'Strong' 2018 Election Start: King County Gets 60,000 Ballots

SEATTLE, WA - Staff at the King County Elections office came to work Wednesday to find a big surprise: 60,000 ballots were ready for count, double what they expected.

The 2018 mid-term election is shaping up to be a big one, around Puget Sound and nationally. As of Tuesday night, 52,776 ballots had been turned in. Add the ballots that arrived Wednesday morning, and you get more than 110,000 ballots already ready to count - with a full two weeks until Election Day.

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The turnout so far is already about one-third of the total ballots received by Election Day 2017 (about 292,000), and about one-sixth of the total ballots received by Election Day 2016. (Ballot totals were much higher when the elections were certified because many ballots arrive after Election Day.)

Here are some more preliminary ballot count stats as of Tuesday night, according to King County:

• City of Kirkland: 54,523 (active registered voters) | 2,660 (ballots received)
• City of Mercer Island: 17,853 | 1,324
• City of Seattle: 461,077 | 20,335
• City of Shoreline: 37,553 | 1,687
• Congressional District No. 1: 178,246 | 7,699
• Congressional District No. 7: 473,681 | 22,191
• Congressional District No. 8: 254,011 | 9,760
• Congressional District No. 9: 383,544 | 13,126
• Legislative District No. 1: 28,219 | 1,277
• Legislative District No. 5: 100,130 | 3,408
• Legislative District No. 11: 78,287 | 2,764
• Legislative District No. 30: 69,804 | 2,873
• Legislative District No. 31: 27,671 | 1,668
• Legislative District No. 32: 48,841 | 2,193
• Legislative District No. 33: 72,476 | 2,480
• Legislative District No. 34: 100,087 | 5,296
• Legislative District No. 36: 112,755 | 4,416
• Legislative District No. 37: 93,254 | 3,627
• Legislative District No. 39: 341 | 4
• Legislative District No. 41: 94,502 | 3,604
• Legislative District No. 43: 106,575 |4,129
• Legislative District No. 45: 93,370 | 4,311
• Legislative District No. 46: 101,285 | 5,647
• Legislative District No. 47: 82,593 | 2,281
• Legislative District No. 48: 79,275 | 2,795
• Metropolitan King County: 1,289,482 | 52,776

File photo