do you know if there are going to be any ballot updates before 8:15? I sure do love the nifty secretary of state election results app, but if there won't be any returns posted until 8:15pm it a bit underwhelming.

@1 "Polls" close at 8 p.m., counties report as soon thereafter as they can. Should be all over by 8:30.

"...the very closest statewide races."

In other words: governor, R-74, and I-502.

I'd love to be wrong about 74 and 502.

The Legislature needs to come up with a funding mechanism to provide counties with enough resources to count all ballots in a more timely manner, instead of reporting just once a night. There's a real public interest in providing more timely results, since dragging out the tabulation process just invites skepticism.

Even with a tax-averse Legislature and an unconstitutional 2/3 requirement to raise taxes, it's hard to see why they can't impose a tax/fee on elections-related ads/flyers/mailers that is 100% dedicated to funding for more processing machines and overtime pay for trained election workers.

@4 60 percent is a pretty large statistical sample, more than enough to comfortably call most races. And those races that can't be called on election night generally will take a week or longer to determine, regardless of the resources you throw at it.

@4 or we in King County need to stop subsidizing those inefficient tax-subsidized E WA slackers.

Technically, if it's mail-in postmarked today, the earliest "real" result would be Saturday's count.

@4, you answered your own question as to why they can't come up with a new tax/fee: 1053.

I was impressed with the county's handling of the ballot drop box in Ballard this morning. There were a bunch of employees (or volunteers?) taking ballots from the multitudes of cars driving by. And it seemed like they were sending boxes of ballots on their way to Renton pretty frequently.

I dropped my ballot at one of the staffed drop boxes on Saturday, and it still isn't showing as being received. I AM FREAKING OUT ABOUT THIS! (sorry, had to get that off my chest....) Has anyone heard how long these take to process? Are they not even being picked up until polls close tonight??

@9--I sent my ballot in the day after I received it. It took just over a week before it showed up as validated on the KC website.

@9 Their website says it takes 4 days to register in the system. I assume they don't even count Sat or Sun. Take a deep breath, get a drink, and enjoy the election. Your vote will show up eventually.

@9 Mine took 4 days.

Rock on King County Elections! Kinda makes Tea Party vote suppression org Washington Policy Center and Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed look like partisan idiots for complaining about ballots being postmarked by 8:00 pm election night, doesn't it?