Washington sets one-day voter registration record day after debate

Update: Less than 24 hours after the second presidential debate, Washington set a new one-day record for voter registration.

The Office of the Secretary of State reports 23,167 people registered to vote on Sunday. That breaks the former record of 13,109.

Oct. 10 is the online registration deadline. Mail-in registration applications are also due — counties will honor an Oct. 11 postmark.

“We are delighted with the new record number of registered voters being set every single day,” said Secretary of State Kim Wyman. “Sunday’s surge was nothing short of amazing, and it looks certain that we’ll have a robust turnout. That level of voter engagement is so good for self-government. We need to hear all voices.”

As of Oct. 10, the Washington Secretary of the State had 4,194,673 active registered voters, with more than 180,000 new registrations since April 1. More than 44,000 of those registrations came between Sept. 21-30. Most of those came from online drives, prompted by social media, according to Dave Ammons, spokesperson for the Washington Secretary of State. Online and mail voter registration ends Oct. 10. People can file at the County Election’s office through Halloween.

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“We’re breaking the record every day,” Ammons said. “It’s just a line in the sand but it’s fun for election administrators to have a nice new benchmark.”

Washington, and the rest of the country sees a spike in registration every four years and 2016 has been no different. Ammons said motivations vary for every voter but the “blanket coverage” of the presidential race and debates have added to the intrigue of this year’s political race. Still, the primary election turnout was lower than expected and the actual number of ballots Ammons expects for the general election is “quite a shot in the dark this year.”

“We’re hoping that no substantial number of voters are turned off by the long and sometimes nasty presidential campaign, but we will see,” he said. “We are still predicting a really good turnout of at least 80 percent.”

Ammons said about 76 percent of eligible Washingtonians are registered to vote, which is high compared to the national average. Washington has received more than 80 percent of its ballots from those voters for the last two presidential elections, which Ammons called the “functional equivalent of everybody voting,” taking into account those people who are ill, out of the state or not interested in the political process. Nationwide, about 60 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot during presidential election years.

Besides the names at the top of the Republican and Democratic tickets, Ammons said his office has received tweets from Bernie Sanders supporters, asking if they can write in for Hillary Clinton’s primary rival. The answer is yes, you can write in for any race.

“They will be tallied and counted but they won’t be reported specifically who voted for which candidates,” Ammons said. “They will be put into one bucket of write-in votes and those will be announced by the counties when they complete their tally. That’s the state law that county auditors and election departments don’t need to pull out and count each and every one by the name of the person that was voted for unless the collective write-in votes are enough to make a difference in the outcome.”

Beyond the presidential race are a number of local races and initiatives to consider. There are nine statewide elected officials, including five that will be brand new this cycle, five ballot propositions, plus another on extending Sound Transit for those living in the potentially impacted areas. Ammons said ballots will be shipped Oct. 19 and should land on doorsteps by the end of that week. Voter pamphlets will arrive even sooner.

“We’ll be sending out voter pamphlets in a few days,” Ammons said Wednesday. “It will be quite a thick pamphlet. I will warn voters, they’ve got some homework to do.”

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