Have you voted for county Elections Director yet? 3 more days

Just a reminder in case you set your ballot aside when it arrived and haven’t gotten back to it yet: Next Tuesday is the special election for King County Elections Director, which is now an elected position because of a county Charter Amendment approved in November. Five people are running, including Sherril Huff, who’s in the job now; their names are listed here and linked to more information. This is an all-mail election, and you can’t send the ballot via USPS without a stamp; to skip the stamp cost, you can take your ballot to the drop box at the Delridge Neighborhood Services Center (5405 Delridge; here’s a map; here’s a list of other dropoff locations countywide). For people with disabilities who might have difficulty using the mail-in ballot, here’s information on “accessible voting centers” where the vote can be cast in person. If you’ve mailed your ballot, you can check here if it arrived. (To read the latest news reports on this race, go here.)

Alvis January 31, 2009 (1:56 pm)

I predict this election will set a record for low voting numbers. It’s hard to fathom how any responsible candidate for Elections Director would agree to squandering public funds (plus charging voters for postage!) on a special mid-winter election with nothing on the ballot except the Election Director position itself.

WSB January 31, 2009 (2:01 pm)

A few jurisdictions outside Seattle have various issues/positions on the ballot too, fwiw. And while it’s impossible to tell how many people read the fine print, the charter amendment approved by voters, making this an elected position, stipulated that the first election would be held in a special election on this date:
http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/contests/measureinfo.aspx?cid=31868&eid=1226
As of 2011, it’ll be in the regular primary/general elections, according to the language there.
That said, as longtime in-person voters, I wrote this item to remind co-publisher and I to get the ballots in the mail, as much as to remind everything else! They’ve been sitting in the clutter atop the TV since they arrived. It’s going to be hard to get used to voting that way …

Bob Shields January 31, 2009 (2:49 pm)

The current elections director and candidate, Sherril Huff, favored having a primary in August with the election in November, but, as WSB pointed out, that isn’t the schedule the voters got to vote on.

I think Alvis brings out what is wrong with electing a director in a large jurisdiction like King County, the 16th largest in the USA. Outcomes of elections and when they occur are out of the director’s hands, but there are those who want to blame the director, anyway.

The people who wanted Dino Rossi to win in 2004 pushed hardest for an elected director, but if the director follows the law – outcomes won’t be different, and Rossi would have lost regardless of who the director was.

The various districts, cities and the county council determine when elections occur, not the elections director. The director just sends the bill.