A ‘really quiet, well-behaved election’ in Thurston County, says Auditor
Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall said the general election in Thurston County went off without any major hitches Tuesday, and an Olympia Police Department spokesperson reported there had been no signs of local unrest as of Wednesday morning.
Ballot return statistics showed the Auditor’s Office had received 159,062 ballots, and 123,915 had been scanned and tabulated in early results.
A total of 2,173 ballots had been challenged, which is usually related to an issue with the signature. Those voters have until the day before results are certified to resolve the issue, according to Diana Benson, Chief Deputy Auditor.
After picking up an estimated 7,200 ballots from drop boxes Tuesday night, the Auditor’s Office anticipated there were 32,974 ballots in the Ballot Processing Center still to process Wednesday. Benson said in a phone interview that Wednesday’s results are estimated to include about 10,000 additional votes.
Ballots will also continue to trickle in via mail in the coming days.
Prior to election week, Auditor Hall said, she received a couple reports of disruptions: Public Works staff said people were putting up political signs near a ballot box, but when the staff member got on the phone, it seemed to scare them off.
There were reports of people telling voters not to drop their ballots in a drop box, she said, and of a drop box with a label stuck to it directing voters to use a mailbox instead.
Someone reported voter intimidation at the Lacey post office by a candidate running for county commissioner, via the office’s phone bank. However, he wasn’t violating a law that prevents electioneering within 25 feet of a drop box, she said, and intimidation is subjective.
As for the big day itself, she didn’t note any serious disruption.
“This was a really quiet, well-behaved election,” she said.
Ballot processing has gone smoothly, as expected, Hall said.
She called the traffic plan for the drive-thru voting center at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia “brilliant” and said communication never broke down.
The center served somewhere between 1,000 and 1,100 people throughout Tuesday, she said.
Cars were never backed up onto city streets, she said. While wait times sometimes stretched to an hour and a half, she deemed that a success compared to other states and considering nobody had to get out of their cars in the pouring rain. There was a tow truck at the center, just in case, which ended up coming in handy: A car broke down in line, she said, and it was towed out “pretty quickly.”
“This voting center really took a village,” she said Wednesday, referencing staff with the college, including campus security, and eight Sheriff’s deputies who directed traffic and closed entrances as the evening drew to a close.
About noon Wednesday, Hall told The Olympian her list of community partners and department heads to thank for their work was 31 names long.
Olympia Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Paul Frailey wrote in a text message to The Olympian that Tuesday was a “peaceful night in Olympia,” and a supervisor with Thurston County 911 Dispatch said the same.
Meanwhile, protests Tuesday night in Seattle led to at least eight arrests, The Seattle Times reported, and The Oregonian reports near-nightly demonstrations calling for racial justice continued in Portland.
“We’ll continue to monitor the situation and maintain additional staffing to respond to whatever happens,” OPD Sgt. Frailey wrote Wednesday.
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