Schools do well in levy voting

For the White Salmon Valley School District, in unofficial returns, voters gave solid approval to the two-year replacement maintenance and operation levy. In Klickitat County, the vote was 839 Yes votes (69.9 percent) to 361 No votes (30.1 percent).

In the Skamania County portion of the White Salmon School District, the tally was 169 Yes votes (65 percent) as opposed to 91 No votes (35 percent). That represented a 49 percent turnout of voters in the county.

The 60 percent supermajority requirement for passage was easily met, and the threshold number of votes to validate the election was met with absentee ballots alone.

In the Lyle School District, voters were giving thumbs up to the local levy by a count of 65.3 percent Yes to a 34.7 percent No.

In the Klickitat School District, the figures were 60.9 percent Yes, 39.1 percent No.

The Glenwood School District reported the most overwhelming vote in support of the local schools, passing the levy with 100 Yes votes (77.5 percent) to 29 No votes (22.5 percent).

The Centerville School District and the Prosser School District also appeared to be giving strong support to their schools, with Yes votes at 74.2 percent and 69.2 percent, respectively.

The only district where it appeared the levy was not gaining sufficient support for passage was in the Goldendale School District. There, the tally was 801 Yes votes, or 56.4 percent, against 620 No votes, or 43.6 percent.

Ballots postmarked by Feb. 3 will still be counted as they come in. Most of those ballots are expected to be in by Feb. 6. As many as 1,500 ballots, countywide, were still out, but officials in the Auditor's Office did not expect anywhere near that many to finally come in.

Voter turnout in Klickitat County, pending receipt of the final absentee ballots, was pegged at 36.5 percent.