Saturday elections update: Less than 15,000 ballots now remain to be processed statewide

We are now into the sec­ond half of Novem­ber, and the num­ber of bal­lots remain­ing to be processed by coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials has now dwin­dled to 12,578 (esti­mat­ed). More than three-fourths of this num­ber are King Coun­ty ballots.

King Coun­ty Elec­tions was open for busi­ness today, and released updat­ed results this after­noon. As usu­al, some can­di­dates lost ground while oth­ers gained, but no leads were sur­ren­dered in any of the close races we’re watching.

Here’s a summary:

• Social­ist Alter­na­tive can­di­date Kshama Sawant increased her lead over incum­bent City Coun­cilmem­ber Richard Con­lin in Seat­tle, con­tin­u­ing a trend that began Novem­ber 6th. Sawant is hold­ing a vic­to­ry ral­ly tomor­row to cel­e­brate her his­toric and unprece­dent­ed win.
• The gap between yes and no in SeaT­ac for Propo­si­tion 1 (the Good Jobs ini­tia­tive) nar­rowed by three votes to forty-nine. There are just one hun­dred and ten bal­lots left to count in SeaTac.
• Steve Kas­ner gave up all of the ground he had made this week in his city coun­cil con­test in Belle­vue against Kevin Wal­lace. Wal­lace is now ahead by two hun­dred and sev­en­teen votes. It does­n’t look like Kas­ner will make it.
• In Auburn, Nan­cy Backus remains ahead of John Par­tridge in the con­test for may­or by only one hun­dred and thir­ty votes. Backus is los­ing the King Coun­ty por­tion of Auburn, but win­ning big in the Pierce Coun­ty por­tion of the city (it’s split). Con­se­quent­ly, she has a thin lead.
• Also in Auburn, Rich Wag­n­er is ahead of Michelle Binet­ti for City Coun­cil Posi­tion #6. Like Nan­cy Backus, Wag­n­er is los­ing in the King Coun­ty part of Auburn (which con­sti­tutes most of the city) but is win­ning big in the Pierce Coun­ty por­tion. He’s ahead by just six­ty-four votes overall.
• In Kent, Bai­ley Sto­ber remains behind Ken Sharp, who was charged with mul­ti­ple counts of first degree theft ear­li­er this year. Amaz­ing­ly, Sharp has a two hun­dred and eighty-five vote lead over Sto­ber, leav­ing us won­der­ing if Kent vot­ers just weren’t pay­ing atten­tion this year.

Bal­lot count­ing will resume on Mon­day and con­tin­ue through the 26th, when the gen­er­al elec­tion is due to be cer­ti­fied around Wash­ing­ton State.