A ballot battle is brewing in Snohomish County over the votes that were rejected because thousands of voters didn’t pick a political party.

Some Democrats want the county to tally the rejected ballots cast in the primary race for the state Senate that pitted Steve Hobbs against Lillian Kaufer.

So far, Hobbs leads in the 44th Legislative District, which includes Mill Creek, Lake Stevens, Snohomish and Marysville.

Hobbs has a 639-vote edge over Kaufer in the latest tally as of The Enterprise deadline Wednesday. The margin has widened each day as officials count more election day ballots.

“Looks like I’m going on to the general election,” said Hobbs, an Iraq war veteran and college facilities manager. “They want change in Olympia and picked me to do it.”

About 5,000 ballots remained to be tallied countywide as of Wednesday.

The winner will challenge incumbent state Sen. Dave Schmidt, R-Mill Creek.

Regardless of who is ahead, the 44th District Democrats who endorsed Kaufer are pushing a case to count votes rejected by the auditor’s office.

The 44th District Democrats is a group made up of precinct committee officers and other party supporters.

The effort is “to make sure all strictly partisan ballots were counted,” said Rick DeWitt, of the 44th District Democrats.

State rules “absolutely compel them to count these votes,” he said. “They need to be counted because they express clear voter intent.”

DeWitt said he would take his case to the county election canvassing board, which met Thursday, Sept. 28.

DeWitt recently failed to persuade county Auditor Bob Terwilliger to see his view. He also struck out trying to get emergency rules to count rejected votes from election director Nick Handy on Sept. 18.

Terwilliger and Handy said state law clearly requires voters choose a political party for partisan votes to be counted. Otherwise, those votes are nullified. Votes for judges and other nonpartisan races were counted even if a voter failed to choose a party.

DeWitt’s not giving up, saying it’s more than just about Kaufer winning.

“It’s about counting the votes,” DeWitt said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with who is ahead or behind.”

Kaufer supports the effort.

“They want everyone’s vote to count, as I think it should be,” said Kaufer, a political activist and Wal-Mart foe. “It’s petty that a small thing like that would disenfranchise so many voters.”

County election officials said so far 11,686 voters failed to choose party affiliation on their ballots or skipped the chance to cast partisan votes, according to results Sept. 20.

That’s about 15 percent of the 79,000 ballots counted.

Both campaigns in the 44th District expected a close race, and the endorsement lists show the deep party division.

Besides the 44th District Democrats, Kaufer won endorsements from state representatives and senators, former Gov. Mike Lowry, and some local labor groups. Hobbs won backing from County Executive Aaron Reardon, former Gov. Gary Locke, state representatives and senators, and the state labor party.

County Democratic chairman Mark Hintz said if the Senate race gets close, the party might join DeWitt’s effort. He said DeWitt is raising issues the canvassing board should address.

Handy said DeWitt is correct that voter intent is important under state law.

“We do honor voter intent, but only when we are also able to honor state law,” Handy wrote in an e-mail to DeWitt and other members of the 44th District Democrats.

The debate over forcing voters to pick a party has persisted through three legislative sessions, Handy said in an interview, because the primary system was in and out of court each year.

“We never had a chance to fix the pick-a-party box problem,” he said.

Secretary of State Sam Reed wants to eliminate the pick-a-party requirement and plans to raise the issue before the state Legislature in 2007.

Jeff Switzer is a reporter with The Herald in Everett.