Get out the vote efforts

If you're a candidate who wants to urge people to vote, your unpaid volunteers can help you with that. They can call or email people and urge them to vote or explain how to register to vote.

But when you spend your campaign contributions, you must use those funds to encourage people to vote for you not just to vote in general.

If you want to encourage a generic get-out-the-vote effort, here's how:

• After an election is over and your campaign debts from that election are paid, you may donate any leftover money to a party committee or a legislative caucus committee. Remember, that's the county, legislative district, or state party, not a party-related political committee.
• You can also donate your surplus to any charitable organization that's registered with Washington's Secretary of State. Party committees and charitable organizations may run get-out- the-vote campaigns, so they could spend your contribution to do that.