Voters are embracing charter amendment to switch King County to even year elections

A pro­posed char­ter amend­ment con­ceived here at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute that would move elec­tions for twelve King Coun­ty offices from odd to even-num­bered years remains pop­u­lar with vot­ers and is des­tined for pas­sage lat­er this month, NPI’s lat­est poll of the King Coun­ty elec­torate has found.

In the aggre­gate, 50% of vot­ers sur­veyed this week by Change Research for NPI said they had already vot­ed for King Coun­ty Char­ter Amend­ment 1 or were plan­ning to, while 21% said they had already vot­ed against the amend­ment or were plan­ning to. 2% said they did­n’t vote on the amend­ment, 11% did not remem­ber how they vot­ed on it, and 16% were not sure how they would vote.

Among vot­ers who had already returned bal­lots, the amend­ment has a lead of near­ly three-to-one. 58% of those vot­ers said they vot­ed yes, while 21% said they vot­ed no. 4% did not vote on the amend­ment and 17% did not recall.

Among vot­ers who had not vot­ed, 37% said they were def­i­nite­ly or prob­a­bly vot­ing yes, while 20% said they were prob­a­bly or def­i­nite­ly vot­ing no.

42% said they were not sure.

Char­ter Amend­ment 1, which was for­ward­ed by the King Coun­ty Coun­cil to vot­ers for con­sid­er­a­tion back in the sum­mer, is sim­ple. It changes the tim­ing of elec­tions for twelve coun­ty posi­tions cur­rent­ly elect­ed in odd years to even-num­bered years, which will increase and diver­si­fy vot­er turnout in elec­tions for those offices. The posi­tions affect­ed by the amend­ment are:

• King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive: The coun­ty’s high­est pro­file job, with immense appoint­ing and admin­is­tra­tive authority.
• King Coun­ty Asses­sor: Inde­pen­dent­ly elect­ed offi­cial who heads the depart­ment respon­si­ble for assess­ing the val­ue of prop­er­ty in the county.
• King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor: Inde­pen­dent­ly elect­ed exec­u­tive offi­cial respon­si­ble for the admin­is­tra­tion of the coun­ty’s elections.
• King Coun­ty Coun­cil (9 posi­tions): Nine-mem­ber body respon­si­ble for mak­ing laws (usu­al­ly styled as ordi­nances) for the county.

The posi­tion of King Coun­ty Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney and the coun­ty’s Supe­ri­or Court judge­ships (when con­test­ed) are already reg­u­lar­ly elect­ed in even years. The adop­tion of Char­ter Amend­ment 1 will put King Coun­ty on the path to elect­ing all of its posi­tions in high­er turnout midterm and pres­i­den­tial cycles by the end of the decade. The switchover will be imple­ment­ed by tem­porar­i­ly elect­ing each of the afore­men­tioned posi­tions to three year terms in 2023 and 2025.

In 2026, the posi­tions of King Coun­ty Asses­sor, King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor, and King Coun­ty Coun­cil (Dis­tricts 2, 4, 6, 8) will appear on an even-year bal­lot for the first time. Then, in 2028, the posi­tion of Exec­u­tive will appear on an even-year bal­lot for the first time along with five more King Coun­ty Coun­cil posi­tions (Dis­tricts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9). Data sug­gest turnout in these elec­tions could as much as dou­ble just from being put on an even-year ballot.

The elec­torates choos­ing these offi­cials will be also be much more diverse fol­low­ing the switch, with far more young vot­ers, vot­ers of col­or, work­ing class vot­ers, and renters par­tic­i­pat­ing in the selec­tion of King Coun­ty’s future leaders.

In addi­tion to NPI, King Coun­ty Char­ter Amend­ment 1 is endorsed by The Seat­tle Times, The Stranger, The Urban­ist, and a grow­ing coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions that believe in inclu­sive elec­tions and a stronger democracy.

Remark­ably and hap­pi­ly, the amend­ment has no orga­nized oppo­si­tion. No one came for­ward to write a state­ment for the voter’s pam­phlet or appear in the video vot­ers guide offered by the Seat­tle Chan­nel and King Coun­ty TV.

Here’s the ques­tions we asked and the answers we received:

Already voted 

QUESTION: This year, vot­ers are con­sid­er­ing King Coun­ty Char­ter Amend­ment 1, con­cern­ing the tim­ing of elec­tions for twelve coun­ty elect­ed posi­tions. The bal­lot title is as fol­lows: Shall the King Coun­ty Char­ter be amend­ed to move elec­tions for the coun­ty offices of exec­u­tive, asses­sor, direc­tor of elec­tions and coun­cilmem­bers from odd-num­bered to even-num­bered years? How did you vote on this char­ter amendment?

Respon­dents who told us that they had already vot­ed were shown this question. 

• Yes: 58%
• No: 21%
• Did not vote on this: 4%
• Don’t recall: 17%

Haven’t yet voted

QUESTION: This year, vot­ers are con­sid­er­ing King Coun­ty Char­ter Amend­ment 1, con­cern­ing the tim­ing of elec­tions for twelve coun­ty elect­ed posi­tions. The bal­lot title is as fol­lows: Shall the King Coun­ty Char­ter be amend­ed to move elec­tions for the coun­ty offices of exec­u­tive, asses­sor, direc­tor of elec­tions and coun­cilmem­bers from odd-num­bered to even-num­bered years? How are you vot­ing on this char­ter amendment?

Respon­dents who told us that they had not yet vot­ed were shown this question.

• Yes: 37%
  • Def­i­nite­ly yes: 17%
  • Prob­a­bly yes: 20%
• No: 20%
  • Prob­a­bly no: 8%
  • Def­i­nite­ly no: 12%
• Not sure: 42%

Aggregate responses

COMBINED ANSWERS (AGGREGATE), BOTH QUESTIONS:

• Yes: 50%
• No: 21%
• Did not vote on this: 2%
• Don’t recall: 11%
• Not sure: 16%

Our sur­vey of 740 like­ly 2022 King Coun­ty gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers was in the field from Fri­day, Octo­ber 28th until today, Thurs­day, Novem­ber 3rd.

The poll was con­duct­ed entire­ly online for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute by Change Research and has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.0%.

Fol­low this link if you’re inter­est­ed in a detailed primer on the survey’s method­ol­o­gy along with infor­ma­tion about who took the poll.

I serve as one of the offi­cers for the Yes on King Coun­ty Char­ter Amend­ment 1 cam­paign, which is urg­ing vot­ers in King Coun­ty to pass the amendment.

The idea for Char­ter Amend­ment 1 orig­i­nat­ed at King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Sarah Per­ry’s elec­tion night par­ty a year ago. Our team, which tracks vot­er turnout close­ly, had noticed that Wash­ing­ton State was once again on track to fall well short of major­i­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion and like­ly set anoth­er shod­dy turnout record.

(After cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, this assess­ment was proven cor­rect: the 2021 gen­er­al elec­tion went into the books as the elec­tion with the third worst turnout in his­to­ry.)

I men­tioned this to King Coun­ty Coun­cil Chair Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci, mus­ing that it sure would be great if we were elect­ing our impor­tant coun­ty posi­tions in years when most vot­ers actu­al­ly return a bal­lot… like 2020 or 2022.

NPI Leg­isla­tive Direc­tor Kathy Saka­hara and I for­mal­ly pitched the idea to Bal­duc­ci in the spring. After study­ing turnout data, Chair Bal­duc­ci enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly took up the cause and intro­duced the amend­ment in the King Coun­ty Council.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of many orga­ni­za­tions that work on vot­ing rights and vot­ing jus­tice offered their sup­port dur­ing a series of pub­lic hear­ings before the Coun­cil’s Com­mit­tee of the Whole, and on June 28th, the Coun­cil vot­ed 7–2 to put the amend­ment on the bal­lot for vot­ers to consider.

Our sum­mer­time sur­vey found great enthu­si­asm for the amend­ment, con­firm­ing ear­li­er research show­ing broad sup­port for even-year elections.

55% of the vot­ers Change Research sur­veyed for us in July-August 2022 indi­cat­ed they’d vote yes for the amend­ment after see­ing just the bal­lot title and no oth­er infor­ma­tion. After hear­ing a bal­anced set of argu­ments for and against, sup­port increased into the six­ties, which was extreme­ly heartening.

Elect­ing coun­ty posi­tions in even years is actu­al­ly the norm in Wash­ing­ton State. Only three coun­ties devi­ate from it: King, Sno­homish, and What­com. Should this amend­ment pass, King Coun­ty will no longer be one of them after 2025.

Amend­ment 1 was draft­ed to ensure that the coun­ty’s top job of Exec­u­tive would move to a pres­i­den­tial cycle when turnout is con­sis­tent­ly at its high­est. In 2028, King Coun­ty could be elect­ing an Exec­u­tive at the same time that we vote for Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States and Gov­er­nor, just like Pierce Coun­ty already does.

We have a cam­paign web­site that answers many fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions about the amend­ment and address­es con­cerns we some­times hear. If you’re look­ing for more infor­ma­tion about the pro­pos­al, I strong­ly rec­om­mend check­ing out that resource. Bal­lots are due back by Novem­ber 8th and 8 PM. We urge you to join us in vot­ing Yes on Char­ter Amend­ment 1 if you are a King Coun­ty voter!