Winnowing election update: Not many ballots tabulated today; little to report

It looks like the turnout in the August 2011 win­now­ing elec­tion has crested.

In the days fol­low­ing elec­tion night, we saw steady improve­ment in the ratio of bal­lots cast to reg­is­tered vot­ers. But the num­bers hard­ly changed at all today. On Fri­day, the turnout ratio in the King Coun­ty Coun­cil Dis­trict #6 race was 30.37%. Today, it only reached 30.69%. So we’re guess­ing that final turnout coun­ty­wide for this elec­tion is prob­a­bly going to be some­where in the vicin­i­ty of 32%.

Here’s where things stand in the coun­ty coun­cil race:

Bal­lots Cast/Registered Vot­ers: ³⁷¹⁷³⁄₁₂₁₁₃₉ (30.69%)
Pat­sy Bon­in­con­tri: 7.24% (2,541 votes)
Richard E. Mitchell: 30.11% (10,568 votes)
Jane Hague: 37.92% (13,309 votes)
John Creighton: 24.33% (8,538 votes)
Write-in: 0.39% (137 votes)

Richard Mitchell has once again strength­ened his lead over John Creighton and nar­rowed the gap between him­self and Jane Hague — but only by a little.

Because so few bal­lots were tab­u­lat­ed today, hard­ly any­thing has changed in the city coun­cil races or school board races either.

The King Coun­ty can­vass­ing board is due to con­vene on August 31st to cer­ti­fy the final elec­tion results. Returns will con­tin­ue to be updat­ed each week­day until then, but if today is any indi­ca­tion, Fri­day was the last sig­nif­i­cant update.

King Coun­ty Elec­tions expects a trick­le of bal­lots between now and the Wednes­day after this one, many of those com­ing from overseas.

About 11,000 bal­lots cast in the 2011 win­now­ing elec­tion have sig­na­ture issues, NPI has learned. A fair num­ber of those have already been tak­en care of, but there are some that elec­tions work­ers are still work­ing on.

Although turnout in this elec­tion is low com­pared to what we’ve seen in recent gen­er­al elec­tions (2008, 2009, 2010) it’s high com­pared to pre­vi­ous win­now­ing and pri­ma­ry elec­tions held in odd-num­bered years.

Turnout in the 2009 win­now­ing elec­tion was only 31.56%. Turnout in the 2007 pri­ma­ry (which was a real pri­ma­ry) was even low­er, at 24.92%. The 2005 pri­ma­ry was 29.68%, and the 2003 pri­ma­ry was 29.54%.

So, if we end up at around 32% or slight­ly less, we’ll have sur­passed turnout for an odd-year win­now­ing or pri­ma­ry elec­tion going back to at least the 1990s… despite not hav­ing many high-pro­file con­tests on the bal­lot. Not a bad showing!