Editorial: As important as voting is acceptance of voters’ will

By The Herald Editorial Board

The good news: After this evening, you won’t have to endure another campaign advertisement, at least for this election. Apart from that, a good chunk of the election may take a few hours to a few days — we can hope it’s not a matter of weeks — to play out.

And just a final reminder to registered voters, you still have until 8 p.m. to get your ballot to the post office or a ballot drop box and have your say on a consequential list of local, state and national races and issues. A fair number of voters in Snohomish County have yet to submit ballots. As of Monday afternoon, ballots for about 56.7 percent of the county’s nearly 530,000 registered voters had been returned, accepted and prepared by the county elections office, votes ready to be tabulated and announced shortly after 8 p.m. Statewide, of the nearly 5 million registered voters, about 56.7 percent had submitted ballots as of Monday afternoon.

County Auditor Garth Fell said last week he’s expecting voter turnout comparable to past presidential election years, somewhere between 75 percent to 85 percent. The 2020 election saw a little more than 85 percent turnout, compared to nearly 79 percent in 2016 and 80.5 percent in 2012.

“I’d caution anybody from comparing the turnout at this point to 2020. We know that 2020 was a bit of an outlier in terms of a strong early return, and then things trailed off. I don’t know that that’s the trend we’re seeing here,” he said. Going by current returns, Fell said, “we’re going to hit a turnout someplace around 80 percent.”

But ballot return rates are the only number that can be released before 8 this evening.

To ensure the integrity of the election, a tight lid is kept on the election numbers as ballots come in. Washington state law, which can differ from laws and practice in other states, allows ballots to be opened, inspected, signatures checked, prepared and digitally scanned before the polls close.

“We just can’t do the tabulation function of adding up the results,” Fell said. That work, of counting the votes, he said, is locked down until 8 p.m., to assure the public that no one has the initial returns before then.

Resembling the protocol for initiating the “auto-destruct sequence” of the starship Enterprise in a “Star Trek” movie, it takes two election workers to enter each half of a password to begin the count up of returns, rather than a countdown.

Depending on the size of the database, it can take a few minutes for the system to print out a report. Those returns will then by uploaded to the county’s elections website around 8:20 — at tinyurl.com/SnoCoElexResults24 — as well as to the Washington Secretary of State’s office by about 8:45 — www.sos.wa.gov/elections — which collects returns from all 39 counties for its reports on federal and statewide races and districts where two or more counties are reporting numbers. (Election returns and more coverage also will be available tonight at HeraldNet.com.)

After Tuesday night, as ballots postmarked before Tuesday arrive, the elections office will update numbers each day around 5 p.m. As well, the county’s election equipment is checked before and after Election Day. The first tests of the equipment were conducted in the presence of observers and a representative of the state Secretary of State’s office on Oct. 16. A batch audit of ballots, is scheduled for Nov. 6. Another audit, comparing a hand-counted random sample of ballots to the equipment-counted results will be conducted on Nov. 19.

Election results are unofficial until finalized and certified on Nov. 26 by the county canvassing board, which includes the county auditor, the five members of the council council and the county prosecuting attorney.

The editorial board in this editorial and others this election season has put a fine point on the issue of election integrity and voter confidence because the public’s trust in the process is foundational to our representative democracy at all levels, for school boards and councils, local tax measures, judicial posts, legislative races, statewide initiatives and state offices and members of Congress and the presidency.

The vital work of those offices are dependent on our work as voters, and not solely in the act of voting, but also in our commitment to accepting the outcome of elections as the collective voice of all voters.

We’ll repeat the results of a recent Pew Research Center survey that found that 73 percent of voters polled said that elections, nationwide, were very to somewhat well run; yet when asked specifically about their local election systems, that confidence increased to 92 percent, likely an indication that a closer relationship to the process instills greater trust. Voters, recognizing their own confidence in local election processes can also have faith that similar confidence can be found throughout the 3,144 counties in the United States.

That decentralization of election systems in the U.S. further makes the case for confidence in the outcome of elections. Even if scattered instances of fraud or tampering are revealed — and those incidences have been shown to be exceedingly rare — it would be impossible to rig or steal a election at any level.

The greater threat to our democracy comes in accepting only half of each voter’s duty. Yes, your vote is crucial to democracy, but so to is your acceptance of the votes of others, regardless of the outcome.

To judge by polling throughout the campaigns for president and other races, a significant number of American voters may be disappointed — to put it mildly — with the outcome. To be clear, election results don’t preclude those disappointed with those results from continuing to press and protest for what they believe to be in the country’s best interests, so long as those protests are peaceful. That’s part of representative democracy, too. But any protest must start with respect of the voters’ collective will.

America’s representative democracy can survive and serve the people, regardless of whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump is elected.

What it may not be able to endure is a blanket rejection of the election and a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021.

Election Day voter?

Voters have until 8 tonight to return ballots.

For more election information, including drop box locations, go to tinyurl.com/SnoCoElex2024.

Voters are invited to watch candidate forums sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Snohomish County and the Forum Coalition at tinyurl.com/LWVSC2024Forums.

A recap of The Herald Editorial Board’s endorsements, go totinyurl.com/HeraldEndorseRecap24.