Are you confused about Tuesday’s Washington state presidential primary?
You’re not the only one.
Let’s get one piece of crucial information out of the way immediately: In order to be tallied, ballots need to be postmarked Tuesday or delivered by 8 p.m. to a drop box (locations at www.clarkvotes.org) or to the Clark County Elections office.
Results will be posted both at the Washington secretary of state’s website (www.vote.wa.gov) and the Clark County elections website shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Unlike in other elections, in this primary you have to declare your party affiliation on the outside of your envelope. The party affiliation information is forwarded to the respective political parties for their use.
If you want to place your ballot envelope inside a plain envelope before mailing it, so that the letter carrier can’t see if you’re a Republican or Democrat, that’s allowed.
But as Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey recently pointed out in The Columbian: “Placing the party declaration on the affidavit envelope allows election administrators to protect the confidentiality of the voter’s candidate selection while also determining which political party nominating process the voter is choosing to participate in.”
Since the state started using mail-in ballots in the early 1990s, Kimsey wrote, there hasn’t been a reported case of a ballot not being delivered by a U.S. Postal Service employee due to party affiliation.
The political parties will use the information they gain from the primary in different ways.
• Republicans: Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee. But John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson are still on the ballot. Carson never signed the paperwork to remove himself from the primary, and the other two candidates dropped out of the race after the ballots were printed. Washington Republicans will send 44 delegates to the national convention, which is in July in Cleveland. Thirty of the delegates will be allocated based on results from congressional districts (three delegates from each of the 10 congressional districts), according to The Associated Press. There are 14 at-large delegates who will be allocated proportionally to candidates receiving at least 20 percent of the statewide vote. The delegates were picked last weekend at the state Republican convention. The majority of the delegates selected are Cruz supporters, but they are bound to support the winner of the presidential primary during the first round of voting at the national convention.
• Democrats: Democrats won’t use the primary results to apportion delegates to their national convention in July in Philadelphia. Democrats allocated their delegates according to results of precinct caucuses, which were held March 26. Bernie Sanders emerged the clear winner. But the county elections supervisor says this is still a chance for Democrats to let their voices be heard. “This is a good way to let every voter participate,” said Cathie Garber. “At a caucus there is usually 5 percent of eligible voters. If you look at turnout for a regular election, there is a big difference.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
