ELECTION 2023: Results update is in, hampered by powder scare

The second set of King County general-election results is in – but it didn’t add much to the totals in our local races; the elections team lost time today because of a powder scare – here’s how they explained it:

This morning, King County Elections received a piece of mail that contained white powder. The envelope was immediately isolated, the facility evacuated, and 911 was called. Law enforcement and HAZMAT teams arrived quickly to assess the situation.

The piece of concerning mail arrived in our mailroom, on the first floor, in our administrative suite. All ballots remained secured on the ballot processing floor and were monitored by both security cameras and livestreamed webcams viewable on the King County Elections website.

This situation kept Elections staff out of the building and away from processing ballots for approximately three hours. After the mailroom was cleared and cleaned by HAZMAT, staff returned to work and processing resumed for the day.

In all, the new results only add 20,000 ballots countywide, only several hundred in City Council District 1, which is at the same margin as last night:

SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 1
Maren Costa – 7,265 – 40.91%
Rob Saka – 10,393 – 58.53%

For the closest race in our area, County Council District 8, close to 2,000 more ballots have been counted, and the gap is wider than last night, more than a point and a half:

KING COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT 8
Teresa Mosqueda – 17,224 – 50.68%
Sofia Aragon – 16,612 – 48.88%

Find the full set of updated results here. Next update is due out by 4 pm tomorrow.

N November 8, 2023 (4:51 pm)

For context, 24% of registered voters in district one have had ballots counted. If possible, can you add the % counted in future updates. Any idea why the update was so small? Does this indicate most of the drop off boxes had already been counted yesterday.

WSB November 8, 2023 (5:08 pm)

As noted in the story, they lost three hours of counting time today.
Amy November 8, 2023 (5:23 pm)

Did you read the above story?

West Seattle Mad Sci Guy November 8, 2023 (5:48 pm)

The Seattle Times is reporting that the envelope contained Fentanyl. I was expecting it was a prank with sugar. Fentanyl is no joke.

ARPigeonPoint November 8, 2023 (6:00 pm)

Earlier, KUOW reported that other counties received similar envelopes today.

Jeff November 8, 2023 (6:01 pm)

I understand there were incidents in Tacoma and Spokane as well. This is domestic terrorism and should be treated as such

DW November 8, 2023 (7:45 pm)

My understanding is that they did a presumptive drug test for fentanyl. That does not mean it is fentanyl. Many substances give false positives.

fieldtestsarecrud November 9, 2023 (12:49 am)

field tests have been used to stop and search people, arrest them and imprison them only to be proven false time and again. the fact that seattle times still is running that highly misleading headline is ridiculous. And, sending white powders is scary and I’m sorry the electoral workers had to experience that. Also contract with fentanyl can’t give you and overdose.
R November 9, 2023 (8:12 am)

Unfortunately they did find fentanyl in the white powder in king county. The news reported it this morning. Lame.

elephant in the room November 8, 2023 (9:25 pm)

Any idea the total number of registered voters in district #1? Curious to see what percentage voted.

WSB November 8, 2023 (9:58 pm)

It’s on the returns document.
74,574 registered voters in D-1.
So far 24.44 percent of those voters’ ballots have been counted.

Checking the ballot-returns page, so far they’ve received ballots from 36.73 percent of D-1 voters;
- DC November 9, 2023 (12:44 pm)
  
  Wow, up to 45.42% after the noon update. Nearly half of the ballots yet to be counted…

TechBrosUnite November 9, 2023 (10:51 am)

Sounds like TechBro Saka might have this one in the bag. This is a big win for tech/business as well as for Harrell (being the hand picked candidate of the mayor). Rob seems like a mostly decent guy and will likely do a good job for the mayor and folks that donated to his campaign.

flimflam November 9, 2023 (12:35 pm)

Isn’t Saka an attorney? Didn’t Costa actually work in tech?
Oh Seattle November 9, 2023 (12:36 pm)

Why do you call the candidate who was an attorney at Meta and Microsoft a techbro, but not his opponent, who was a UX designer at Amazon and Microsoft? Costa even self-identifies as a “tech leader”. What makes Saka a techbro? What makes Costa not a techbro?
K November 9, 2023 (12:38 pm)

If he’s anything like Harrell, he’ll do a good job of cashing the city’s paychecks without doing much work for anyone.