Election 2026: Clark County Auditor

0:00 Please tell us about your background. I currently serve as deputy county auditor and reporting and analysis manager in the auditor's office of Clark County, Washington, where I oversee the financial statements, preparation, and compliance with state and federal reporting requirements for the county. I earned a degree in accounting from BYU and an MBA from Arizona State University. I started my career as an auditor for the state of Washington, where I audited local governments throughout Southwest Washington, ensuring compliance with federal grant requirements, reporting standards of the state and also federal requirements, and responsible stewardship

0:58 of taxpayer dollars. Why should the voters select you for this position? Voters should select me for this position because I hold the qualifications and experience to lead the office on day one. I have overseen financial preparation of the county, audited local governments for compliance with federal grant requirements, financial reporting requirements, and reviewing internal controls to ensure safeguarding of public resources. The auditor's office should be relied upon by all its citizens. I have the experience and qualifications to ensure that the county resources are safeguarded and used appropriately and that elections have proper internal controls to ensure that people can rely on the outcomes of the elections.

1:54 If elected, what will be your top three priorities? My top three priorities are first, ensuring that elections can be relied upon and have proper controls so that people feel comfortable and confident in the outcome of the elections. Second, I want to make sure that financial information is accessible and understandable to all the Clark County residents. And third, I want to make sure that people feel comfortable and can work with the auditor's office and have high quality customer service to provide the services that the county relies on every day. What are the primary responsibilities of the Clark County auditor? The Clark County auditor oversees elections, finances of the county, recording, vehicle licensing, and internal audit functions across Clark County.

2:51 It's important that people can rely on those services that they will be overseen by somebody who can be impartial and objective to provide the services that Clark County relies on. What experience do you have overseeing internal and performance audits for a large organization? My experience comes from both conducting and overseeing audits within the county and also as an auditor for the state of Washington where I audited local government agencies throughout Southwest Washington. Today, I serve as a deputy county auditor and financial reporting analysis manager where I oversee compliance with federal requirements for reporting standards. What strategies would you employ to address concerns of the integrity of vote counts? Public confidence in election results is built upon transparency, visibility, and communication. As Clark County auditor, I would continue the rigorous process that election observers

3:50 can see clearly. I would encourage anyone with concerns or questions about the election process to view the election process firsthand by providing tours and communication to help people clearly understand how the election process is secured and safeguarded to ensure the outcome of the results. Final question, what makes you the better candidate? What distinguishes me is that I have direct hands-on experience within the auditor's office. I currently serve as the deputy county auditor and financial reporting analysis manager where I oversee internal controls and ensure compliance with federal requirements and state reporting requirements. This job is very important and should be overseen by somebody who has direct hands-on experience and can provide the services that our citizens rely on every day, whether it be recording,

4:46 marriage licensing, audit, elections, or providing financial information. This position should be overseen by somebody who has the understanding and experience that can be relied on and continue to provide the excellent high quality service that Clark County deserves. For more contact information, contact Mitchell-Kelly 10013 NE Hazel Dell Ave, Suite 135, Vancouver, Washington 98685, 360-601-8864, Mitchell-Kelly4auditor@gmail.com, Mitchell-Kelly4auditor.com. Please tell us about your background. I bring a unique combination of executive county leadership and legislative policy making to this role. I've had the honor of serving our community as a Clark County council chair where I manage

5:46 complex budgets and local governance firsthand. Before that, I served as both the Oregon state representative and senator, giving me a deep understanding of the statutory laws that govern our public institutions. My career has been defined by creating accountability, managing massive public systems, and answering directly to the taxpayers. I'm not running on empty promises. I'm running on a proven track record of regional leadership. I know exactly how government bureaucracy works, and more importantly, I know how to reform it to better serve the people of Clark County. Why should the voters select you for this position? Voters should select me because the auditor's office needs an established leader who understands both the law and executive oversight. My opponents bring either limited bureaucratic experience or purely partisan talking points.

6:44 Having served as your Clark County council chair and as a state lawmaker, I already know how the county operates and how state mandates impact our local departments. I have the political courage and the executive experience necessary to implement real reforms. I'm uniquely prepared to tackle the administrative challenges of this office, secure our fiscal health, and restore total transparency to our election system from day one. I offer a mature, tested leadership this crucial seat demands. If elected, what will be your top three priorities? My top three priorities address the exact areas where current leadership has grown complacent. First, I will execute a comprehensive cleanup of our voter rolls, utilizing rigorous checks to determine the true eligibility of all potential voter registrations.

7:44 Second, I will mandate a third party independent audit of our elections, something Clark County has failed to do for more than 25 years. Third, I will leverage my experience as a county council chair to modernize our internal financial audits to stop waste. While my opponents are content with the status quo, my priorities focus on restoring absolute administrative integrity, protecting your tax dollars, and ensuring that our local government is fully accountable to you. What are the primary responsibilities of the Clark County Auditor? The auditor is responsible for financial reporting, licensing, public records, and administrating our elections. But fundamentally, the auditor is the ultimate guardian of public trust.

8:40 My opponents often view this as a passive managerial role that simply signs off on existing paperwork. But as a former state senator and county council chair, I know the true oversight requires active, rigorous verification. It means ensuring that every legal vote is protected, which requires actively cleaning voter rolls and verifying registration eligibility. The auditor shouldn't just keep the wheels turning. They must provide independent verification that those wheels are turning legally, transparently, and efficiently across all county departments. What experience do you have overseeing internal and performance audits for a large organization? As a former chair of the Clark County Council, I was directly responsible for the legislative oversight of our entire county budget and operational performances.

9:38 I've sat at the top of the organizational chart, demanding accountability from department heads and reviewing complex financial systems. My opponents have only looked at these systems from the bottom up, lacking executive experience required to enforce real compliance. I know how to spot bureaucratic inefficiencies because I've spent years managing them. My background ensures that when we audit the county operations, we won't just be going through motions, we will be actively protecting taxpayer dollars with an experienced eye. What strategies would you employ to address concerns of the integrity of vote counts? I will restore confidence by replacing complacency in independent verification. First, I will clean up our voter rolls using strict, rigorous checks to verify the eligibility of every single registration.

10:34 Second, I will commission a comprehensive third party independent audit of our election system, a baseline security check that Clark County has shockingly neglected for more than 25 years. My opponents claim that our systems are beyond reproach and require no further scrutiny. I believe that true transparency means proving our systems work through independent eyes. By cleaning the data on the front end and independently auditing the results on the back end, we will build an election system that every citizen can trust. Final question, what makes you the better candidate? What makes me the better candidate is my unmatched record of legislative and executive leadership. I'm the only candidate who has led this county as council chair and shaped the state as a senator and representative.

11:33 My opponents simply do not have executive weight or the courage to challenge a system that hasn't seen an independent election audit in over a quarter of a century. I'm ready to implement rigorous eligibility checks on voter rolls, secure our systems, and bring the independent oversight to Clark County. I don't need on the job training. I have the experience, the backbone, and the dedication to deliver the secure accountable government that you deserve. For more information, contact Eileen Quiring O'Brien, P.O. Box 87177, Vancouver, Washington,

12:23 98687, 360-606-0151, or email at Eileen, E-I-L-E-E-N, forauditor@gmail.com, or go to the website eileenforauditor@gmail.com, forauditor.com. Please tell us about your background. I have a background that's deep in knowledge of county government and management. For many years, I was a consultant and I worked as a team to make counties work better. I also served as a city administrator. I have both political experience and deep management and county knowledge. Why should the voters select you for this position? Our election system is part of the county auditor's office and our election system is part of the bedrock of our democracy. And today, a lot of us are concerned about attacks on our election systems.

13:22 And I believe in the rule of law and I know that our election system works. Our vote-by-mail system works and our vote-counting system works. It's been tested many times and I believe that it should be kept and kept solid and we should always be on the lookout to make it work better. I also have political leadership and experience and I'm a trusted member of our community. My management experience and my political experience combine to make me the best qualified candidate for this office. If elected, what will be your top three priorities? Number one, I would protect what works well and I can talk more about that later. I will resist damaging lies and attacks and I will be transparent about how the system works.

14:18 Right now, people can watch the votes being counted, the envelopes being opened and can see for themselves, but not everybody does. I will make sure people know that they can come and see what works. I also believe that we must always be transparent with our handling of money and our election system and both of those are critical components of the auditor's office. What are the primary responsibilities of the Clark County Auditor? The county auditors are constitutionally an arm of the state. What they do is mandated by our state constitution and state law. There are two main parts. One is the auditor's office, which makes sure that our money moves through with checks and balances and follows all of the rules of good financial management. There's also contracts like vehicle subagents that are part of the county auditor's responsibility

15:17 to make sure people, when they buy a car on the weekend, can get it registered. But the part most people are concerned about right now is the election system. Nationally, there have been a lot of news stories about attacks and problems in the election system. I will make sure that Clark County citizens and residents can be sure that our election system is working. I will make sure that the good professional servants who are working in both of our systems will be transparent, they will have the tools they need to do the job, and people that are curious or interested or concerned can see for themselves. What experience do you have overseeing internal and performance audits for a large organization? A large part of my consulting business has been taking a deep dive into organizational effectiveness.

16:16 What laws need to be followed, what checks and balances are there, how many people does it take to make something work well, what resources are needed, and how are the results, are the intentions being met by the results, and how you evaluate those results. All of those are components of both regular auditing and performance auditing that's done well. What strategies would you employ to address concerns of the integrity of vote counts? Our current reality is impressive, but most people don't know about it. For instance, we have state-of-the-art vote counting machines. We have a protective barrier, a fence, between those machines and seating for the public so the public can watch those votes being counted. But perhaps most important, those machines are not connected to the internet.

17:15 They cannot be hacked from outside. Internet voting is a concern for a lot of people. That's not what we do. We have internet-protected separate voting machines, and we keep a paper trail. When we have to do a recount because it's close, our results are almost always within one or two votes. They are the same. We have our paper trail, and we have our machines that are not connected to the internet. People don't know that. More people should know that. We also have observers who watch when the envelopes are being opened, and if that signature doesn't match the one we have on file, people get a phone call. I know many people whose signature has changed, and they got a call so that they could make sure their vote was their vote and it was counted properly. Final question. What makes you the better candidate?

18:14 I'm the only candidate that has a deep knowledge of all aspects of county government. The auditor interacts with all of the other county departments. I'm also a political leader that people know and trust. The management experience, the knowledge of county government, and my political presence in the community are both all going to be very, very important. In normal times, this is an administrative office, but it was designed constitutionally to be politically led. And now is a time when we need both skill sets and both aspects in operation, hitting the ground running for the next four years.

19:05 For more information, contact Sharon Wiley, 6400 North East Highway 99, Suite G340, Vancouver, Washington 98665, 360921 5716, Sharon Wiley for auditor@gmail.com, electsharon.com. Please tell us about your background. My name is Ty Stober and for the past decade I've served on the Vancouver City Council. As a council member, I also had the opportunity to serve on the boards of C-TRAN and the Regional Transportation Council. Prior to that, in the private sector, I've served in organizations and technology and operations and management. I have an MBA from the University of North Carolina.

20:01 In these organizations, large organizations, complex organizations, I've learned the importance of transparency and reliability in presenting budgets and strategic plans. I'm running for county auditor because I understand that trust is built through that same kind of adherence to that accountability and transparency. Why should the voters select you for this position? The auditor's office is a operational, not a political role. It is staffed by really competent, experienced professionals who come to work every single day to serve the people of Clark County.

20:56 The number one quality that a candidate can bring to this role is respect for that professionalism and an understanding that you are a leader of teams of professionals. I come with a unique combination of both public and private sector experience. I respect the professionalism and experience of our staff and look forward to how can I best serve the people of Clark County in delivering the performance that they expect every single day. If elected, what will be your top three priorities? Number one is election excellence and not just excellence in how we perform the duties

21:53 of the elections office, making sure that ballots are properly counted, that registration is conducted properly, that the systems that underlie all this run efficiently, but also elections excellence, that we engage more people in our community in the elections process. It has long concerned me that Clark County trails the rest of the state in voter turnout and I want to really focus on addressing that. Number two is financial integrity. The lottery's office doesn't set the budget, but it needs to make sure that it is properly accounting for those expenditures, making sure that the county's funds, the public's

22:46 funds are being used as efficiently as possible for their intended purpose. And finally, it's service and modernization, making sure that those systems that our residents rely on every single day work as efficiently as possible. Not forcing technology to do jobs, but making sure that technology is there to support people in a way that feels transparent. What are the primary responsibilities of the Clark County auditor? The auditor's office has four distinct departments. Number one, the most visible is elections. It's making sure that people can register to vote, that they receive their ballots,

23:40 that when those ballots back they're processed efficiently, accurately and transparently. The next one is public records. So if you need to buy or sell a house or other documents that need to be officially recorded, you do that through the auditor's office. That office also can register people for marriage. The next one is the auditor is the administrator of vehicular licensing in Clark County. So they work as agents of the state to make sure that your car tabs, your license plates, that you receive them when you need to. And finally is financial services. Making sure that the county's money is spent effectively, efficiently and tracked well,

24:39 that internal audits, performance audits are conducted in a transparent, open fashion. These are services that the residents of Clark County rely on every single day even if they don't realize that they do. What experience do you have overseeing internal and performance audits for a large organization? I have extensive experience throughout my career with financial and operational oversight of organizations even though I haven't been a county auditor. Throughout my career I've been responsible for budgets, for meeting expectations on program performance and all of that is driving back to an audit that occurs either over the finances

25:37 of the organization or through the performance to a program. In one of my positions I ran a program where I was responsible for executing every single year on a work plan and the auditors would come in and tell us how we were doing in meeting the objectives that we laid out. So I have a great deal of respect for the role that auditing plays in an organization to make sure that it's meeting its objectives and responsibilities. And I look forward to helping the audit team be able to perform those duties and transparently report those findings to the public. What strategies would you employ to address concerns of the integrity of vote counts?

26:35 When I encounter a voter who has concerns about the integrity of our elections I start by telling my own experiences. I talk about becoming a certified election observer, so taking the time to go through a class to learn about the voting process and then not just that but to actually observe an actual election. I talk about being able to see that ballot move through the process and I talk specifically about the signature verification process and how I was able to watch the signatures being compared against all the different signatures that a voter has on record because it's not just the one signature when you signed up to vote. It's every single signature that they have on file so they can see how a signature may

27:34 change over time. So I start there and then I talk about the fact that it flows all the way through and if there are concerns with signatures that those end up being reviewed by an independent panel so the staff presents them to the canvassing board and then the canvassing board makes the final determination and I actually saw ballots being referred to the prosecuting attorney and sheriff. So I start with those experiences, I start talking about making sure that the office is transparent, that you can come down, you can observe, you can see for yourself and you can even give suggestions on how to improve the process to make it feel more transparent to you.

28:31 Final question, what makes you the better candidate? As I said before, I bring a unique combination of experience in both the public and private sectors. I've had experience having to build coalitions to solve complex challenges. I know what it means to work with and support professional staff in order to accomplish the objectives of the organization. I have a deep respect that this is an operational and not a political office and want to make sure that people can trust in what the auditor's office is doing and knowing that it is working every single day to meet their needs.

29:23 For more information, contact Ty Stober, P.O. Box 433, Vancouver, Washington 98666, 360-727-1279, team at votetie.com, votetie.com.