Unopposed Elections in Stevens County, WA

68 of the 82 races on the November 2025 general election ballot in Stevens County had exactly one candidate — 82.9% were decided before anyone voted.

Published
July 30, 2026
Covers
November 2025 general election · Stevens County

82.9%

of races in Stevens County had no opponent on the 2025 ballot — 68 of 82

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 2026-09-05 · 82 races on the ballot

https://washingtonindependents.org/uncontested/stevens/

This block is sized to be screenshotted whole — source, date, sample size and address travel inside the image, so a figure lifted onto social carries its own provenance.

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.

This county page covers a single general election. The by-election trend and the cross-county comparison are a statewide cut — they live on the statewide report, not on a page for one county.

Last checked 2026-09-05

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, 2014–2025 · as of 2026-09-05

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.

Share of races in each kind of office that drew a single candidate. Bars are static; the widths are the data, and the printed figure beside each bar is the value.

  1. Park/Cemetery/Library

    5 of 5 races

    100%
  2. Water/Sewer district

    4 of 4 races

    100%
  3. Fire district

    18 of 19 races

    94.7%
  4. Other

    25 of 29 races

    86.2%
  5. City

    16 of 25 races

    64%

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results · as of 2026-09-05 · n 82 races in 5 kinds of office, summing to the whole · scale every bar is a share of its own kind, so the bars are comparable to each other and to nothing else · note this county, the latest general election · definitions

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. Every card says which population it belongs to.

Seats elected unopposed in Stevens County, November 2025
Seat Type Elected unopposed Votes
Colville Council #4 City Kim Gallo 829
Colville Council #6 City Ben Nielsen 774
Kettle Falls Council #1 City Shellee Haynes 232
Kettle Falls Council #2 City John Ridlington 243
Kettle Falls Council #3 City Christopher Shurrum 223
Kettle Falls Council #4 City Clifford King 219
Kettle Falls Council #5 City Michael Weatherman 226
Kettle Falls Mayor City Jesse L Garrett 232
Marcus Council #1 City Dana Depaulo 53
Marcus Council #3 City Marcie Clemons 51
Marcus Council #4 City Dan Bentley 53
Northport Council #3 City Darelynn Brunette 85
Northport Council #5 City Greg Rieckers 77
Springdale Council #2 City Debbie Clarke 47
Springdale Council #4 City Melissa Wallace 42
Springdale Mayor City Stefany Smith 59
Fire District – 001 Commissioner #1 Fire district Georgia Davenport 3,083
Fire District – 001 Commissioner #3 Fire district Mark Whittaker 2,947
Fire District – 002 Commissioner #1 Fire district Martin D Schluter 216
Fire District – 003 Commissioner #1 Fire district Darrel Webley 560
Fire District – 004 Commissioner #3 Fire district Paul W Moore 836
Fire District – 005 Commissioner #2 Fire district Mathew Blaha 468
Fire District – 005 Commissioner #3 Fire district Trent Lang 475
Fire District – 006 Commissioner #1 Fire district John Crandall 445
Fire District – 007 Commissioner #1 Fire district Michael J. Mace 322
Fire District – 008 Commissioner #1 Fire district Dale Mcnitt 209
Fire District – 008 Commissioner #2 Fire district Fortitude Israel 183
Fire District – 009 Commissioner #2 Fire district Marty Andres 37
Fire District – 009 Commissioner #3 Fire district Scott W Thomas 36
Fire District – 010 Commissioner #2 Fire district Rebecca Johnson 114
Fire District – 011 Commissioner #2 Fire district Jonathan (Jon) Hoyt 224
Fire District – 012 Commissioner #2 Fire district Jaime L. Gradt 246
Fire District – 013 Commissioner #1 Fire district Jon Vetten 249
Fire District – 013 Commissioner #2 Fire district Mike Mckenna 242
Chewelah Sd 036 Director District #1 Other Luke Jeanneret 1,401
Chewelah Sd 036 Director District #2 Other James Graves 1,354
Chewelah Sd 036 Director District #3 Other Aubrey Markel 1,434
Columbia Sd 206 Director District #1 Other Wayne Cornwall 213
Columbia Sd 206 Director District 4 At Large Other Bobbi Ward 220
Columbia Sd 206 Director District 5 At Large Other Melody Herrera 200
Colville Sd 115 Director District #3 Other Brianne Zier 2,100
Colville Sd 115 Director District #4 Other Joe Fazzari 2,209
Colville Sd 115 Director District #5 Other Bob Gumm 2,189
Evergreen Sd 205 Director Position #1 Other Ella Kerner 134
Evergreen Sd 205 Director Position #3 Other Carol L Vrba 132
Evergreen Sd 205 Director Position #4 Other Pam Wilson 133
Mary Walker Sd 207 Director District #5 Other Lenett C James 637
Northport Sd 211 Director At Large #4 Other Klaus E. Peters 277
Northport Sd 211 Director District #3 Other Kelly R. Sukola 381
Onion Creek Sd 030 Director Position #2 Other Sharon Sundheim 83
Summit Valley Sd 202 Director Position #4 Other Marc Allen 121
Summit Valley Sd 202 Director Position #5 Other Sarah Richardson 120
Upper Columbia Pool District Commissioner Position 2 Other Jennifer Thompson 247
Upper Columbia Pool District Commissioner Position 4 Other Kevin Wolfe 239
Upper Columbia Pool District Commissioner Position 5 Other Joanie Christopher 233
Valley Sd 070 Director Position #3 Other William A. (Bill) Wilson 266
Valley Sd 070 Director Position #4 Other Doug Elledge 268
Valley Sd 070 Director Position #5 Other Nancy Cocroft 262
Wellpinit Sd 049 Director Position #2 Other Richard L Sherwood Sr 119
Lake Spokane Park And Recreation Dist Commissioner #1 Park/Cemetery/Library Beth Roach 1,197
Lake Spokane Park And Recreation Dist Commissioner #2 Park/Cemetery/Library Zac Crum 1,265
Lake Spokane Park And Recreation Dist Commissioner #3 Park/Cemetery/Library Lorae Homme-buck 1,183
Lake Spokane Park And Recreation Dist Commissioner #4 Park/Cemetery/Library Megan Herzer 1,184
Lake Spokane Park And Recreation Dist Commissioner #5 Park/Cemetery/Library Dan Hacker 1,257
Sewer District – 003 Commissioner #1 Water/Sewer district Traci Shallbetter 2
Sewer District – 004 Commissioner #3 Water/Sewer district K Scott Mcdougall 152
Water District – 001 Commissioner #1 Water/Sewer district Annette Herbert 12
Water District – 001 Commissioner #3 Water/Sewer district Michael Mick Schwartz 13

What filing required in 2025 — stated, not summarised

These are the statutory requirements as the state publishes them, reproduced because most people have never seen them written down. They are the same for an incumbent and for anyone else.

Window
One week in May, set by statute. There is no late filing. RCW 29A.24.050
Form
A declaration of candidacy, filed online or with the county auditor. It states your name as it will appear, the office, and that you are qualified. RCW 29A.24.031
Fee
One percent of the annual salary of the office. For seats that pay nothing, the fee is nothing. RCW 29A.24.091
Qualification
A registered voter living in the district on the day you file. No signatures, no party, no prior office. RCW 29A.24.075
After filing
A campaign committee and PDC reporting are required only once you raise or spend money. Many unopposed district candidates never do either. RCW 42.17A.205

How to run for one of these seats · component 09, per kind of office

Other

How to run for a other seat · component 09

Next regular election
2027 odd-numbered years · RCW 29A.04.330
Filing next opens
May 2027 one week; there is no late filing
Filing fee
One percent of the annual salary of the office. Salaries are not in the record we hold; for an unpaid seat the fee is $0.
Qualification
A registered voter living in the district on the day you file. No signatures, no party, no prior office.

This section appears on every office page on this site, contested or not, filled or vacant. Its presence is not a comment on whoever holds a seat, and we do not say whether a seat is winnable — that would be a prediction, and this page carries records.

Source WA Secretary of State official general election results, November 2025; Secretary of State candidate filing guidance; RCW 29A.24 · as of 2026-09-05 · rows winner named for 68 of 68 seats · absent term and pay per seat — not in the results export; the fee rule is stated instead of a dollar amount · the requirements in full

04

What this report will not compute

This is the one report on the site that ends in an ask, which makes it the one report where the temptation to shade the data is real. Each of these would help the ask and damage the record.

No winnability score.
We do not rank seats by how easy they would be to take, and we do not model turnout. A number telling someone they would probably win is a prediction dressed as a record.
No vulnerable-incumbent list.
Sitting officials are not named on this page as targets. An unopposed incumbent appears in the aggregate and on their own entity page, where their record speaks without our framing.
No claim that uncontested means unaccountable.
Many of these boards are run well by people nobody has ever wanted to replace. The finding is that no one was asked, not that anyone failed.
No geolocation.
The block above counts seats across the whole report and says so, because we do not know where you are. We do not read your IP or ask for your location, on this page least of all — the page is asking you for something.
No connected-records section.
A report is not an entity. It has no node in the graph and draws no edges — the seats it lists link out to their own records, which is where relationships live.
No 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.

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. This is why the denominator is larger than the number of governing bodies.
No candidate
Zero filings at the close of filing week — a population this report does not yet count. The certified results carry no row for a seat nobody filed for, so it cannot be counted from them; it is a distinct finding we do not have, not a stronger version of the one above.
Excluded
Ballot measures, recall questions and advisory votes, none of which have candidates. Precinct committee officer races are excluded too, as party positions rather than public offices — they are numerous and nearly all unopposed, so counting them would raise the headline rate while measuring something else.
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 = 'Stevens';
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
2026-09-05. 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 Stevens County, WA,” WashingtonIndependents.org, data as of 2026-09-05, accessed 2026-09-18. https://washingtonindependents.org/uncontested/stevens/

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