A record-setting 740,000 mail-in ballots have been distributed to King County voters for next month’s general election – part of what county election officials will be the biggest voter turnout in the county’s history.

The county elections department reported that 742,000 ballots will have been mailed to voters this week, starting Wednesday. That includes about 19,000 sent to voters living out of state and out of country earlier this month.

As much as 69 percent of the ballots cast in the election Nov. 4 will be the mailed variety, said county elections director Sherril Huff.

This is the final year that the county plans to conduct mail-in and in-person voting. All-mail voting will begin in 2009, ending polling places.

Voters who are expecting a mail-in ballot but don’t receive one by Oct. 24 should call the county voter hotline at 206-296-868, Huff said.

Huff said mail-in voting guidelines include:

• Voters’ signatures make their votes count. The signature on every absentee envelope is verified against the voter’s registration record.

• If voters receive a letter from the elections office, they should respond immediately. They may have forgotten to sign the return envelope, for instance.

• Ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 4 in order to be counted. Besides being mailed back, ballots can be taken to a 24-hour drop box or a polling place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on election day. Black Diamond Library is the site of a drop box.