EPHRATA - The primary election was held Tuesday in Washington state, with statewide voter turnout at roughly 18.58% of the Evergreen state’s 4.4-plus million voters casting ballots. That amounts to a bit more than 822,000 votes cast.  

Grant County  

A $30 million bond proposal by Grant County Hospital District 3, which operates Columbia Basin Hospital, has been rejected by voters, with 1,057 voting against the measure and 899 voting in favor. Had the bond passed, the hospital district had looked to expand the hospital’s family medicine clinic with an extension that would also contain an upper floor with flex space.  

Soap Lake School District board position 5 will see Rebecca Leavell face Mark Novik on the ballot in November. Leavell received 141 (40.29%) of the 350 votes cast to Novik’s 120 (34.29%). Dwight L. Deines received 85 (24.29%) of the vote and four voters wrote in candidates.  

Three positions were on the ballot for parsing down for the city of Quincy, which has council members for three seats on the November ballot.  

Position 2 in Quincy will see Jeff L. Spence face Rob Madera. Spence received 251 (58.51%) of the vote to Madera’s 142 (33.1%). The remainder went to the third candidate, Lupe Hernandez.  

Position 2 on the Quincy council has Andrew Royer with 286 (66.98%) of the 427 votes cast to Rey Esparza’s 117 (27.4%). Josue Madera received the remaining 24 (5.62%) of the vote.  

The final position on the November ballot for the Quincy City Council is the fifth seat. David Dormier will move forward to that contest with 222 (52.73%) of the vote to Pete Shelton’s 121 (28.74%). Ricardo Ruesga Loera received 78 votes. That leaves Shelton competing against Dormier.  

The last item on the Grant County primary ballot was for the City of Grand Coulee’s mayor’s seat. Chantel Crowe will face off against Ruth Dalton in November. Crowe received 87 (56.13%) of the vote to Dalton’s 54 (34.84%). Micah Seekins received the remainder of the vote except for two ballots with write-in candidates.  

Adams County 

Voters in Lind have decided that Jamie Schmunk, with 55 votes, will face Glenn Aby, who received 49 votes. Incumbent Paula Bell received 35 votes in the primary and Adam Lyons received one.  

Also in Lind, the City Council Position 1 seat garnered 138 total votes spread out among five candidates. Gary Kipfer received 82 votes and Robert C. Meader 35. The pair will face off on the November ballot with Richard Baldwin, Kathleen DeVore and Gary R. DeMoss Sr. now out of the running.  

Lind’s Position 2 City Council seat will see Betty “Chuckie” Harris face Anna Dobbins on the November ballot. Harris received 56.2% of the 137 votes cast, while Dobbins received 25.55%. Heather Fields came in third on that primary line of the ballot with 23 votes. Two write-in votes were cast.  

Position 3 on the Lind City Council will see Gary Blaylock with 54.2% of the vote, facing Stan Allan with 26.2% of the vote. The remaining ballots went to Jeremiah Shea with 16.79% of the vote.  

Also in Lind, the Parks and Recreation bond appears to be approved with a vote of 116 in favor to 69 rejecting the measure.  

Parks and Recreation bonds are also approved in Washtucna and Ritzville with 62.16% and 66.94% of the vote, respectively.  

For the Hatton Town Council’s first seat, Jenifer J. Silva will face Colleen “Connie Mae” Johston after Silva received 14 of the 17 votes for that seat. Johnston received three votes. The small town has a population of about 140 people.  

Voter turnout  

Adams County saw 761 ballots cast for the primary, or about 29.25% of the county’s 2,602 registered voters. Of those, 75 have yet to be processed.  

A little more than 20% of Grant County’s 14,407 voters filed ballots. That amounts to 2,896 of the voters registered in the county. The Grant County Auditor’s office reports that no ballots have been received and are outstanding.  

In both counties, some ballots are likely still in transit through mail-in voting. The election will be certified Aug. 19. Ballots postmarked by Aug. 5, 2025, will be counted in the total.

Voting for the General Election will open Oct. 17. Mail-in and online voter registration is due by Oct. 27 and in-person registration can be completed up until Election Day on Nov. 4.  

Update: The certification date of the election and information on postmarks for submitted ballots has been added above.