Ballots due by 8 p.m tonight

Nearly three of four voters in Spokane County had not turned in their primary ballots as of this morning.

( Editor’s note: This story was updated at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday with the latest numbers. At that point, slightly less than 25 percent of the ballots had been received in Spokane County and state elections officials said about 17 percent of  ballots statewide had been received. They were predicting a final turnout of 26 percent for Washington state. )

If that makes you ask “What primary ballot?”, one of two answers is possible.

The first is that you may live in an area that does not have a primary election. Races with two or fewer candidates aren’t on the ballot, and many of the municipal races outside of the city of Spokane don’t have a primary.  But the city of Spokane has a primary for mayor and for all three of its council positions. And Spokane Valley, while it does not have a city primary, does have a ballot measure for the library district. The 9th Legislative District has a primary for a House seat, Spokane School District has a primary for a director’s seat and Fire District 8 has a maintenance and operation levy. In all, more than 210,000 ballots were mailed to voters in Spokane County.

The second possible answer is it arrived in the mail about two weeks ago, and it was set aside unnoticed or unremarked. Check the stack of mail that’s been piling up for an envelope a little longer than most correspondence, and a bit heavier because it contains the ballot and return envelopes. You can mark it and mail it back (take it to the post office to make sure it is postmarked today) or save a stamp by putting it in a drop box.

But wait, you may be saying, what if it was with all the junk mail I tossed out last week? You can get a replacement ballot today by going to a Voter Service Center.

Here’s a list of the drop boxes, which will be taking ballots through 8 p.m. tonight and the Voter Service Centers:

Drop box locations