Referendum 71 winning, but not by much

Referendum 71, which would same-sex domestic partnerships many of the rights currently available to married couples, is leading with 51% of the voters approving and 49% rejecting the Referendum. That is at the state level.

It is a different story in King County, where R 71 is carrying a 66% approval vote. Whether that bodes well for R 71 is unclear at this time. King County has approximately 115,000 ballots to be counted, while the rest of the state has approximately 225,000 go be counted.

The difficulty in predicting R 71's fate is how those other 225,000 ballots from the remainder of the state turn out. There are a number of Western Washington counties that have supported R 71. But the rest of the state has voted against it.

Whether there are enough as-yet-uncounted ballots to carry R 71 to victory remains to be seen. But the point to take from the numbers so far is that R 71 should be more than a King County issue--it is one of statewide proportions. Sadly, the numbers show a clear split within the state on this issue.

Let us all hope the remaining ballots in other counties will show more uniformity in favor of R 71. Uniformity would be nice, but the most important thing is that R 71 ultimately passes.