Sherril Huff confirms retirement as King County Director of Elections; won’t run again

King Coun­ty’s incum­bent Direc­tor of Elec­tions Sher­ril Huff con­firmed this morn­ing what polit­i­cal insid­ers and a num­ber of activists have been hear­ing over the last few days: She’s retir­ing from the job and will not run again this year.

In a news release sent to NPI, Huff said she had been plan­ning to run for anoth­er four-year term, but decid­ed against it for “per­son­al and health considerations”.

She did not elaborate.

“It is with some sad­ness that I made this deci­sion,” she said. “I love my job, my team of ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­als, and the work we do to ensure trans­par­ent, effi­cient elec­tions for the 1.1 mil­lion vot­ers in our state’s largest Coun­ty. I was look­ing for­ward to con­tin­u­ing this ser­vice, but after con­sult­ing with fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues, I am mak­ing the right deci­sion to step down after this year.”

“I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of the advance­ments we have made in bal­lot track­ing, improv­ing tech­nolo­gies to speed count­ing and pro­cess­ing, and improv­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty through vote by mail, drop box­es, mul­ti-lan­guage vot­ing mate­ri­als, and oth­er efforts to increase par­tic­i­pa­tion,” she added.

“I know I am leav­ing the office in a strong posi­tion as a state and nation­al leader, and will enjoy the remain­ing months in office.”

Huf­f’s deci­sion to retire cre­ates an open seat, which will undoubt­ed­ly attract a few can­di­dates. The posi­tion is one of two coun­ty­wide jobs on the bal­lot this year. The oth­er is Asses­sor, a job cur­rent­ly held by Lloyd Hara. He is seek­ing reelec­tion and is opposed by chal­lenger John Arthur Wil­son. Both are Democrats.

Shore­line City Coun­cilmem­ber Chris Roberts, who is a col­league of mine on the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (WSDCC), plans to seek the posi­tion, and is work­ing on launch­ing a campaign.

Anoth­er can­di­date may be Julie Ann Wise, who serves as Huf­f’s deputy. Wise resides in Maple Val­ley and is eli­gi­ble to seek the posi­tion. She has not made any com­ments that the team at NPI is aware of about seek­ing the posi­tion. But she could run.

King Coun­ty vot­ers made the posi­tion of elec­tions direc­tor an elect­ed one sev­er­al years ago through a char­ter amend­ment. Pri­or to that, it had been an appoint­ed posi­tion. Huff had been the pre­vi­ous­ly-appoint­ed direc­tor, cho­sen by Exec­u­tive Ron Sims, and she suc­cess­ful­ly ran to keep her job in a spe­cial elec­tion, beat­ing out a field of most­ly unqual­i­fied can­di­dates that includ­ed Pam Roach and David Irons.

Now that Huff is depart­ing, King Coun­ty will have its first real­ly open elec­tion for elec­tions direc­tor, a posi­tion that is unique in Wash­ing­ton State. (In the state’s oth­er coun­ties, elec­tions are admin­is­tered by audi­tors, who are direct­ly elected.)