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.
| 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.
| 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/