Well, we're now down to the last three days of voting, canvassing, and phone calling. Thus far, the numbers show that we're either going to have a lot of ballots come in at the last moment, or this will be one of the lowest turnout primaries we've had in quite some time. The county elections office is showing that 64,049 ballots (17%) have been returned. By this same point, we'd had 69,015 ballots (19%) returned in 2002 and 76,979 ballots (21%) in 2004. With approximately 17,000 more voters than we had in the 2002 or 2004 primaries (both were approx. 363,500), the actual number of ballots makes things appear closer than they really are-- we need to hit 72,318 ballots in before we get to 19% and 79,930 to hit 21%. With the way the numbers are going, it will be amazing if we hit 30%. How can you help change that? Get out and speak to people who haven't voted yet. Let them know how important these votes really are. Not only do we have several hotly contested partisan primary races, there are also the non-partisan races that will be decided on Tuesday (with the exceptions of where run-offs are needed). In Portland, there are two city council races, as well as a county commission race in the North and North East parts of the city. County-wide, we're voting on the county chair's race, judge positions, and governor. And that's not all-- these are just a handful of the contested races. Winning these races isn't the only reason why the primary is important-- it's also practice for the general. What people do in the primary, they're more likely to do again in the general. So if people vote in the primary, they vote in the general. If they volunteer in the primary, they volunteer in the general. The Republicans understand this-- they have hundreds, if not thousands, of volunteers working all over the county. They're not just working in areas that have contested primary races, but also in areas where they're either trying to keep up from taking a seat from them, or they're trying to take a seat from us. They're working hard to build their base. Their ballot listings for precinct committeeperson (PCP) is just one example of how hard they're working to build their Party within the county. In some districts, such as mine, they have 35 people running for the 110 available slots (31.81%). We have 8 for 128 available slots (6.25%). While yes, this may be "east county," we still do have more registered Ds than we do Rs. And this is a decrease in the number of PCPs we've had previously. I'm hearing from others that this isn't out of the ordinary-- the Republicans have been working hard the last few years to become stronger within Multnomah County. They realize that in state-wide races, Multnomah County carries the state. And they believe if they work hard enough, they can decrease the margin between D and R candidates in the county and possibly turn the state red. Turnout in the primary is another example. The numbers are already showing that Republicans are turning out better than Democrats. This could make a difference in races that have historically had high under votes (people vote on other races, but skip these ones), such as judicial races. Even in races where there are all Democrats running, they can still throw their weight behind the most conservative person in the race. So what can you do to help? Volunteer with one of our endorsed candidates between now and Tuesday evening. You can find a listing of activities here. You can also get out and talk to your neighbors who haven't voted yet. You can e-mail me or give me a call: 503-661-3020, and I can get you a walking list and a listing of our endorsed candidates. I can also answer your questions regarding how to go about becoming a PCP. Together, we can not only win elections, but build a stronger party.