Now everyone can vote in their pajamas – and still get their “I Voted” sticker.
Snohomish County launched its first all-mail election this week and mailed primary ballots and voter guides on Wednesday, Aug. 30.
All 334,700 registered voters in the county will receive mail ballots at their homes, offices or vacation cabins, depending on where voters want their ballot sent.
The move makes Snohomish County the most populous in the state to close its local polling places and make the switch.
The primary election is Sept. 19.
Diehard polling place voters still have an option if they don’t want to vote by mail.
One polling place – the county auditor’s office in Everett – will have a handful of electronic touch-screen voting machines available for voters.
The machines have regular and audio ballots intended for voters who have trouble seeing clearly or other disabilities, county elections manager Carolyn Diepenbrock said.
No voter will be turned away from the handful of touch-screen machines, she said.
“If voters are uncomfortable or don’t want to vote the ballot mailed to them, and it’s more comfortable for them to come into our office and vote on an electronic voting machine, then I want them to do that,” she said.
“I’d rather they come in and vote on the machines than not vote at all.”
But Diepenbrock said she would prefer that most voters cast their ballots by mail.
“I want people to vote on the ballots we mail to them,” she said.
Voters will have two weeks or more to cast their votes and return their ballots.
This is the third primary election in which voters must pick a political party in order to cast ballots in partisan races.
Officials predict the election will cost up to $750,000. Of that, $13,500 pays for an instruction card that carries an “I Voted” sticker.
“We put them in because so many people really like having their ‘I Voted’ sticker, and we wanted to continue that tradition,” Diepenbrock said.
Until now, the county has run split elections with about 200,000 absentee voters and about 140,000 voters registered at polling places.
The county was on the leading edge in 2002 when it bought $5 million in electronic touch-screen voting machines for its polling places.
To keep them legal, the machines needed $1 million in state-required upgrades to create a paper audit trail. The County Council instead voted in January to shelve them.
The debt on the original purchase is still being paid off, officials said. Hundreds of voting machines are for sale.
Election officials said this election marks the first time voters can track their mail ballots online. They also can check their voting status through the county’s elections Web site.
With all of the changes, this primary election is historic, sad and exciting, Diepenbrock said.
The loss of polling places gives way to new drop-off locations.
Starting Sept. 11, mail ballots can be left with election officials at any of 23 coffee shops and grocery stores across the county.
“The polling place environment no longer exists as we knew it previously,” Diepenbrock said. “But we do have community collection centers that we hope will create a sense of community as well.”
Jeff Switzer is a reporter with The Herald in Everett. Herald reporter Jerry Cornfield contributed to this report.
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