Since I was too busy covering a caucus for SeattlePoliticore to actually caucus myself, I made a point to vote in today’s primary. I headed to my polling place, Fire Station 35, to cast my vote and check out the primary scene in my hometown of Woodinville.

I arrived at the fire station at exactly 7:00 pm, one hour before the polls would close at 8:00. The small parking lot was full, which I initially took as a sign of a good turnout, but realized upon entering the building that those cars belonged to the poll workers who had been there since 6:00 am.

I found my precinct, showed my ID, and signed my name and party oath. The poll worker gave me the option of using a paper or electronic ballot. I chose electronic because I remembered Florida horror stories from the 2000 election - “hanging chads”? “Pregnant chads”? Turns out the paper ballot was just a bubble-in deal, but I went electronic anyway.

I cast my electronic ballot on an AVU, or accessible voting unit. It was easy enough, and I was done in a snap. Time to start talking to the poll workers and voters.

Make that just the poll workers - there were almost no voters! I spoke with the inspector, Carla Thompson, who said that even though the fire station was a large polling place, the turnout had been “rather light” all day.

“Rather light” seemed like an understatement when I learned the actual number of voters who had cast ballots that day. At about 7:30 pm, a digital reading on the machine that received the paper ballots showed a count of 156. The poll worker manning the AVU told me that 28 people had voted electronically.

184 people had voted at a polling place that housed nine precincts.

Thompson did say, however, that the stream of people dropping off absentee ballots had been “pretty solid, pretty constant” throughout the day. Indeed, several people entered the firehouse to shove their ballots into the absentee slot while I was there.

As I talked to Thompson, I looked around the firehouse and noticed all the fire gear hanging on various walls. It occurred to me that, in the event of an emergency, the firemen would have to run into the polling area to suit up and rush out. It would probably be much more exciting if that happened, but wouldn’t it be very disruptive and chaotic?

I asked if I could speak to the firefighters. She led me back to their area, but when she noticed they were watching a movie, she said, “You’re on your own!” and left.

They weren’t just watching a movie. Four firefighters were reclined in black leather La-Z-Boy-style chairs watching the George Clooney thriller “Michael Clayton” on a massive flat screen mounted on the wall. When they noticed me, they immediately paused the movie and gathered around a table to chat.

Firefighter Scott Wedemeyer, who was the acting lieutenant for the evening, told me he had seen two presidential polls at the firehouse and this one looked “like a little bit lower turnout than usual.”

When I asked Wedemeyer if the fire station was his polling place, he told me that it was not because firefighters are usually not stationed close to where they live. Otherwise, they could learn some uncomfortable information about their neighbors when they respond to emergencies. He said he voted using an absentee ballot.

Wedemeyer also told me he didn’t like the fact that one has to sign a party oath before voting in the primary. He said he tends to vote for the candidate who most closely matches his ideology and not necessarily by party.

Regarding my concern about the chaos that might ensue in the event of an emergency, Wedemeyer said it would not be a big deal if they had to respond to a call. The firefighters would simply grab their gear and go. Of course, they’re professionals - why didn’t I think of that?

I headed back out to the polling area to chat with the poll worker in charge of the AVU. While all the other poll workers appeared to be between 50 and 70 years old, the AVU worker was UW sophomore Chris VanJouanne.

VanJouanne told me that more senior citizens were using the AVU instead of paper ballots (well, and me). However, he also said he had only seen “a handful of people - maybe five - under the age of 25″ all day. He only knew of a few Democrats who voted, as well.

“The most exciting thing was when I had four people voting in a row,” VanJouanne said.

He also received some complaints from voters. One person said there should have been more signs indicating that the fire station was the polling place. Another person was upset and almost left when VanJouanne informed him that his Democratic primary vote would not count toward allocating delegates, but he ended up voting anyway.

The most bizarre complaint, VanJouanne said, was from someone who said the AVU could keep track of her votes and was part of a government conspiracy. He assured me that was not the case.

I left the fire station right around 8:00, and the polling place was just as uneventful when I left as it was when I arrived. Thompson said it was perfectly fine for me to take pictures of everything, unlike what some of my fellow SeattlePoliticore reporters were told today, as long as I didn’t take pictures of people voting.

That was easy - there were almost none.