Snohomish County tallies final primary election ballots

EVERETT — Snohomish County’s final reckoning of the presidential primary showed about 25,000 ballots were left unopened by election officials because voters declined or failed to check a party preference box on the envelope.

Results were made official Wednesday and show Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., received about 1,200 more votes than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Turnout met projections with nearly 156,000 ballots cast, or about 46 percent of the county’s 337,000 registered active voters.

Subtracting the 25,000 ballots that were not opened or tallied brought down that number to 39 percent.

For a partisan vote to count, voters were required to check a party preference next to an oath and vote for a candidate in that party only.

Some voters rewrote the party oath on the ballot envelope, crossing out words and claiming the government was infringing on their rights, said County Councilman Brian Sullivan, a member of the county election canvassing board.

The election was above board and transparent, Sullivan said.

“I have no feeling that there was anything out of step,” he said.

The disqualified ballots came from places where only the presidential primary was on the ballot and no other local measures, county elections manager Garth Fell said. If a voter forgot to check the box, they weren’t allowed to fix the oversight at the auditor’s office, Fell said.

However, a handful of voters found ways to get their ballots to count even after they failed to check the party box, he said.

Some ballots had signatures that didn’t match records, and those voters were able to check a party box on the envelope when they came to the auditor’s office to clear up the signature issue, Fell said.

Others voters who realized their mistake cast ballots on electronic machines at libraries or the auditor’s office, allowing them to choose a party on a touch screen machine and pick their candidate before their paper ballot arrived at the auditor’s office in the mail.

When the paper ballot arrived, it was flagged and not counted, Fell said.

“For those voters, it worked,” Fell said. “Some people called and told us, others just went and did it.”

Voters approved several school measures in Arlington, Darrington, Granite Falls, Lakewood, Monroe, Mukilteo and Stanwood-Camano Island. It was the first election where levies required a simple majority, rather than a 60 percent supermajority. Levies typically provide one-fifth of the dollars needed for a typical school district’s operations.

A $139.2 million Mukilteo school bond failed to reach a required 60 percent threshold needed for approval.

The Feb. 19 presidential primary and the Feb. 9 party caucuses crossed over, confusing some voters and complicating things. About 60,000 ballots were cast before the caucuses. Republicans selected about half their state delegates based on caucuses and half from primary results; Democrats chose all of their delegates from the caucuses and none from the primary vote.

Statewide figures to date show Obama leads in the primary results over Clinton 51 percent to 46 percent.

Final Snohomish County election results

Arlington Schools

PROP. 1

Yes: 4,42655.18%

No: 3,59544.82%

Darrington Schools

PROP. 1

Yes: 45256.64%

No: 34643.36%

PROP. 2

Yes: 46958.55%