If the Washington state caucus was like baseball’s All-Star game (a midseason battle royale for home field advantage at the World Series), then this year’s primary was like football’s Pro Bowl (which, held after the Super Bowl, gives no prize to the winning team and is held mostly for fun).  The All-Star game is a celebrated event; nobody watches the Pro Bowl.

Of course, Republicans had 19 delegates at stake, and other items like school levies filled the ticket, but that wasn’t enough to draw people (especially Democrats, the largest policial party in the Seattle area) out to the polls this afternoon.  Much can be attributed to the state’s heavy reliance on absentee ballots, but one cannot deny the lack of excitement like that which swept the state on Feb. 9.

In the Terry dormitory lounge at the University of Washington, voting booths were rarely occupied.  Despite some activity at lunch, the quiet was hardly broken between the 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. polling hours.  Around 7 o’clock, all of the workers looked quite bored.

“It’s been very slow today,” said Rebecca Ramshaw, one volunteer who manned the desk for much of the afternoon.  “It’s kinda nice ’cause I get to finish up some homework.”

What little activity they had was mostly due to students with pre-written ballots.

“A lot of people are bringing their absentee ballots,” Ramshaw said, many of whom are not registered to vote in King County.  “You can send them from here and save on postage, which is cool.”

I also spoke with the polling place’s “Troubleshooter” (that’s what the volunteers called her - sounds like a wicked hitman name to me) Alexis Loretz, who agreed that this has been a slow day.

“[Terry] is actually the slowest in the area,” said Loretz, whose jurisdiction included the University District and some Greenlake areas.  She attributed Terry’s comparatively low turnout to the low number of non-student residents in the area.  Most of the voters at Terry were students (for obvious reasons), but a few members of the public did come to the dorm to vote.

As troubleshooter, Loretz must make sure the voting machines throughout her zone are working properly and that supplies and papers are well stocked.  That wasn’t too much of a problem today, as you can imagine - not like it was at the caucuses.

“Things have been very smooth today,” she admitted.