Ballots in South County coming in slower than rest of county

Published 9:31 am Tuesday, November 8, 2011

South Snohomish County voters are returning their ballots at a slightly lower rate than the rest of the County.

Voters in Brier, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Woodway and the rest of the Edmonds School District had returned 23.70 percent of their ballots by Monday night, compared to a countywide average of 24.60 percent.

Elections officials expect a final countywide voter turnout of 52 to 53 percent and a statewide turnout of 47 percent.

The highest ballot-return rate in South Snohomish County is in the Edmonds Port District, which includes downtown Edmonds from Puget Sound east to 92nd Avenue West and south to the King County line, including the town of Woodway.

The return rate in the Port District was 31.27 percent.

The return rate for the city of Edmonds was 28.77 percent as of Monday night, well ahead of Woodway’s 25.54 percent, Brier’s 23.52 percent, Mountlake Terrace’s 21.13 percent and Lynnwood’s 21.10 percent.

Lynnwood had a low return rate despite having four contested council elections and a ballot measure on changing the city’s form of government from a mayor-council system to a council-manager system.

Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com