WASHINGTON — In the wake of Primary Election Day in King County, ballots and results are still trickling in.
King County Election Spokesperson Halei Watkins said the final results won’t be called until at least Friday, since at least 130,000 ballots still need to be counted.
“If you wait until election night to vote, which many folks do, it can take a little longer if you’re in that big crush of last-minute ballots,” Watkins said.
Officials say about 400,000 people in King County voted, creating quite the task for their counting machines.
“It takes about 24 hours for a ballot to make it all the way through the process from when it’s scanned in as received, to signature verified, to when it’s been opened, and finally going through the tabulation system,” Watkins said. “It takes about a day or so.”
She tells us they can count around 50,000 ballots per day.
“We are bracing for a long week ahead. What we see is, typically, returns come in on a steady basis, then we get almost 50% of ballots back on Election Day alone,” Watkins said.
She tells us they are happy with the primary election turnout.
“We will see a 35% turnout, that is right in line with what we’ve seen in the previous Primaries in 2021 and 2023 elections,” Watkins said.
But just because you dropped your ballot in the box doesn’t mean you should forget about it.
“Make sure to track your ballot until it’s counted after you voted. That’s great, you took that first step to drop it off, but track it through the ballots being counted,” said Watkins.
You can do that here: https://info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/vote/myvoterinfo.aspx
She tells us the results will be certified after the August 19th deadline for any challenged ballots.
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