When all else fails, read the directions. It’s a piece of advice primary election voters in Clallam County would be wise to heed, said Auditor Cathleen McKeown.
Clallam County uses a single ballot for primary races, requiring voters to fill in a box indicating which party’s primary they wish to vote in.
“If you don’t check it, nothing counts’ except nonpartisan races, McKeown said Friday.
A randomly selected group of 200 ballots were picked Monday, and revealed that 20 percent of voters failed to indicate which primary they wanted to vote in.
That means their votes won’t be counted in the partisan races.
“Not good,” McKeown said.
Jefferson County primary voters, on the other hand, use a different system.
Each voter gets three ballots, one for each party and a nonpartisan-only ballot. Each voter can return only one of the three ballots, based on his or her preference.
Auditor Donna Eldridge said Friday that so far 46 people out of 6,962 have mailed in two completed ballots.
“It’s going really very well,” Eldridge said.
“I think our voters are getting it.”
But she noted that turnout was down slightly over the last primary.