NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Friday, November 18th, 2011

John Stokes gets a little more breathing room in extremely close Bellevue City Council race

After watch­ing his slim lead over oppo­nent Aaron Laing grow even slim­mer for sev­er­al days in a row, pro­gres­sive activist John Stokes is final­ly rebounding.

The con­test between Stokes and Laing (who is backed by Kem­per Free­man, Jr.) to suc­ceed Grant Deg­gin­ger has cap­tured the region’s atten­tion due to its closeness.

Stokes’ lead increased by twen­ty-nine votes in today’s count, going from fifty-nine to eighty-eight. That’s not as wide as it was at one point last week (or even on elec­tion night) but as far as his cam­paign team is con­cerned, it’s cer­tain­ly progress.

Stokes’ per­cent­age of the vote now stands at an even fifty, while Laing’s per­cent­age dimin­ished slight­ly to 49.70%. Odd­ly enough, the num­ber of write-ins for Posi­tion #1 (0.25%) is exact­ly equal to Stokes’ lead… eighty-eight.

King Coun­ty Elec­tions will release updat­ed counts four more times before Novem­ber 29th, when the can­vass­ing board will con­vene to cer­ti­fy results. Final results will be post­ed on Novem­ber 30th — how­ev­er, results for this race are unlike­ly to be final, because it’s prob­a­ble that the mar­gin of vic­to­ry for who­ev­er wins will be so small that an auto­mat­ic recount will be triggered.

So it’s unlike­ly that we will know who has won for sure until well into December.

The results of Belle­vue’s oth­er city coun­cil races are not in doubt, and will become final on Novem­ber 30th. Incum­bent Jen­nifer Robert­son ran unop­posed, and has been reelect­ed, while incum­bents Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci and John Chelmi­nak (who each drew one chal­lenger) won in a landslide.

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One Comment

  1. I am hop­ing for a Stokes vic­to­ry, as the time has come to fight dirty hit pieces.

    # by Mike Barer :: November 19th, 2011 at 8:47 AM
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