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An office that serves with care.
Servir con cuidado.
Maria Cuevas spent her career as an educator, a sociologist, and a community leader in the Yakima Valley. She is running for County Auditor to bring the same standard of care to every voter, every family, and every record this office serves.
Every voter, every record, every time.
MARIA'S Story
A teacher's eye, an organizer's heart, and roots that run through this valley. Maria D. Cuevas is a third-generation American of Mexican descent, raised in California by parents who were farmworkers as children. The values they passed down, hard work, faith, service, and the conviction that education changes one's life chances, are the same values she has spent her life living out in the Yakima Valley. For nearly two decades, Maria taught at Yakima Valley College, where she taught courses in Sociology, Chican@/x Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Intercultural Communication. She also taught Sociology and Ethnic Studies course as adjunct faculty at Washington State University. Her classrooms were known for one thing above all: she expected her students to become informed, engaged citizens and leaders in their own communities. Many of them did. She did not stop at teaching. Maria coordinated YVC's Diversity Series for years, advised the MEChA student organization, served as Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers Local 1485, and mentored generations of first-generation college students through their degrees and into their careers. Earlier in her career, she served as Assistant Director of UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center and worked with the United Farm Workers and La Unión del Pueblo Entero on a Fair Trade agricultural initiative supporting both farmworkers and producers in Washington State. Maria holds degrees from Kings River Community College, the University of California San Diego, and UCLA, where she earned a Master's in Public Health and a Master's in Social Welfare. She completed her doctoral coursework and is All But Dissertation (ABD) in Sociology at Washington State University, with research focused on Chicana activism and community leadership in the Pacific Northwest. Today, Maria continues to serve. She sits on the board of the Memorial Foundation and Between the Ridges: Alliance for the Common Good. She volunteers with organizations focused on immigrant support, civic engagement, education, and the well-being of her neighbors. She is running for Yakima County Auditor for one reason: after a lifetime of teaching others what it means to serve a community, she is ready to step into the office where service is measured ballot by ballot, record by record, and family by family.
WHY I'M RUNNING
"The Auditor's Office handles the most important paperwork in our civic lives. Our vote. Our marriage. Our home. It should treat every person who walks through its doors with the same care a good teacher gives a student." Yakima County is roughly half Latino. We are the largest Latino-majority county in the Pacific Northwest. And yet our voter turnout has been the lowest in the state of Washington, with Latino turnout the lowest of any group. That is not a failure of our voters. That is a failure of imagination by an office that has not been built for the full community it serves. Maria is running to change the standard. Bilingual service that is real, not a sign on a counter. Voter outreach that prevents ballot rejections instead of explaining them after the fact. Plain-language financial reporting any taxpayer can read. Modern systems that actually work for the people who use them. This is the work of a lifetime, and Maria has been preparing for it her entire career.
1 | Elections That Earn Trust
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Public reporting on signature challenges and cures, by precinct
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Voter education in churches, schools, and employers, where families actually gather
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The same standard applied to every precinct, English and Spanish, urban and rural
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Build public trust by ensuring every election is secure, accessible, and accountable
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Bilingual ballot guidance that prevents rejections, not just explains them afterwards
THREE PRIORITIES
2 | Finances the Public Can Read
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Annual financial reports rewritten in plain language, English and Spanish
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Public dashboard for payroll, accounts payable, and major expenditures
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Independent operational review of the office in year one, results published
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Strong internal controls to prevent waste, with annual public summary
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Full compliance with state and federal financial law
3 | A Modern Office for This Valley
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Online appointments and digital records that actually work on a phone
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Posted wait time targets at every counter, reported quarterly
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Bilingual staffing standard at every customer-facing role
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Plain-language guides for passports, licensing, and recording, both languages
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Streamlined services to reduce delays and improve customer experience
"When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower."
- Alexander den Heijer
WHY THIS RACE, Why Now
Yakima County is changing. Its public offices haven't.
Yakima County is the largest Latino-majority county in the Pacific Northwest. We are the largest agricultural county in Washington. We are home to the Yakama Nation, to generations of farmworker families, and to a rising civic coalition that is finally demanding the representation it has earned.
An office that handles half the county's most important paperwork, our votes, our marriages, our property records, should reflect the county it serves. Maria is running so it finally does.
51% Hispanic or Latino share of Yakima County, the highest of any county in Washington State.
25.8% The lowest voter turnout in Washington in November 2023, despite our county being one of the largest.
$75K Paid by Yakima County in 2023 to settle a federal Voting Rights Act lawsuit over Latino ballot rejections.
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Paid for by Community for Maria Cuevas
PO Box 10082 | Yakima, WA 98909
Top 5 Contributors disclosed at PDC.wa.gov
© 2026 Maria Cuevas for Yakima County Auditor. All rights Reserved.
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