Early voter turnout tops 40 percent

With just over 24 hours remaining until election ballots are due at the Kitsap County Auditor's office, nearly half of all Bainbridge ballots have already been returned.

For this election, Bainbridge has 16,788 registered voters, said Elections Manager Dolores Gilmore. Of those ballots, 6,877, or approximately 41 percent, have been received by the elections office. Nearly one thousand of those ballots came in Monday, she said.

"We got quite a few today, and of course tomorrow it will be interesting to see how many will be dropped at the ballot drop location," Gilmore said.

Gilmore said the turnout includes 124 challenged ballots, in which the ballots are unsigned or the signature doesn't match the person. Gilmore said that number fits with the average.

Already, more ballots have been returned than the total counted for the primary in August, in which only 37.6 percent of Bainbridge voted.

In the 2007 general election, Bainbridge had a voter turnout of 61.65 percent.

Voters have many things to consider this election season. Two measures, three contested City Council positions, one contested park district position and uncontested positions in the park, fire and school districts.

Ballots can either be returned through the mail or dropped off at the Bainbridge Island Senior Center, located at 370 Brien Dr SE. The deadline for physically dropping off ballots is 8 p.m. on election night.

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