It’s Top Two Election Day in Washington State – don’t forget to vote!

Read­ers, a reminder that today is the last day of the August 2018 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 low, but not as bad as last year or in 2015, when it was utter­ly abysmal. As of yes­ter­day after­noon, statewide turnout stood at 22.2%. King Coun­ty’s turnout is just a smidgeon below the statewide per­cent­age at 22.1%, which is an improve­ment over past years.

How­ev­er, Pierce and Sno­homish (the state’s next largest coun­ties) are real­ly, real­ly lag­ging behind. Pierce’s turnout is an embar­rass­ing 15.3% (it’s the worst in the state) while Sno­homish isn’t far­ing much bet­ter at 17.3%.

Tiny Colum­bia Coun­ty in south­east Wash­ing­ton cur­rent­ly has the best turnout, with 46.6% of bal­lots returned. On its heels are Garfield and Wahki­akum coun­ties, which are also very small, at 45.4% and 45%. Of the coun­ties with a pop­u­la­tion that’s well into five dig­its, Jef­fer­son has the best turnout, com­ing in at 41.2%.

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. And for judi­cial races, there’s VotingForJudges.org.

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.

We will be watch­ing a num­ber of races close­ly, espe­cial­ly the con­test for Wash­ing­ton’s 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict (where three Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates are vying for two spots along with Repub­li­can Dino Rossi), and leg­isla­tive races in the 40th and 34th Dis­tricts, where large fields of can­di­dates are again com­pet­ing for just two spots on the Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion ballot.