ELECTION 2015: District 1 City Council vote gap gets smaller after tonight’s results release

7:11 PM: King County Elections has just published the only set of results it plans to release today/tonight. See the full list here; if you’re watching the District 1 City Council race, Shannon Braddock was ahead of Lisa Herbold by 729 votes as of last night, and tonight, her lead is 638:

Shannon Braddock – 8491 – 51.69%
Lisa Herbold – 7853 – 47.81%

Next update is scheduled for 4:30 pm Friday. Today’s 4:30 pm release was canceled because of technical trouble that the county explains here.

11:11 PM: According to King County’s ballot-return stats, updated nightly at 8 pm separate from the results, more than 10,000 ballots are waiting to be counted in this race.

LivesinWS November 5, 2015 (7:25 pm)

My ballot rec’d but not yet counted. Another vote coming for you, Lisa!

M November 5, 2015 (7:46 pm)

The gap may have narrowed but it it is also one day later. I am feeling more confident in a Shannon victory.

chemist November 5, 2015 (7:48 pm)

Wow, pretty impressive to pick up 100 votes over your competition.

Also, the language on the ballot tracker is “will be counted” and doesn’t change beyond that. It won’t say “has been counted”.

Harold November 5, 2015 (7:49 pm)

So KC elections had at least 6,000 votes in the D1 race sitting around all day and they only counted 2,000 and now they blame it on the IT system ? For anyone who has spent any time in the business world you know what a poor excuse this is. Both candidates have put their hearts and souls into this race and now they have to sit around and wait for K.C. elections to figure out how to use their own system. Very sad.

Atomicoven November 5, 2015 (7:56 pm)

Mine rec’d but not counted too. Come on Shannon. Perhaps Lisa can get a position in Sawant’s office

e November 5, 2015 (9:42 pm)

Uh, Harold, you do realize that King County Elections has to count ballots for all of King County, not just D1? And that the glitch – from an old system because voters around here are too cheap to pay taxes to enable them to update their computer system – simply delayed the reporting of today’s by three hours? And that those results weren’t ever likely to provide a clear picture of the ultimate winner? But go ahead, blame it on people who are working as hard as they can to serve cranky people like you.

ws_suzanne November 5, 2015 (10:47 pm)

e — Well said.

Diane November 6, 2015 (12:01 am)

jeez, that explanation re technical issue causes me concern about us getting accurate counts

Tucker November 6, 2015 (2:25 am)

The math starts to get a bit in the weeds and confusing with so many numbers floating around.
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If you download results here (currently last updated at the 7pm 11/5/15 update): http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/2015/nov-general/results/results.pdf

It has D1 at 18,201 ballots counted.
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If you look at the ballot return stats here: https://info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/ballotreturnstats/default.aspx

It has 27,298 ballots (out of 27,689 returned) verified and moved on to counting.
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By those numbers, there are roughly 9100 ballots left to count. Of course, the potential for more ballots to arrive exists. So, this one could be going on for a while. This and the D2 race are the only council races that don’t have clear winners yet.

redblack November 6, 2015 (5:38 am)

16000 ballots out of 26000 have been counted. a lot of water has yet to pass under the bridge.

Roxy November 6, 2015 (6:21 am)

I used to work election day at polling places. I was impressed with the security protocols. Better accurate than rushed for the impatient among us.

JoAnne November 6, 2015 (8:20 am)

We are paying some of the highest taxes in the country. I notice this attracts parasites.

JoAnne November 6, 2015 (8:29 am)

Whatever the election results are, they were accomplished with a voter turnout of less than 30%. This means for close fights, winning was possible with less than 16% support from registered voters.
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I get that people are busy–we all are these days–but here is no excuse for checking out on your civic responsibility.

WSB November 6, 2015 (8:37 am)

Totally agree with your message – but right now, the number of ballots received (not counted, but received – see above) for the D-1 race is at 45 percent of what was mailed out. Since ballots had to be postmarked by Tuesday if they were going into the postal mail, can’t imagine that many more will be received, so it certainly may stop below 50 percent. P.S. And also keep in mind, as we’ve noted before, that registration itself falls far short of the number of people ELIGIBLE to vote, so the percentage of voting-eligible residents who decide things, compared to the percentage of those actually registered, is even more miniscule …

e November 6, 2015 (8:46 am)

JoAnne,

Perhaps you could share with us the source for your claim that we pay some of the highest taxes in the country, especially as most independent analyses suggest we pay some of the *lowest* taxes in the country. We pay relatively high (though not by any means the highest) property taxes and sales taxes, but that’s primarily because we pay no income tax.

And the parasites may not be who you think they are: Eastern Washington, for example, consumes far more in tax spending than it produces in tax revenue.

ehyi November 6, 2015 (9:19 am)

I think e is referring to this article on a recent tax study: http://kuow.org/post/just-how-heavy-seattles-tax-burden

“Seattle’s tax burden remains one of the lowest in the land, at least for people with a middle income or better…
…around the seventh-lowest overall.
But there was one important exception, and that is the reality faced at an income of around $25,000. The study found that families earning that amount in Seattle faced the 13th-highest tax burden among the major cities in 2013. Philadelphia had the highest burden in that income level and was first or second for all brackets…

A low-income family in Portland paid about 6 percent of its income to state and local taxes. In Seattle, the same family paid nearly double that rate.

One reason for this is our sales tax, the fourth highest among the major cities. It doesn’t break the bank for people who are comfortable. But it counts when you aren’t.

A Seattle family making $100,000 a year was paying 6.5 percent of its income to state and local taxes. The same family in Portland was paying double that.

The reasons: Washington state has no income tax, and property tax rates in Seattle are less than they are in Portland.”

wscommuter November 6, 2015 (9:24 am)

@e … you took the words out of my mouth. Well said.
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I have this fantasy where we apportion government spending according to the county which generates the tax revenue. But then all the non-Puget Sound counties would collapse without the subsidized spending they get from King, Pierce and Snoho. Maybe that would cause some of the anti-gov’t/anti-tax folks to reconsider their views on taxation in this state (yes … ranting against Tim Eyman et al … please forgive the digression).

pjmanley November 6, 2015 (10:16 am)

I know it’s populist to rail against Eastern WA and outlying counties, but I’m happy to support the folks over there with subsidies so the rural areas of our state can survive. Ever driven through Wilbur in August, when the wheat fields are almost copper in color? Stunningly beautiful. Not many states have big cities within 90 minutes of rural heartland. We’re lucky to live in a state with so much geographic diversity.

alkistu November 6, 2015 (11:44 am)

We get what we pay for. From under staffed elections office to the condition of our roads we are the benefactors of relatively underfunded systems. Regardless of the D1 victor West Seattle needs to push for developer impact fees to help reduce the home owners cost of Prop 1. Our roads are being increasingly ruined from the mass construction in West Seattle. The developers need to be held accountable.

wscommuter November 6, 2015 (12:13 pm)

@pjmanley – gosh, and I agree with you … I would not actually support taking eastern WA off the subsidies we give them – just that the fantasy occurs to me when I see the anti-gov’t folks over there slamming Seattle, etc., and screaming for tax cuts.
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In my true fantasy world, we’d figure out that we’re all in this together and realize that government, while often not perfect, is usually trying to do good for all of us.

Kimmy November 6, 2015 (1:40 pm)

Well said, PJmanley. I have had the opportunity to live in both Seattle and rural 509. I’m thrilled we have each other–we live in a really beautiful state and both urban and rural have so much to offer.

e November 6, 2015 (3:20 pm)

@pjmanley – I agree with what has been said as well. I want to clarify that my suggestion was not that the state should reduce the amount of funds heading to Eastern WA. Rather, I read comments about “parasites” as railing about people on welfare (or in this particular case, civil servants right now working their tails off). I believe if people are going to complain about how tax money gets spent, they should at least know how it is spent before they direct their frustration at the wrong people.

pjmanley November 6, 2015 (4:25 pm)

I get it, e. I think several days of tension and anticipation in close races just wrings people out & makes them testy. Maybe a nice long drive to Ellensburg would decompress them. I know it’s populist in E WA to bash “the Coast” as well, but the brighter minds on both sides, and in both parties, get the big picture. That stuff makes headlines, but it never goes far in Oly.

Sorry, comment time is over.