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Peter Callaghan is a local columnist. He’s covered the statehouse and state politics since 1981. Before joining The News Tribune in 1985, the Stadium High grad worked for newspapers in Everett and Lewiston, Idaho, and for The Associated Press in Olympia and Seattle. Email Peter

Joe Turner has covered state government and transportation issues since 1990. Since the Bellarmine grad’s arrival in the newsroom in 1978, he’s covered police, suburban cities, Tacoma City Hall, Federal Way City Hall and the Pierce and King county governments. Email Joe

David Wickert covers Pierce County government. Before coming to The News Tribune in 1998, he covered local government for newspapers in Illinois, Virginia and Tennessee. Email David

Ian Demsky is a general assignment reporter who specializes in database-driven reporting. He's been at the News Tribune since 2007 and has previously worked in Nashville, Tenn. and Portland, Ore. When he's not at work, he enjoys hiking and science fiction. Email Ian
Les Blumenthal has been covering Washington, D.C. for The News Tribune since 1990, focusing on issues and politicians involving the state. Before joining The News Tribune, he spent 13 years working for The Associated Press in Seattle, Illinois and Washington, D.C. Email Les

John Henrikson is a local news editor who oversees political coverage. He's worked as a journalist in the Northwest for 19 years, supervising coverage and reporting on local and state government, the environment and growth. Email John

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Let's talk politics.
Friday, October 24th, 2008
Posted by Joe Turner @ 09:04:15 am

David Ammons, spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed, passes on this update on voting in the general election.

It looks as if 10 percent of the ballots statwide -- 300,000 of 3 million -- already are in. That's 10 percent of those who are expected to vote in the Nov. 4 general election.

(Seems strange saying "Nov. 4" election when hundreds of thousands of ballots are in 12 days before the official election date.)

FYI: Here are some mail-back voting stats from the counties we’re monitoring by their Web sites, seven counties with about 65 percent of the population. Also, I learned something new by reading the King County elections site and seeing info about what amounts to another method of early voting. I was reminded that counties are required by federal law to maintain at least one poll site with voting equipment (usually touch-screen) for use by voters with handicaps -- and any voter registered in that county is free to use it. Communications Director Bobbie Egan says they’ve seen modest in-person usage of their machine at county election center at Renton. In-person voters, of course, may not cast a mail ballot as well, and the counties are able to make sure that two votes are not counted for the same person. http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/earlyvoting.aspx

David Ammons
Communications Director
Office of Secretary of State
360) 902-4140

Ammons was forwarding an email from David Motz:

As of this morning, the seven counties that show counts of ballots received on their websites show a total of nearly 298,000 in so far.
(*King, Pierce, Snohomish [with lag of 1 day behind], Spokane, Clark, Yakima, Kittitas. These counties total about 65% of all voters.)

Of our nearly 3,622,000 voters, it looks like about 456,000 – or about 12% - will be poll voters (366,000 in King & 90,000 in Pierce).

As of last night, the percentage of absentee and vote by mail ballots that have come in for the seven counties are:

King................15%
Pierce..............10.5%
Snohomish...........10.5% (without Oct. 23 numbers)
Spokane.............21%
Clark...............16%
Yakima..............22%
Kittitas............23%

CAUTION: almost every number in this email can/will change.