Perhaps the biggest local winner in this fall’s election was civic engagement. Voters exercised their franchises off, turning out in record numbers in Snohomish County and statewide.
Final results from the Snohomish County Auditor’s office show that 87 percent of registered voters did their electoral duty — a whopping ballot total of 324,179. Washington cracked the 3 million vote ceiling for the first time, boasting a record statewide turnout of 84.61 percent.
Surely the high-profile races for president and governor account for much of the interest, and that’s fine — especially if they drew in first-time voters who will stay engaged. The challenges today’s families face provide ample incentive to pay attention to what government is doing.
We suspect the convenience and on-the-kitchen-table presence of mail voting also fueled the record turnout, and, perhaps, deeper thought about races and issues. Having your ballot right there in your mailbox is a pretty strong reminder that you really ought to make your voice heard.
Some voters still yearn for the interactive experience of the polling place, but we suspect more and more families are finding that voting at home is sparking valuable discussions about important issues. Hmmm … dinner-table democracy. Not a bad family tradition.
The importance of voting is still playing out in the 44th Legislative District, where the House race between Republican Mike Hope and Democrat Liz Loomis was close enough to trigger an automatic hand recount, which will start Dec. 9. Hope led Loomis by just 118 votes out of 68,860 cast when the counting was finished this week — a razor-thin margin of just 0.17 percent. A relative handful of voters really can make all the difference.
We hope Washingtonians will have a chance to get used to the top-two primary that went over so well in August. The system, approved overwhelmingly by voters and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court after the political parties challenged it, revived Washington voters’ traditional right to vote for their favorite candidate in the primary, regardless of party affiliation. The parties don’t have to like it, but in deference to voters’ clear wishes, they should resolve to live with it and avoid further court challenges.
Apathy, after all, appears to be waning. No one should do anything to give it new life.
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