Area poll workers report good turnout

While flooding shut down two polls, about 500 King County polling places opened at 7 a.m. for today's hotly contest midterm election.

Despite the wet weather, poll workers said they were seeing higher turnouts than usual, with many voters saying they voted today to influence the balance of power in Congress.

On Seattle's Capitol Hill, inspector Deborah Carter said she had not seen turnout this high in the five years she has worked for the King County elections system. Usually poll workers wait around in that first half hour, she said, and voters slowly wander in.

This morning, three people were waiting when doors to the polling station at Meany Middle School opened at 7. a.m. and Carter has seen a steady stream of people since then, with nearly 50 people turning in paper ballots by 8:30 a.m. Even in a highly active voting precinct, Carter said, that seemed high.

Secretary of State Sam Reed expects 67 percent of Washington's 3.3 million registered voters will cast a ballot today.

Polling places across the county reported sporadic problems, many of them routine, many of them related to setting up accessible voting units — new electronic voting machines that this year will allow disabled voters to cast a ballot independently for the first time. At the King County temporary elections annex at Boeing Field, about 20 election workers began answering phone calls at 6 a.m. from workers with problems setting up polling locations.

The elections office increased training after widespread problems with setting up the accessible voting units — known as AVUs — were reported in the September primary.

At St. Patrick's Church on Seattle's Capitol Hill, poll workers had trouble finding a hand-held device to program a card used by voters to access the AVU. That problem was solved, and "no voter was impacted by this," said King County elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan.

"I'm seeing a few AVU issues but a lot less than the primary," said Mike Snyder, a member of the King County Citizens Election Oversight Committee, who observed the help desk this morning. "At this stage in the primary, the phones were ringing off the hook."

The help desk appeared to be responding to most calls this morning. Among them: Poll workers at the Vietnamese Presbyterian Church said they were locked out and didn't have a key. Port Orchard Elementary called in to say it didn't have a key to open the machines that scans paper ballots.

In cases that it couldn't resolve by phone, the office asked troubleshooters out in the county to go to the polling location.

"It's going really well," said Janice Case, elections operations supervisor. "We increased staff from the primary to help with phone calls and it's made a big difference."

At polling locations in Fremont and Bellevue, voting appeared to go smoothly.

Several voters at Fremont Baptist Church said they were focused on the national races, hoping to give control of Congress back to the Democrats.

Anita Crofts, 36, made a bicycle stop at the voting station on her way to the University of Washington. "I absolutely believe we need to be a nation of global citizens," she said, but the current Republican administration has destroyed the United States' reputation overseas.

Tristan Heberlein, 26, said he abstained from choosing a candidate in the U.S. Senate race because he didn't feel any of the candidates articulated a meaningful exit strategy from the Iraq war. "I don't think anyone has an idea of what to do," he said. Before heading to work, a steady stream of voters from Newport Hills in Bellevue stopped at a local church to cast their ballot. Don Sidel, 51 and an Eastside resident for more than 25 years, voiced a simple reason to vote this rain-soaked morning.

"So that Democrats can win in my little Republican town," Sidel said. A lifelong Democrat, Sidel said he was concerned over the way the current administration has handled civil liberties.

In this historically Republican neighborhood, the war in Iraq seemed to be pushing some people to vote for Democrats. "The administration is clueless," said Tony Grills. "And you can't 'Control-Z' and go backwards."

Laura Wagner of Bellevue hit the polls at St. Luke's Lutheran church around 8:30 a.m., undaunted by the rain: "I always come out and vote at the big elections. And this is a big election."

Inside the polling place, workers said the numbers of voters appeared to be up from previous years. Three or four people were waiting outside when the polls opened at 7 a.m., said worker Dale Kiesz, who was in charge of issuing provisional ballots.

Some observers had anticipated a large Latino turnout, given the nation's heated debate on immigration.

At the South Park Community Center this afternoon, poll inspector John Guevarra said he suspected many had requested absentee ballots, and asked an English-speaking relative to translate. King County ballots are available only in English and Chinese.

Staff at the polling center tried hard to help non-English speaking immigrants who did show up. A Tongan-speaking man arrived in a black robe and flip flop sandals, determined to vote. Guevarra couldn't find a translator, so he enlisted two poll workers to explain the ballot measures in basic English.

"He doesn't know all the nuances, so we're going to explain them the best we can," said Guevarra. "We're not going to let him out of here without voting."

Even to English-speaking voters, the ballot looked long and intimidating at times. Mindy Elliot said she was exhausted from the campaign season, dissatisfied with her candidate choices, and frustrated by the series of minor housekeeping amendments and city rules on the ballot.

"Half the time, I didn't vote because I hadn't had enough time to investigate them," she said.

In Snohomish County, today marked the first general election with all-absentee balloting. At an Edmonds QFC store, where the county had set up the city's only ballot drop-off site, several voters said they missed going to their local polling place.

"I took a lot of pride in making time in the day to vote. I don't like the mail-in system," said Mark Abrahamson. "I like the actual process of going to the poll and filling out the ballot." The Edmonds man said he was motivated by the Cantwell-McGavick race for U.S. Senate and the opportunity for Democrats to retake control of the U.S. House and Senate.

"If there aren't changes nationally, I'll be extremely disappointed. We need fresh ideas," Abrahamson said.

Another Edmonds resident, Keith Collingridge, said he preferred absentee balloting because he could sit with the lengthy ballot and his voter's guide and not hold up other voters. Collingridge, a Republican, said he was voting yes on the property rights initiative, I-933, and the repeal of the estate tax, I-920.

And while he said he doesn't expect his views to prevail, he said he will neutralize at least one liberal Seattle voter: "I just cancelled somebody's vote in Fremont."

Staff reporters Sanjay Bhatt, Sherry Grindeland, Mike Lindblom, Cara Solomon, Manuel Valdes and Lynn Thompson contributed to this report. Sharon Pian Chan: schan@seattletimes.com or 206-898-8312