Sanders leads Biden in Adams County

RITZVILLE - Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading former Vice President Joe Biden in the March 10 presidential primary election to be the top Democrat.

But that lead is slim - only four votes as of press time.

Sanders had 288 votes here, compared to 284 for Biden. That's tightened up since the initial election tally when Sanders led Biden by 40 votes, 166-126.

While Sanders leads that contest, President Donald J. Trump posted outstanding numbers in the Republican vote.

As of last count Friday, March 13, Adams County Republican voters had cast 1,765 votes for President Trump to remain in office.

He was unopposed.

President Trump received 1,749 votes, with the remaining 15 Republican voters submitting write-ins.

Across the ticket, Democratic voters cast 836 votes for one of several candidates.

In addition, to Sanders and Biden, candidates Michael Bloomberg received 120; Elizabeth Warren, 57; Pete Buttigieg, 25; Amy Klobuchar, 22; and Tulsi Gabbard, 11.

Seven Democrats voted for 'Uncommitted Delegates,' which means voters were not committed to any candidate, but wanted to vote for their party.

"Each of the parties have the option of providing a response for Uncommitted Delegates," said Adams County Auditor Heidi Hunt. "Republicans opted not to offer that option. It's purely a party choice.

Six Democratic votes went to Tom Steyer; and five votes each went to John Delaney and Andrew Yang. Yang and Delaney have dropped out of the race since the ballots were printed in January. Michael Bennet, who also dropped out of the race, received two votes, and one vote went to Deval Patrick and one vote was a write-in.

Votes for candidates who have dropped out of the race will still be counted, with delegates awarded to them. The National delegates then have the opportunity to switch their vote after the first ballot.

Hunt said none of the 16 write-ins were for candidates who actually filed to be declared write-ins, so votes for them are not tallied.

The Democrats had two over-votes and the Republicans had one, meaning the voter selected two candidates instead of one.

"There were so many Democratic candidates, people thought the top two will go forward, but only one will," said Hunt.

Statewide Tuesday, UPDATE MONDAY the presidential preliminary saw Trump receiving 523,409 votes with Republicans casting another 7,682 write-ins.

Sanders received the most Democratic votes with 335,498, followed closely by Biden at 333,414. Warren received 126,093, Bloomberg 113,422, Buttigieg 59,868, Klobuchar 31,425, Gabbard 8,550, Yang 4,872, Steyer 3,098 and Booker 1,054.

As of Friday, ballots received in the Adams County Auditor's office accounted for 36.92% of registered county voters.

Elections Administrator Jacque Laird said she sent out approximately 390 letters to voters, giving them the opportunity to correct ballots with non-matching signatures, a party not declared on the front or other errors making the ballots ineligible. Laird said MONDAY CALL HER HOW MANY ballots were returned corrected.

Hunt said she could not determine if voter turnout was affected by the request to declare a party on the outside of the envelope.

"We had to send quite a few letters, offering them the second opportunity to provide that declaration," she said. "I heard for presidential primary years, I'm not sure if it will be this year or the next one, there would be an additional envelope. They are trying to address the privacy issue. It would be an extra step, which for Adams County is not a big deal, but for King County it would be. One of the things voters can do is just drop it in our ballot box, then it never changes hands; it just goes straight to us. I, personally, wouldn't hesitate to mail it; our post office is really good. But a drop box is a good option for someone concerned about privacy."