58,000 Snohomish County voters undervote by not reading directions

I consider myself an informed voter. I take a lot of time to go over the races and candidates, reading all the fine print in the voter’s guide.

And yet, I screwed up, and so did thousands of my fellow Snohomish County voters.

Perhaps I should spend more time reading all the information that came with my ballot. If I had, I wouldn’t have undervoted in the County Charter Review Commission race. I ripped off that sleeve and went right to the ballot. That sleeve explained that voters are supposed to choose three people in each district on the commission, not one. I didn’t see that. I also didn’t catch that on my ballot. I was too confident in my ability.

I am one of the 17,335 voters in District 4 (as of the initial count on Nov. 4) who did not choose three people. Eighty-one percent of my district voters undervoted after failing the catch the instructions. As of Thursday morning, there are 116,835 undervotes in the Charter Review tally. Assuming two undervotes per ballot, for people like me who only voted for one candidate, that’s more than 58,000 voters who made the same mistake I did.

A spokesperson from Snohomish County Elections told me the county only votes on this commission every 10 years. It’s not very high profile and received very little media coverage this time around. The spokesperson said it could be easy to miss if going through the ballot quickly.

For some historical perspective, the last time Snohomish County voted on this commission was in 2015. The undervote percentage was about 50%. There’s still time for you, late voters, to make the rest of us look better.

Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.

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