Washingtonians: Vote, vote, vote, vote!

Read­ers, a reminder that today is the last day of the August 2016 Top Two Elec­tion, the elim­i­na­tion round of our dys­func­tion­al two-part gen­er­al elec­tion system.

Bal­lots must be post­marked or returned by a drop box by 8 PM tonight, or they won’t count. Be sure yours is in, and then remind friends and fam­i­ly to vote, too. Chances are, many of them haven’t. Don’t assume – ask!

Par­tic­i­pa­tion so far in this elec­tion has been abysmal, with turnout well below twen­ty per­cent statewide, and even worse than that in many counties.

Here’s the cur­rent coun­ty-by-coun­ty turnout:

Bal­lot Return Statistics

As of Mon­day, ⁸⁄₁ at 5:00PM

King Coun­ty post­ed an update after close of busi­ness last night, and its returns improved to 18%. King Coun­ty Elec­tions has received 223,629 bal­lots, with 209,933 ready for count­ing. 1,240,245 bal­lots were mailed to vot­ers for this election.

Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman orig­i­nal­ly fore­cast turnout of forty per­cent in this elec­tion. Based on where things stand today, it’s high­ly unlike­ly we’ll get there.

For last year’s Top Two, her office pro­ject­ed turnout of twen­ty-six per­cent. Even that low num­ber end­ed up being opti­mistic — final turnout was a measly 24.37%, with less than a quar­ter of reg­is­tered vot­ers turn­ing out.

The team at NPI urges you to be a vot­er and get your bal­lot in. If you would like to use a drop box to return your bal­lot, here is a list of loca­tions for major counties:

• King Coun­ty
• Sno­homish County
• Pierce Coun­ty
• What­com County
• Skag­it County
• Thurston Coun­ty
• Spokane Coun­ty
• Clark Coun­ty

Need help vot­ing? NPI doesn’t endorse or rate can­di­dates for office, but the Pro­gres­sive Voter’s Guide is avail­able if you want to learn more about who’s on your bal­lot. You can also use the offi­cial voter’s pam­phlet pub­lished by your county.

If you con­sid­er your­self a Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist or align with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, then you should con­sid­er uti­liz­ing the par­ty’s Endorse­ments Finder. 

Start­ing tonight, after 8 PM, we will be offer­ing live cov­er­age of elec­tion results here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. Most coun­ties will only report one batch of results tonight, and not update again till tomor­row afternoon.