NOTE: Ballots must be postmarked by today or returned to a ballot drop box by 8 pm tonight to be counted.
Washington state elections officials expect more than 40% of the state’s voters will cast their ballots for today’s primary election.
That would compare favorably with the last three even-year primary elections in Washington, where turnout ranged from 31% to about 38%.
“When you look at this election, it really is comparable to the 2010 election, where we had a U.S. Senate race in a mid-term, even-year election. So we anticipate that we will get to the low-to-mid-40-percent turnout for this election," said Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman.
She says turnout is driven by interesting races and people.
“I heard this morning that over in Spokane County, there’s a couple of hot races, so Spokane is actually running about seven points ahead of the rest of the state right now, which is what I would expect to see," she said. "It’s the things that are on the ballot, the people that are on the ballot, that make people turn out to vote moreso than how we conduct the election.”
Spokane Public Radio will have on-air election reports tonight after the polls close and tomorrow during the morning news. We’ll also post results and stories on our webpage.