Elections office smoothly posts first big all-mail results

An overly full ballot drop box in Ballard was one of the few hiccups on Election Day for King County Elections, and it was fixed by 9 a.m.

Instead, elections employees worked faster than expected and the first results for Tuesday's primary results included 30,000 more ballots than the county predicted would be ready for tabulation. By Tuesday night, the county counted about half the ballots it expects to receive, a spokeswoman said.

Tuesday's primary was the biggest test yet for King County's all-mail elections, with competitive races for Seattle mayor and King County executive. The county's first mail-only election in February for elections director was a smaller contest.

The county tabulated about 182,000 ballots by Tuesday night, according to its elections Web site. Because ballots only need to be postmarked by Election Day, final results will take several days. Results will be posted daily at 4:30 p.m. on the elections Web site (kingcounty.gov/elections).

County officials expect voters to return more than 350,000 ballots countywide out of the nearly 1.1 million sent out for the primary, or a turnout of 33 percent. Seattle has a higher predicted turnout of 35 percent.

For this election, the county used new and faster machinery to scan and tabulate ballots. Once a ballot arrives at elections headquarters in Renton, workers need about two days to verify signatures with the ones on file, a step that safeguards against voter fraud, and also check ballots for other problems.

"We will be tabulating far more results [Tuesday] than we ever have on Election Day, due mainly in part to the pre-processing and the higher volume and speed of the equipment," county spokeswoman Megan Coppersmith said.