Add voting to your schedule this month, King County says

To help spread the word about the Aug. 21 primary, King County Elections is circulating postcards with a picture of a couple on a beach, and the question: "Do your summer plans include voting in the new primary?"

Normally, voters haven't worried about researching the candidates and issues until after Labor Day. But this year, with the primary coming a month earlier than usual, absentee ballots are to be mailed today in King County. Voters pamphlets went out Monday. And ballots were mailed July 13 to overseas voters and members of the armed forces serving abroad.

The summer bustle follows the Legislature's decision to move the primary ahead one month to give election workers a little breathing room between counting primary votes and getting ready for the November general election.

Contests for the Seattle City Council, Seattle School Board and Port of Seattle commission are among the high-profile races, along with a six-year extension of a King County parks-operation levy and a new levy to buy trails and fund city parks.

The primary also will decide whether deputy prosecutor Bill Sherman or environmental lawyer Keith Scully will emerge as the Democratic nominee to face Republican Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg on Nov. 6.

A number of other local offices and issues also are on the ballot. Voters in unincorporated areas adjacent to Auburn and Federal Way, for example, will decide whether they want to be annexed into those cities.

In Snohomish County, the primary includes races for sheriff, County Council, county clerk, and municipal and school-board posts. The Snohomish County Auditor is also mailing out ballots this week. All voting in Snohomish County is by mail.

Although election officials in King County welcome the earlier primary, they also are concerned that some poll voters may miss the election, which typically has drawn only 29 percent of voters in odd-numbered years.

The Secretary of State's office sent postcards a month ago to all voters reminding them of the earlier date, and officials hope the beach-theme postcards will reinforce the idea that vacation time now is also voting time.

Changing the date of the primary was one of the reforms passed by the Legislature after the 2004 election, when the closest governor's race in state history exposed problems in the handling and counting of ballots.

The Legislature also gave election workers more time to count votes in the primary and general elections, and the week for candidates to file for office was moved from July to June.

"I think everybody realized that our September primary certainly was a train wreck waiting to happen in the event we had a recount," said King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan. "In a presidential-year election with a September primary, we wouldn't possibly be able to conduct a hand recount and get ballots mailed on time. This was not just an investment to improve the elections administration process, it was also a change to avoid a potential disaster."

A "train wreck" nearly occurred in the 2005 primary, when the vote counts for two King County sheriff candidates — sheriff's Sgt. Jim Fuda and Seattle police Lt. Greg Schmidt — were so close the law called for a manual recount to determine which would face Sheriff Sue Rahr in November. A crisis was averted when Fuda and Schmidt agreed to a little-used option: a machine recount in randomly selected precincts in each legislative district.

This may be the last King County primary with neighborhood polling locations. Election officials are planning to switch to all-mail voting next year, with a limited number of regional voting centers for people with disabilities and for voters who don't want to give up poll voting.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published August 1, 2007, was corrected August 19, 2007. The state Secretary of State's Office sent postcards to all voters in early July informing them that the primary election would be held Aug. 21 rather than in September as in past years. A story Wednesday incorrectly reported the cards had been sent by King County Elections.