A last-minute wave of ballots was received by Snohomish County, but it did little to change the outcome of races in the primary election.
On Wednesday afternoon, the county Auditor’s Office started counting 25,438 ballots received by mail or picked up at the different drop-in boxes around th
e county.
With the new figures, the turnout could increase to almost 26 percent, county auditor Carolyn Weikel said.
“It was a last-minute push,” she said. “We probably could see a couple of hundred more in the following days.”
Primary turnout is typically low, especially in years when there’s no presidential election. In the 2010 primary, just under 39 percent of the county’s voters returned ballots.
That compares to nearly 72 percent for the 2010 general election. The county’s primary turnout fell short of 25 percent in 2009.
In general terms, participation in primaries has been the same since the county shifted to a vote-by-mail system in 2006, Weikel said.
“Numbers have not increased in the primary,” Weikel said. “If it has, it would have been by a small percentage.”
By Wednesday evening, about 8,000 votes were counted for different races, making little difference in current trends:
•Incumbent Aaron Reardon was maintaining his lead over challenger Mike Hope for Snohomish County executive with 52 percent against Hope’s 47 percent.
Incumbent Democrat Brian Sullivan was leading the race for the County Council District 2 position. He had about 67.1 percent of the vote. Republican Glen Sayes was the runner-up with 22.89 percent and Jason Mills was third with 9.6 percent.
At the County Council District 3 position race, incumbent Democrat Stephanie Wright appears to be first with about 59 percent of the vote against Republican Kathy Vaughn’s 40 percent.
For the race to become the next mayor in Arlington, Steve Baker and Barb Tolbert were still leading the pool of six candidates. Baker remained slightly ahead with 17 votes — or a less than 1 percentage point — more than Tolbert.
Former City Councilman Dave Earling was leading in the mayoral race in Edmonds with 53.1 percent of the counted vote. Mike Cooper was second with 38.9 percent. Former City Councilman Roger Hertrich, was trailing behind with 7.7 percent.
Snohomish’s Proposition No. 1, that would increase sales tax rate to 8.8 from 8.6 percent, was passing by 57 percent of the vote.
Alejandro Dominguez: 425-339-3422; adominguez@ heraldnet.com.
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