The most complex primary election voting process in Washington State in many years is in progress now that absentee ballots are in the mail.

Each absentee envelope will contain four ballots and voters will have to choose which one to mark: Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Non-partisan. Each ballot lists only candidates from a particular party.

There will be a lot of deciding going on this week, as Island County Auditor Suzanne Sinclair’s office mailed out 28,735 ballots on Tuesday, according to Loann Gullick, elections officer.

That represents nearly 70 percent of the total 41,995 registered voters in Island County. The roughly 13,000 people who still go to the polls will have to wait until election day, Sept. 14, to vote.

Although the ballots weren’t mailed until Tuesday, the Auditor’s Office has already been receiving numerous questions from people wondering about the new “Montana style” primary system, which ends this state’s 70-year-old tradition of open primaries. The Republican, Democrat and Libertarian parties forced the change by successfully pleading their case in court.

In the old open primary system, voters could vote for any candidate they wanted, regardless of party, on a single ballot.

With the Montana system, voters will have to pick one of the four ballot choices and discard the other three ballots, returning only the ballot they filled out. The nonpartisan ballot contains only ballot measures and judicial races, which are non-partisan, and is for those who don’t want to pick a single party’s ballot even though the ballot people choose is not recorded.

Gullick said voters are worried about a recent mailing from the Secretary of State’s office, which included a voter registration card. Many thought that meant it is necessary to re-register to vote in the new primary. Not so, she said. Anyone already registered will get their ballot in the mail.

Voters are also wondering why they have to pick only one ballot, Gullick said. That was a decision made by the courts and, ultimately, the State Legislature and Gov. Gary Locke.

Gullick expects a lot more questions from the public once people walk to their mailboxes and open their absentee envelopes, only to find four color-coded ballots inside.

She’s looking forward to the general election Nov. 2, which will operate the same as always. “They can choose to vote the way they want,” she said.