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Tuesday is primary election day in Washington, but as of Monday morning, only 15.5% of registered King County voters had turned in their ballots.

The county elections office predicts that by the time the election is over, only 35% of registered voters will have cast their ballots.

Primary voter turnout similar to 2021, 2023

Halei Watkins, communications manager at King County Elections, said that’s similar to the turnout in 2021 and 2023, which were also non-presidential primary years.

But she said there are plenty of critical, local races on the ballot.

“We’re talking about folks like mayors and city councils, school boards- even water and hospital commissioners,” Watkins said. Those folks are making decisions on behalf of our communities every single day, so while they don’t get the same kind of level of attention as a presidential election, these offices — that we’re voting for — are absolutely just as important.”

And they’re tasked with spending your money.

“Folks elected to these local positions are making decisions about how our tax dollars get spent on all kinds of things, from transportation and roads, to parks, to schools,” Watkins said.

In Washington, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary, regardless of party, will face off in November’s general election.

To make sure your ballot counts, it needs to either be in a ballot drop box by 8 p.m. or in the mail and postmarked by primary election day.

“At this point, in order to make sure that it gets that all-important, on-time postmark, we would recommend actually walking your ballot into a post office,” Watkins said.

Therefore, you don’t risk missing the last mail pickup of the day.

Read more of Heather Bosch’s stories here.