Despite our dire predictions about tonight's turnout, a friend of PubliCola (who's even wonkier than PubliCola!) points out that in the August primary election (which was also all-mail), as of the day before the primary (August 17), just 17.52 percent of registered voters had cast their ballots. Ultimately, 38.6 of registered voters voted in the primary, meaning that most of the turnout was on Election Day. In other words, just 45 percent of those who ultimately voted in the primary had voted before primary Election Day.

As of yesterday, one day before the general election, 24.28 of registered voters had cast their ballots. Assuming 56 percent of registered voters do ultimately turn out, the votes so far would represent about 43 percent of the total—less than on primary Election Night.

Translated, Seattle is on pace to meet the 56 percent turnout projected by King County Elections.

We'll see.