NPI's Cascadia Advocate

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

Friday, November 8th, 2019

Friday afternoon ballot counting update: R‑88 briefly takes lead, Sawant overtakes Orion

Good evening! Here’s the lat­est devel­op­ments in the 2019 gen­er­al elec­tion, which remains an elec­tion in progress until the bal­lots are counted.

Ref­er­en­dum 88 goes from fail­ing to pass­ing, then flips back

It’s high dra­ma for Ref­er­en­dum 88, also known as Ini­tia­tive 1000.

I‑1000 is the mea­sure that would relax some of the absurd, bur­den­some pro­hi­bi­tions imposed by Tim Eyman’s I‑200 two decades ago on pub­lic agen­cies and insti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing. I‑1000 would allow agen­cies to reach out to his­tor­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged groups and com­mu­ni­ties to inform them of oppor­tu­ni­ties to apply for jobs and contracts.

After sev­er­al days of count­ing, there’s almost no gap what­so­ev­er between the yes camp and the no camp. For a short while this after­noon, the mea­sure — which had thus far been fail­ing — took a lead for the first time in the count, pro­pelled by new­ly tab­u­lat­ed bal­lots report­ed by King County.

That lead was short-lived. King Coun­ty’s neigh­bors quick­ly pro­ceed­ed to put the oppo­si­tion back on top. Ref­er­en­dum 88 is back to fail­ing… for now. King Coun­ty has a sec­ond bal­lot drop planned for today, around 8:30 PM, which could once again put Ini­tia­tive 1000 in the lead. That would be a wel­come development.

At 4 PM, thanks to King Coun­ty, Ref­er­en­dum 88 had a lead of just eight hun­dred and forty-two votes, out of more than 1.4 mil­lion votes cast. Incredible.

By 6:30 PM, Ref­er­en­dum 88 was behind by 24,752 votes.

And with­in hours, it may lead again.

Ini­tia­tive 976 con­tin­ues to slide

The NO vote against Tim Eyman’s I‑976 con­tin­ues to grow.

As of this after­noon, it was up to 46.68%. On Elec­tion Night, it was 44.24%.

Six coun­ties are reject­ing I‑976 and thir­ty-three are pass­ing it.

In Kit­sap Coun­ty, the NO vote is up to 49.20%, and there are an esti­mat­ed 7,000 bal­lots left to count there. Eyman’s posi­tion leads by just 1,077 votes in Kit­sap, so a lead change is pos­si­ble. Might Kit­sap Coun­ty flip to the NO side? We’ll find out on Tues­day, when Kit­sap Coun­ty is next expect­ed to report.

Kshama Sawant over­takes Egan Orion

As of this after­noon, Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Kshama Sawant is now win­ning reelec­tion and is like­ly to end the count ahead of chal­lenger Egan Orion.

On Elec­tion Night, Sawant had 45.61% of the vote.

Now she has 50.45% of the vote. She gained on Ori­on in the Wednes­day and Thurs­day counts. Today she seized the lead… prob­a­bly for good.

“Our vote con­tin­ues to grow, with Coun­cilmem­ber Kshama Sawant cap­tur­ing 58% of the lat­est bal­lot drop,” Sawan­t’s cam­paign said in a jubi­lant Face­book post­ing. “We now lead our oppo­nent by 513 votes! As votes con­tin­ue to be tal­lied, it’s more impor­tant than ever that we fight to make sure every vote is counted.”

“We know that that Ama­zon and the cor­po­rate inter­ests which have spent a record amount of mon­ey against us will leave no stone unturned. They may chal­lenge votes in an effort to dis­en­fran­chise sup­port­ers. They will like­ly cure bal­lots too. They could also demand a recount.”

“Please join us tomor­row morn­ing at 10:00 AM at Langston Hugh­es Insti­tute to hear from Coun­cilmem­ber Kshama Sawant at a short press con­fer­ence before we train vol­un­teers and begin bal­lot curing.”

Med­i­na levy lid lift now passing

A pro­posed levy to allow the City of Med­i­na to raise more mon­ey for essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices from prop­er­ty tax­es is now lead­ing… by six votes.

Six votes!

The mea­sure had been trail­ing in pre­vi­ous counts. Yes­ter­day, it was behind by ten votes. Now it’s ahead by six. 1,114 total votes have been cast so far, with five hun­dred and six­ty in favor and five hun­dred and fifty-four against.

Pas­sage of the levy would allow the Med­i­na City Coun­cil to avoid cut­ting the city’s already over­stretched pub­lic ser­vices. Although Med­i­na is an afflu­ent com­mu­ni­ty, it faces a bud­get crunch with­out this levy lid lift.

Wood­inville City Coun­cil: Nico­las Duscha­tel snags his first lead

Pro­gres­sive chal­lenger Nico­las Duscha­tel final­ly man­aged to over­take his oppo­nent, incum­bent Al Tay­lor, in today’s ini­tial count of ballots.

After trail­ing since Tues­day, Duscha­tel now leads by six­teen votes, with 1,545 bal­lots cast in his favor. 1,539 bal­lots have been cast for Taylor.

This is a race that could eas­i­ly see anoth­er lead change or two by the end of count­ing, depend­ing on how many bal­lots there are left to count.

In the oth­er con­test­ed Wood­inville City Coun­cil race, pro­gres­sive chal­lenger Paul Hagen trails incum­bent Gary Har­ris by forty-sev­en votes.

Hagen has yet to hold a lead in his race.

Var­isha Khan with­in strik­ing dis­tance of Hank Myers in Redmond

A race that did­n’t look com­pet­i­tive at all on Elec­tion Night has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Entrenched con­ser­v­a­tive Hank Myers has been los­ing ground all week to pro­gres­sive chal­lenger Var­isha Khan for Red­mond City Coun­cil Posi­tion #1. Khan is now behind Myers by only one hun­dred and nine­ty-nine votes.

Can she close the gap? Can she over­take Myers?

We’ll find out in a few hours, as King Coun­ty Elec­tions has that sec­ond bal­lot drop planned at around 8:30 PM tonight. This is a key race to watch.

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