A record 3 million people voted in Washington’s general election this month, nearly 900,000 of them in King County, about 635,000 by absentee here. But a record amount of local mail voters – roughly 12,000 to 19,000 – may be disqualified, the county Elections department reports.Elections spokesperson Bobbi Egan says of the 635,000 absentees returned, two to three percent face disqualification “for a variety of issues,” including 1,500 that were returned too late.Votes are still being processed at elections headquarters, and Egan says the numbers are changing daily, although they’ll have a solid count next week. But as SW reported in September, county voter invalidations have steadily risen since 2004, when about 3,800 of 568,000 general-election mail-in ballots were disqualified because of signature and mail-deadline failures, and the trend continues. Though there were about 65,000 more people voting by absentee this election, the 2008 disqualification total could be as much as four times 2004, if the current numbers hold.