Updated tally shows high primary turnout

Updated counts from last week's primary show relatively high voter participation and some subtle shifts in percentages, but no changes in winners and losers.

Thousands of voters apparently waited until the last day or two to mail their ballots to the Yakima County Auditor's Office. More than 16,000 of the 43,178 votes cast in the county arrived at the office on or after the Aug. 19 election day.

That late bump put the participation rate at just about 46 percent in Yakima County -- a little less than Auditor Corky Mattingly's 48 percent prediction, but still higher than in recent primaries.

By contrast, only 33 percent of registered county voters cast ballots in 2006, the last even-year primary. And only 37 percent cast ballots in 2004, the last presidential-year primary.

County elections supervisor Kathy Fisher attributed the increase to the new top-two primary. From 2004 until this year, voters had to pick a party and only vote for candidates from that party. The top two changed that.

"People weren't very happy with having to pick a party," Fisher said.

Hotly contested multi-candidate races for a 14th District state House seat and a District 2 Yakima County Commission seat also drove voter participation, she said.

The numbers in those races have changed since election night and will change again slightly over the next few days as county elections officials count the final few hundred votes. Through Wednesday afternoon, 42,632 of 43,178 returned ballots were counted, or about 98.7 percent. County elections officials will continue counting ballots until Sept. 3 when they certify the election. The state will certify the final numbers Sept. 9.

Democrat Vickie Ybarra lost a couple of points from her election-night lead but still finished first among the six candidates for an open 14th District state House seat. Ybarra had about 30 percent of the vote through Wednesday after finishing election night with about 32 percent. The second-place finisher and her general election competitor, Republican Norm Johnson, gained a little ground, increasing his percentage from 21 percent on election night to 22 percent in the most-recent count.

Perhaps more importantly looking forward, the total of Republican votes cast in that 14th District primary increased from about 68 percent to about 70 percent. That could be a factor in the general election, when it is only one Republican facing only one Democrat.

There was a similar shift in the county commissioner race.

Since election night, second-place finisher Democrat Jesse Farias lost a point to first-place finisher Republican Kevin Bouchey.

As of Wednesday, Farias had 28 percent of the vote to Bouchey's 41 percent.

On the Web:

http://www.yakimacounty.us/vote/PrimaryElectionResults1_003.pdf