome, not the reason. Incumbency, obscurity, an unpaid role and a genuinely satisfied electorate all produce the same row.
A trend from one cycle to the next
Washington runs local elections in odd years and state elections in even ones, so consecutive cycles are not comparable. The by-election table above is grouped for that reason and should be read down the odd years only.
Anything about the reader’s own ballot
This page has no location. County pages cover a whole county, which contains many overlapping districts, and we do not know which of them you vote in.

04

Definitions

What was counted, so the figure can be checked rather than taken.

Uncontested
Exactly one candidate appeared on the general election ballot for that seat. Write-in lines are not counted as candidates.
Race
One seat on one ballot in one election. A three-seat board contributes three races.
Excluded
Ballot measures, recall questions and advisory votes. None of them have candidates.
Top-two primary
Washington narrows most races to two candidates before the general. A race can be genuinely contested in August and appear uncontested here only if a single person filed at all — not merely because one was eliminated.
Multi-county races
Excluded from county tables, because a race spanning several counties cannot be attributed to one. They are included in the statewide totals.

05

Reproduce this

The figures come from one table built from the Secretary of State result exports. This is the query behind them.

SELECT COUNT(*) races, SUM(is_uncontested) unopposed
FROM race_contests
WHERE election_type = 'general'
  AND election_date = '20251104'
  AND counties = 'Kittitas';
Source
Washington Secretary of State official general election results, 2014–2025.
Uncontested flag
Set when exactly one candidate row exists for a seat on a general election ballot. Computed at import, not by hand.
Rebuilt
2026-08-07. Figures change when the state publishes a corrected canvass.

Cite this report

This is public-records reporting. Use it, and say where it came from.

“Unopposed Elections in Kittitas County, WA,” WashingtonIndependents.org, data as of 2026-08-07, accessed 2026-08-08. https://washingtonindependents.org/uncontested/kittitas/