OLYMPIA — Voters electrified by a historic duel for president and heated rematch for governor showed up in record numbers in Snohomish County and throughout the state for the Nov. 4 election.
Nearly 3.1 million people cast ballots in Washington, the most in state history. They represent a turnout of 84.61 percent of the state’s registered voters, the best performance since 1936, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
“This has been an amazing year for our country and our state, and it is clear that Washington voters were enthused and engaged to a degree we’ve never seen before. They registered, they listened, they got involved and they voted,” Secretary of State Sam Reed said in a statement Tuesday.
All-mail balloting, a fixture in 37 of 39 counties, provided a further boost because it made it even easier by putting ballots in the hands of voters, state elections director Nick Handy said.
“When you make it convenient, you will increase participation,” he said.
Snohomish County tallied a new high of 324,179 ballots and posted a turnout of 87 percent, the third best in its history. The county record is 88.71 percent set in 1932 when there were roughly 36,000 registered voters.
“People were excited,” Snohomish County Auditor Carolyn Weikel said. “From our experience here at the county building, you could sense the excitement of people who were lined up to vote on machines.”
President-elect Barack Obama beat Sen. John McCain in Washington by a margin of 57.6 percent to 40.5 percent. Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire won re-election with 53.2 percent of the vote in beating Republican Dino Rossi.
In Snohomish County, Obama captured 58.5 percent and Gregoire garnered 52.7 percent. That was a turnaround for Gregoire, who lost to Rossi in the county in 2004.
Nationally, Washington performed well or very well compared to other states depending on what means of measurement is used.
Washington, Oregon and Wyoming led the nation in percentage of ballots cast by registered voters, according to research by the Secretary of State’s Office.
This state is also above the national average for the rate of turnout among the voting eligible population, a category that includes every person of voting age who is eligible but are not registered and thus don’t cast ballots.
Roughly 66.6 percent of all those eligible to vote in Washington did cast a ballot in the race for president, according to preliminary figures compiled and posted online Monday by the United States Election Project at George Mason University. The preliminary nationwide figure was 61.4 percent.
Historically, the number of voters and ballots cast increases in presidential election years, and that happened again this year.
As of Tuesday, 3,071,539 ballots were counted compared to 2,884,783 in 2004.
Notably, hundreds of felons didn’t participate this time like in 2004. Then, the counties and the state lacked any effective means of tracking names of people convicted of felonies. Now, with the aid of a statewide voter database tied to court records, names of convicted felons and deceased voters are regularly purged.
David Ammons, spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said 450,000 names have been scrubbed from voter rolls since 2006. Even after that purge, the state wound up with 120,000 more registered voters than in 2004.
Snohomish County saw its voter rolls swell to 372,636, of which roughly 48,000 were new voters. Nearly a third of them signed up in September and October, county election officials said.
Amid the increase, there have been no reports of any major muffs in the conduct of the elections and the counting of the ballots, said Handy and Weikel.
“From an election administration perspective, it was a remarkably smooth and uneventful election,” Handy said.
Controversy enveloped the process four years ago with reports of misplaced ballots and recognition that hundreds of counted ballots had been cast illegally by felons and in the name of deceased voters.
Snohomish County in 2004 also had the embarrassment of finding a tray of 224 ballots during the mandatory machine recount of the governor’s race. Those ballots did not get counted in the first tally.
Weikel said nothing like that has occurred this year, though election workers did discover that 24 people voted twice by turning in their mail ballot and voting on a touch-screen machine set up at the county and area libraries during the election. Their names will be sent to the prosecuting attorney’s office for review and possible action, she said.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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