Class size initiative now has 18,000+ vote lead; Snohomish swings back into yes column

Today was a great day to be a sup­port­er of I‑1351, the ini­tia­tive to low­er class sizes in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools across Wash­ing­ton State.

After hav­ing trailed and alter­nat­ed between lead­ing and trail­ing for the first three days post-Elec­tion Night, the ini­tia­tive appears to have moved away from the pre­cip­i­tous edge, thanks to Wash­ing­ton’s three most pop­u­lous coun­ties, which fin­ished tab­u­lat­ing anoth­er batch of bal­lots dur­ing a spe­cial Sat­ur­day count.

Coun­ties don’t often tab­u­late bal­lots on week­ends, but this year, there was evi­dent­ly such a late influx of bal­lots that offi­cials in King, Sno­homish, and Pierce each brought in work­ers today to keep the bal­lot pro­cess­ing going.

As of this evening, I‑1351’s lead stands at over 18,000 votes, and Yes has 50.49%. It’s still close, but if the trend holds, we project that I‑1351 will pass.

Yes­ter­day, Sno­homish Coun­ty swung back into the Yes col­umn after defect­ing to the No col­umn two days pri­or. Also new to the Yes col­umn is the small coun­ty of Pacif­ic, which includes the cities of Ray­mond, South Bend, Long Beach, and Ilwaco.

Sno­homish and Pacif­ic join King, San Juan, Pierce, Jef­fer­son, Kit­sap, What­com, Spokane, Island, Grays Har­bor, and tiny Asotin as coun­ties sup­port­ing I‑1351.

(Asotin and Island flipped into the Yes camp on the sec­ond day — Wednes­day — while Spokane joined the Yes side on Thurs­day. King, San Juan, Pierce, Jef­fer­son, Kit­sap, What­com, and Grays Har­bor have been on the Yes side all along.)

The rest of Wash­ing­ton’s thir­ty-nine coun­ties are in the No camp, which isn’t real­ly all that sur­pris­ing, with the notable excep­tion of Thurston Coun­ty, which gen­er­al­ly breaks pro­gres­sive­ly when most oth­er swing coun­ties do.

Here is a chronol­o­gy of the count:

• Elec­tion Night, Tues­day, Novem­ber 4th: I‑1351 trails by 13,555 votes
• Wednes­day, Novem­ber 5th (end of day): I‑1351 trails by 11,431 votes
• Thurs­day, Novem­ber 6th (end of day): I‑1351 leads by 4,473 votes
• Fri­day, Novem­ber 7th (end of day): I‑1351 leads by 11,373 votes
• Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 8th (today): I‑1351 leads by 18,495 votes

The trend seems pret­ty clear: I‑1351 is head­ed for pas­sage. That’s good news for Wash­ing­ton’s kids. The icing on the cake is that a win for the Class Size Counts coali­tion would mean that all of Wash­ing­ton’s statewide bal­lot mea­sures would have had pro­gres­sive out­comes for the first time since 2009.

There will be no new num­bers until Mon­day afternoon.