Primary results certified; delegates assigned

OKANOGAN – Final results have been tabulated and certified by the Okanogan and Douglas county auditors for Washington state’s first Presidential Primary election on March 10 and, at the state level, delegates assigned in accordance with the statewide counts.

A Washington State Democrats media release dated March 24 reports that nearly 1.6 million Democratic voters cast ballots with Vice President Joe Biden collecting 591,403 votes and Senator Bernie Sanders with 570,039 votes.

“Those vote totals translate into 46 pledged delegates for Vice President Biden and 43 pledged delegates for Senator Sanders to the Democratic National Convention in July,” the release said.

Locally, Okanogan County voters favored Sanders among the 13 ballot contenders with 2,327 votes of 38.93 percent over Biden with 1,996 votes or 33.39 percent. Our of 24,317 registered county voters 12,405 cast ballots for a 51 percent turnout.

Douglas County had a 47.51% turnout with 11,144 of 23,454 registered voters casting ballots. Biden corralled 1,905 votes or 40.58 percent of the total cast and Sanders received 1,546 or 32.94 percent.

In both counties only four other candidates received more than 100 votes, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg.

“Washington Democrats have shifted to an all-digital delegate selection process,” said the WSD release, “but as has been true from the beginning of our primary, both presidential campaigns who received pledged delegates will retain the right of refusal over who is selected to fill each of their pledged delegate positions.”