Today is last chance to file for office in WA. Many Tri-Cities candidates still unchallenged

If you don’t enter the state’s electronic portal by 4 p.m. today, you will have missed your chance to file for political office.

And as of this morning, it appeared there were many candidates from Benton and Franklin counties still running unopposed.

That’s unfortunate because campaign season is the time to hold elected officials accountable for decisions they’ve made during their term. But when there is no challenger, that opportunity tends to fall to the wayside.

The worry too, of course, is that candidates running unopposed can easily slip under the radar without scrutiny.

Last November, Pasco citizens unknowingly voted in new school board member Stephen A. Simmons, who had two domestic violence convictions, and one involving a toddler

Those regrettable acts happened in 2005 and 2014, and Simmons told the Tri-City Herald he has since been to counseling and has learned how to address his problems

We said at the time that if he had come clean early in his campaign, people might have believed he was a changed man and supported him anyway. But because Pasco voters didn’t know the full details of Simmons’ fourth-degree assault convictions, we recommended he resign — not for his troubled past, but for lying by omission to voters.

He didn’t. But he is running for office again along with other Pasco School Board members after the group wisely decided to follow the city’s lead and change to a district-only voting system.

As it happens, Simmons is an at-large candidate, but so far it appears he has not attracted a challenger.

If Pasco citizens think he’s doing a great job, then so be it.

But if someone runs against Simmons, then perhaps Pasco citizens could get the clarity they were denied when he ran for office last year.

To file for office, go to the Washington Secretary of State’s website under the Elections page.

Time is running out.