Thousands filing incomplete absentee ballots in primary

SEATTLE – Thousands of primary election ballots across the state will not be counted for next week’s partisan races because many absentee voters have failed to indicate at the top of the ballot if they wanted to vote as a Democrat or Republican, election officials said.

One out of 10 voters in Kitsap and King counties and two out of 10 voters in Snohomish County failed to fill in the oval at the top of the ballot to show they were voting in the Republican or Democratic primary, election officials found by looking at small groups of absentee ballots mailed in so far.

That doesn’t mean none of their votes will be counted, said Bobbie Egan, spokeswoman for the King County’s elections department. But only the votes in nonpartisan races, such as those for state Supreme Court, will be counted on ballots where the party is not indicated.

Egan said some voters are confused by the new primary ballot, which has only been used for one previous election, in 2004. She said the state government did some widespread advertising before that election to educate voters, but this year they’re on their own.

She urged voters to remember the three-step process: Pick a party, vote in one party, then vote in nonpartisan races.

Voters who have already mailed in their ballots cannot get them back to fix, Egan said. But voters who make this mistake at the polls in counties where they can vote in person will see their ballots spit out of the voting machine if they fail to mark a party.