Unopposed Elections in Garfield County, WA

01

Findings

General elections only. Washington holds local elections in odd-numbered years, which is where the rate is highest — those are the ballots with the fire, water, cemetery and school seats on them.

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, 2014–2025 · as of 2026-08-12

02

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.

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results · as of 2026-08-12 · 4 office types

03

The seats themselves

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.

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, November 2025 · as of 2026-08-12 · winner named for 5 of 5 seats

04

What this report 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 None of them follow from the records we hold, so we do not publish them.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.

05

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.

06

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 = 'Garfield';

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

2026-08-12. 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 Garfield County, WA,” WashingtonIndependents.org, data as of 2026-08-12, accessed 2026-08-29. https://washingtonindependents.org/uncontested/garfield/