EVERETT — Snohomish County voters delivered a mixed bag of votes on five Charter Review Amendments after the first round of election results in the 2026 general election.
Charter Review Proposition 1, “adoption of a foundational government services policy” to prioritize budgeting is currently failing with a “no” vote of 53.59%. Out of 210,797 votes cast in the initial tabulation, 112,963 voters have rejected Proposition 1 .
Charter Review Proposition 2, “prioritize funding of budget stabilization funds” which would set aside budget money for emergencies and catastrophic events is currently passing with 51.17% “yes” vote. More people are voting on Prop 2 than Prop 1. A total of 212,159 votes have been cast in the first round of results for Prop 2 .
Charter Review Proposition 3, “converting all elected County offices to non-partisan” is failing as voters reject that measure with a 70.87% “no” vote and a whopping 215,689 initial votes.
Charter Review Proposition 4, “increasing public access to County financial transparency” and creating a website clearinghouse with a searchable database of where budget money goes, is passing with 63.44% “yes” support.
Charter Review Proposition 5, “requiring a 4/5 supermajority of the County Council vote to increase taxes” is currently passing with 52.39% “yes” vote. Prop 5 received the most votes of any of the five Charter Review measures with 216,011.
In the 39th State Legislative District spanning a stretch of central Snohomish and Skagit Counties, incumbent Sam Low (R) holds a 53% to 47% lead over challenger Kathryn Lewandowsky (D) for Position 1. Low’s current lead is 2319 votes. The Sec. of State gave no indication of what the voter turn-out is in that race.
In the 39th Legislative District State Rep. Pos. 2 contest between Ida Keeley (D) and Steve Ewing (R), Ewing leads 50.28% to Keeley’s 49.60% after the first tabulation of results.
Congressional incumbents, Rep. Rick Larsen and Rep Suzan Del Bene–both Democrats–are off to 67.9% leads over their Republican opponents and will shift to majority control of Congress as both the House and Senate will be Democratic controlled in 2027. Larsen will take over as Chair of House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which includes supervision over aviation related issues that affect Boeing.
All five City of Everett Charter Review measures are passing strongly with the first round of election results. The lowest “yes” vote for those Everett Charter measures is 80.7%, for Proposition 264, which would set the threshold for city initiatives or referendums to qualify for the ballot at 10% of the total votes cast at the last preceding mayoral election.
Voters in the South Snohomish County Fire District are currently passing a $420 million bond levy with 60.81% of the vote. So far 46,151 voters are saying “yes” to the South Snohomish Co. Fire District bond, which needs 60% ‘yes’ vote to officially pass. The $420 million bond would replace, renovate and/or make seismic upgrades to existing fire stations and build additional fire fighting facilities.
Voters in Monroe are currently rejecting a $382 million hospital bond levy. Only 55% of voters are supporting that hospital measure so far, which requires 60% ‘yes’ approval to pass. The Monroe Public Hospital District No. 1 bond measure also failed to receive 60% support in the August primary.
EverettPost.com will update election results and the foremost outcomes as they become available so refresh this page for updated information.
For election results on statewide races like I-645, I-638, I-001, Supreme Court of Washington justices, U.S. Congressional races and State Legislative races that span multiple counties, click the Secretary of State’s election results page here.
For Snohomish County election results, local races for State Legislature contiguous to the county, local levies/bonds, click here.
For national election results including control of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, click here.
For Snohomish County, this initial release of election tabulations will include votes from ballots returned before Election Day. Because the tabulation system is not connected to the internet, these summary results export files will be transferred to a secure and verified-clean USB storage device. The USB storage device with the summary results will then be used to transfer the data to an internet-connected machine.
Ballot counting will continue for several days after Election Day. All election results are unofficial until certified by the Snohomish County Canvassing Board on Tuesday, November 24.
The tabulation system is never connected to the internet. This is the first time during the election that initial results will be known either by Elections staff or the public. State law prohibits the tabulation of results prior to 8 p.m. on Election Night.
After the county webpage is updated with initial, unofficial results, Snohomish County Elections will upload the summary results to the Washington State Secretary of State’s website. This process requires proofing of the transfer of data to the State site. The proofing step can take up to 30 minutes. Following the proofing, the initial results are approved for posting, which can then take an additional 10 minutes or so before results appear on the State site.
The Snohomish County Auditor’s Office reports that all vote-counting equipment for the Nov. 3 General Election was tested for accuracy and proper configuration by Snohomish County elections staff and was publicly tested on Wednesday, October 7, in the presence of observers and a representative of the Washington State Secretary of State’s Office. The vote-counting system has been tested by a federally accredited testing lab and has also been tested and certified by the Secretary of State’s Office for use in Washington State.
On Wednesday, November 4, Snohomish County staff will conduct a post-Election Day audit. Following the release of initial results on Election Night, we confirm that ballot-counting equipment has been counting correctly. Trained staff hand-count randomly selected ballot batches and compare those results to the vote-counting system totals.
A random compliance check of ballot envelope signatures will be conducted by elections staff on Tuesday, November 16. This process looks at a random sampling of challenged signatures to conduct a quality-control check of signature verification processes and verify the accuracy of ballot signature matching, pursuant to state guidelines.
Additionally, a random ballot audit, formerly called a risk-limiting audit, will take place on Thursday, November 19. In this statistical audit, a random sample of voted ballots will be selected at random, and the votes on those physical ballots will be manually examined to ensure that the machine-counted votes match for those ballots. Audit results are made public before certification of the election results.
Audit processes, as well as ballot processing and tabulation, are open to observation from the media and the public.