Voters stay away in droves

Spokane voter Leonard Pederson arrived at his precinct’s polling station at Assumption School with identification in hand – a driver’s license and a voter registration card.

He only needed one, but he did have to show it even though the poll worker handing him that ballot was his wife, Janet.

But Leonard said he didn’t mind and neither did Janet. Both think the state’s new election law that requires all voters to produce some sort of ID is a good idea. “That way you know who people are,” Leonard Pederson said.

“Some people asked ‘Why haven’t we been doing this all these years?’ ” said Wayne McMorris, a poll worker at The Pentacostals of Spokane Church on West Rowan Avenue.

Most voters produced identification without being asked, said Tom Hart, an inspector at Audubon United Methodist Church on North Driscoll. Very few were surprised about the new requirement, but many people who participate in primaries tend to be dedicated voters, he said.

“Just about everybody who comes in is carrying a driver’s license in their hand,” Hart said.

One woman who walked to the Audubon poll site left her identification at home, walked home to get it, walked back to the polls, voted and walked home, poll workers said. Pretty impressive, they said, considering she lives a mile away.

That kind of dedication to the political process was generally lacking Tuesday, with turnout at the polls reported light throughout Spokane County. Some parts of Spokane didn’t vote because they had no primary races, and those that did had only one or two items on the ballot.

“Worst we’ve ever had,” said Adonna Yuse, who was also manning the ballot table at Assumption School.

The short ballot surprised a few voters, who expected to see issues that won’t be showing up until the Nov. 8 general election, like the two statewide initiatives on malpractice insurance, which have already started their television blitzes.

As afternoon turned to evening, most poll sites struggled to get their turnout percentage into double digits. When the ballots were counted Tuesday night, overall turnout was at 22 percent, but almost 30,000 of the nearly 35,000 ballots counted had been cast through the mail box, not the ballot box.

Less than 8 percent of poll voters made it to the polls, and they accounted for only about 5 percent of all votes cast.