– The election numbers to-date tell the story brilliantly.
Latest official population figure for Yelm was in 2014 = 8,223
Yelm’s estimated population in 2017 = 9,433
City of Yelm registered voters: 4,485
City of Yelm’s voters in this election to date: 1,269 = 28.29% of Yelm’s registered voters, lowest turn-out of all Thurston County cities and towns. Read more from Thurston County Auditor’s Office.
To date, 13.45% of Yelm’s 2017 estimated population voted in this election.

– Editor’s note:
Interesting that the then Nisqually Valley News Publisher/Editor commented on Yelm’s low voter turnout in the 2009 election, when the results were similar to today’s, though the city then had half of today’s population. As example, the 2009 votes for Mayor were from only 14% of the total population and 29% of the registered voters.
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– The Thurston County Auditor’s Office released election results at approximately 4pm yesterday.
Total votes listed below do not include write-ins.

City of Yelm Mayor
Candidate Vote
Joe DePinto 615
JW Foster 631
Difference = 16 votes
Total Votes 1,246

City of Yelm City Council, Position No. 3
Candidate Vote
Cody Colt 600
Russ Hendrickson 531
Difference = 69 votes
Total Votes 1,131

City of Yelm City Council, Position No. 7
Candidate Vote
James C. Blair 553
Terry Kaminski 624
Difference = 71 votes
Total Votes 1,177

Uncontested Council positions all received less than 900 votes each:
Pos. 1, EJ Curry 869
Pos. 3, Tad Stillwell 898
Pos. 4, Tracey Wood 879