A Lewis County employee sorts through ballots at the Lewis County Courthouse last March.
Lewis County Election Supervisor Heather Boyer shows how the county’s votes are processed at the Lewis County Courthouse on Thursday.
Lewis County employees work to sort early ballots at Lewis County Courthouse on Thursday.
Lewis County elections officials say early voter turnout for Tuesday’s presidential primary is on pace to surpass 2016’s primary, though hundreds of voters have turned in incomplete ballots — declining to identify their party.
As of Friday morning, about 850 Lewis County ballots were listed as “undecided,” meaning the voter didn’t designate a party affiliation. Heather Boyer, election supervisor for Lewis County, said each of those voters has been notified and will be given an opportunity to correct their ballot.
If voters don’t pick a party affiliation, their ballot will not be counted.
“We’ve had a lot of phone calls,” Boyer said. “Washington voters, they feel that they’re independent, because we don’t declare party in Washington state, so they like to keep that all the way through the process. Unfortunately, this election is a partisan presidential preference election and you’re voting for those specific parties and that is a requirement of those parties as part of their nomination process, you declare a party.”
Lewis County auditor Larry Grove says the reaction by voters is nothing new.
“Every four years, it’s the same thing, and it’s the same amount of calls,” Grove said. “Probably from the same people.”
Despite the large number of early votes that have been classified as undecided, the turnout by voters is on pace to surpass the mark set in the 2016 election. According to Boyer, the county saw 26 percent of votes ready to be processed on the Thursday before the primary in 2016.
As of Thursday night, she says 34 percent of ballots are ready to be counted.
“We ended with 40 percent overall (in 2016’s early portion), it looks like it was 17,796 ballots that were tabulated,” Boyer said. “It looks like even in that election, overall, we sent out 711 no party letters, so they didn’t mark a party at all.”
Grove said a rush of last minute votes is expected as well.
“We will get a surge on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, clearly,” Grove said.
Lewis County Democrats Chair Carol Brock called the early numbers “great,” but was quick to point out the process isn’t over.
“We haven’t finished out yet, we still have to go through Tuesday,” Brock said.
She added that she’s “disappointed” by Lewis County residents refraining from identifying with a party on their ballots. Brock continued by calling the rationale she’s heard from voters as to why they were submitting undecided ballots “out there, for lack of a better term.”
“I did a radio show this morning and one person called in and was concerned that if the mailman saw that he had marked it (the ballot) as a Republican, that he (the mailman) would throw it away if he was a democrat,” Brock said. “The chance of that happening is slim-to-none.”
Brock continued by citing all of the alternative methods of sending in the ballot, such as utilizing one of the county’s drop boxes, which are picked up by the auditor’s office, or even dropping ballots off at the Lewis County Courthouse’s drop box to limit the distance from the box to the auditor’s office.
The latter was utilized by Brock and her husband.
“We wanted to show Heather (Boyer) that we voted,” Brock said.
According to Boyer, the county takes many steps to ensure the integrity of a voter’s ballot isn’t compromised.
“For this election, when the ballots are received in our office the first sort is sorting by party declaration,” Boyer said. “So we have to put all the Ds together, all the Rs together, and the undecided. Then we bundle them in batches of 50, hand count everything that came over the counter and then we start signature checking every one of those. Every one of them (is) looked at.”
The votes are sorted at the Lewis County by teams of two county employees — one of which is a Democrat and the other, a Republican.
“Once they’ve gone through signature check, then they go to processing,” Boyer said. “That’s where the security envelopes are separated from the outer envelope and then ballots are separated from there. With this election, because it’s party-specific, if our processing clerks are working on a batch of, say, dems, they will be looking and inspecting the ballot to make sure only that race is voted. They can’t vote in both races.”
With presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren announcing that she was dropping out of the 2020 race on Thursday morning, Brock pointed to the reason why she and her husband waited to submit their ballots until after Super Tuesday.
“I think for those that have voted, there’s going to be some disappointment,” Brock said. “My husband and I intentionally waited until after Super Tuesday because we figured there would be natural reduction in the choices. Whether it was our first choice or not that was left standing, it’s irrelevant, they’re the choices we have to choose from now.”
She’s encouraging everyone to take the time and choose.
“My hope is that as many people vote and get their vote counted as possible,” Brock said. “Our vote is our voice.”
