The ballot may have been confusing and the results ambiguous, but as far as the King County elections department is concerned, the all-mail vote Tuesday on replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct was a roaring success.

"This was a fantastic election," department spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said Wednesday. "It was a wonderful experience."

On a typical election day, banks of telephones on the department's "help desk" ring with frantic calls from poll workers soon after the county's 500 polls open at 7 a.m. But it was quiet Tuesday morning. Although a few dozen polls were open in the Highline and Skykomish school districts for voting on tax levies, problems were minimal, Egan said.

The viaduct vote was the first conducted solely by mail in Seattle, and department staffers weren't sure what to expect, Egan said. They prepared Tuesday for long lines of voters delivering ballots to the five drop-off sites around the city, but no crush materialized. Over the five days the sites were open, 5,551 voters dropped off ballots.

Polling places were marked with signs stating they were closed, and just four voters called to ask why, Egan said. The city's 132,000 poll voters were sent letters weeks ago informing them of the all-mail vote, and those notices were followed by automated phone calls through Tuesday. For the 208,000 Seattle voters registered as permanent absentees, the election was voting as usual.

The county plans to switch to mail voting for all elections in 2008, and the balloting Tuesday provided a good test run in a sizable jurisdiction, Egan said.

Before the election, the department projected that 55 percent of the city's 340,000 registered voters would participate. By Wednesday afternoon, the department had counted 124,090 mailed-in ballots, with more expected in the next few days from voters who mailed ballots by the Tuesday deadline.

In the 2005 mayoral election in Seattle, the participation rate was 55 percent, including both poll and mail voters. In the June 1997 special election on the proposed financing for the Seahawks' football stadium, which Egan said was the most recent ballot proposal similar in nature and scheduling to Tuesday's measure, the participation rate was 49 percent in Seattle.

VOTE BY MAIL

Elections officials estimate 55 percent of registered voters in Seattle took part in the special viaduct advisory vote, conducted entirely by mail.

By Wednesday afternoon, 124,090 votes had been counted out of more than 341,000 ballots sent out.

The county plans to switch to mail voting for all elections in 2008.

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