People who support Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program outnumber those who actually use it.
In the August 5 primary election, about 114,000 Seattleites voted Yes on Proposition 1, which will renew the property tax funding Seattle’s unique public campaign financing system for another decade. It passed with 59% of the vote.
But as of September 3, only 36,882 Seattleites have returned their vouchers.
First approved by voters in 2015, the program gives Seattle residents four $25 coupons each election to donate to candidates. The goal is to counter the influence of wealthy donors and level the playing field in local politics. The expiring levy raised $3 million annually to fund the program. The new levy will raise $4.5 million annually, accounting for inflation.
Voters still have up to Nov. 28 — nearly a month after the general election — to donate their vouchers, and participation may continue to grow. But if past elections are any indication, participation is unlikely to get significantly higher. In 2021, the only other mayoral election year when the voucher program was in place, about 48,000 residents used vouchers — roughly 7.5% of Seattle’s voting-age population.
Candidates participating in the voucher program have to agree to spending caps, so it isn’t logistically possible for the voucher return rate to get much higher than 10%. Between these caps and the low participation, what happens to all those unused vouchers?
The money doesn’t just disappear. According to Seattle’s Ethics and Elections Office, which oversees Democracy Vouchers, unused funds stay in the program, and are not used anywhere else in the city budget.
Between 2016 and 2024, the property tax levy brought in $27 million for the program, about $10 million of which ended up going to candidates. An additional $9.6 million went to program administration and implementation costs, which include printing, mailing, contracting with community groups for outreach and temporary and permanent program staff. The leftover money stays with the fund to pay for future elections.
About $3 million in voucher funds have been dispersed to candidates so far in this year’s election. Candidates are instructed to return unused voucher funds to the city, but the amount of unspent money tends to be low. Over the past decade, candidates have returned a total of $130,317 in unused voucher funds.
During a recent meeting of Seattle’s Elections and Ethics Commission, which oversees the voucher program, chair Zack Pekelis said the voucher program is now at an “inflection point” after being “enthusiastically approved by voters.”
With roughly 36,000 people returning vouchers so far, city staff said participation rates are looking “good,” but that it’s still too soon in the cycle to compare it to 2021.
What happens when candidates lose?
Just as votes don’t always translate into vouchers, vouchers don’t always translate into votes.
By primary Election Day this year, mayoral candidate Ry Armstrong’s campaign had reported receiving 10,304 Democracy Vouchers from 2,822 individuals. In a July interview, Armstrong said that as someone neither independently wealthy or connected to big donors, they would not have been able to run for office without Democracy Vouchers.
But Armstrong’s success with vouchers didn’t translate into votes. They received just 2,120 votes in the primary — a little over 1% of the total.
Armstrong’s campaign spent $189,774 during the primary — almost all of it from vouchers. That works out to about $89.50 per vote.
“Damn, that’s pretty bad,” said Ben Anderstone, a political consultant who isn’t working on this year’s mayoral race.
By contrast, mayoral primary winners Bruce Harrell and Katie Wilson each spent about $4.50 per vote.
This wasn’t the first time a candidate’s voucher haul exceeded their share of the vote. In 2021, mayoral candidate Andrew Grant Houston raised Democracy Vouchers from more than 5,000 people, but lost the primary, with just 2,570 votes.
Anderstone thinks both campaigns raised more vouchers than votes for similar reasons: They had strong outreach efforts, and were well-liked enough among voters to receive donations. But when it came time to vote, other left-leaning candidates who seemed more viable prevailed. This year, that was Wilson. Armstrong, who did not respond to an interview request, probably would have done better in a system of ranked-choice voting, Anderstone said.
“Sometimes voters use their votes more strategically, while their Democracy Vouchers, they may be more willing just to give to somebody who impresses them in front of a QFC,” Anderstone said.
That candidates sometimes get more vouchers than votes isn’t necessarily a problem, Anderstone said. A major goal of the program is to encourage people without access to traditional campaign resources to run for office and get their message out. Especially in a crowded field like the mayor’s race, it makes sense that voters might have multiple candidates whom they like and want to support.
Many voters who give vouchers to candidates like Armstrong probably do so knowing the candidate won’t make it, Anderstone said. “I strongly suspect that they’re still totally comfortable with that,” he added.
If a candidate collected a voucher before the primary election but didn’t redeem it, they still had until September 2 to do so. It’s not uncommon for campaigns to go into debt, and the rules also allow losing candidates to continue soliciting vouchers until Sept. 2 to help pay it off.
For most candidates who lost, post-primary voucher returns have been minimal. Mayoral candidate Joe Mallan has returned 22 vouchers since Election Day; District 2 candidate Jamie Fackler has returned 81; City Attorney candidate Rory O’Sullivan has returned 50.
Armstrong is an exception. Since Election Day, their voucher haul has grown significantly. In the weeks since Aug. 5, Armstrong’s campaign has returned 5,821 vouchers from an additional 1,557 people in Seattle.
(Most of their vouchers are still categorized as “received,” meaning the Ethics and Elections Commission have the vouchers, but have yet to verify signatures and cut checks for Armstrong’s campaign. They typically mail checks every two weeks.)
Candidates who advance can also continue to solicit vouchers after the general election — until Nov. 28 — to pay down debt.
Compared to traditional political fundraising, Anderstone said vouchers are often an “easier way of raising money.” But collecting vouchers still requires extensive outreach and canvassing.
“There’s still a big barrier of entry for smaller candidates,” Anderstone said. “It’s tough to pull off what Ry and [Houston] did without a real infrastructure behind you, and that does take some money.”
The district with the highest return rate so far this year is District 3, with 28,334 vouchers donated. District 7 had the lowest return rate, with 14,029 returned.
In next year’s special election, only District 5 residents will receive vouchers.
Voters have until Nov. 28 to return vouchers. If they’ve lost their vouchers or never received them, replacements can be requested on the city’s website.
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