March 24, 2005
Election Results
Here are the results from Tuesday's King Conservation District commissioner election:
- Richard Gelb 235
- Darlene Madenwald 77
- Write in (Ross Loudenback) 169
- Other 1
Given that the Loudenback candidacy was a write in with little publicity, he did rather well. Of course it is impossible to tell just how much influence Sound Politics had on the outcome, but it is safe to say from the comments on
Tuesday's announcement that a significant number of the votes were cast by our readers.
Some readers have had questions about why this election was not better publicized. Reader Brendan Vaughn wrote to King County about this and got the following response from Julie Moore, Assistant Superintendant of Election Operations:
Thank you for your recent email regarding the election held by the King Conservation District yesterday, March 22, 2005. This is not a jurisdiction that is maintained by King County Elections. They are governed by a different RCW. It is RCW 89.08.
They conduct their own election and do their own notification. They set up their own polling places and staff them. We are not notified or involved in any way.
If you would like to find out more you can go to their web site at www.kingcd.org/abo.htm or to http://filecab.scc.wa.gov/index.html?DIR=Elections/Election_Forms.
Of course, this begs the question, why doesn't the state publicize these elections better, and why aren't they conducted at a more regular time?
Posted by Andy MacDonald at March 24, 2005
10:45 PM | Email This
1. Dear Supporters,
I wanted to thank everyone for his or her support. Although I didn’t win, I think getting 169 votes throughout the County, as a write-in candidate was quite a feat. The campaign really got started the day before the election through the use of email and word of mouth. Many people that didn’t even know me made the extra effort to go to one of the four polling places. As you can see below, the winner and incumbent, Richard Gelb received an overwhelming amount of support from Seattle. He works for the City of Seattle and the polling place was within a block of his workplace. Most of my supporters had at least a 20 mile round trip to a polling place and those of us from North Bend, had around a 40 mile trip. That extra effort my supporters extended is what I appreciate most. It was a fun day as we received calls and emails from supporters saying things like “I have 4 in my car and we’re heading to Carnation!” .
It will be important for those that support property rights and common sense management of our environment that we become aware of these types of elections and make sure we have representation. Hopefully in the next King County Conservation District election, there will be more publicity of the election and maybe a polling place on the Eastside along the I-90 Corridor.
Sincerely,
Ross Loudenback
Unofficial Results By Polling Station
Carnation
Gelb 7
Madenwald 38
Write in (Loudenback) 80
Renton
Gelb 10
Madenwald 17
Write in (Loudenback) 35
Seattle
Gelb 212
Madenwald 20
Write in (Loudenback) 15
Enumclaw
Gelb 6
Madenwald 2
Write in (Loudenback) 39
2. Ross,
You are the true winner, the Seattle numbers speak for themselves with all of the nonsense going on. You probably won outright! Keep us posted for your next run and we might be able to see that you win.
3. Andy, thanks for adding that email that I received back from the KCOE. It was helpful for them to be so responsive!
I did find a document which does draw into question the Seattle polling place:
http://filecab.scc.wa.gov/Elections/Election_Forms/Section_500_Elections.doc
2.2 The polling places selected must have sufficient parking and be easily accessible to those with disabilities.
I'm not convinced that City Hall has sufficient parking... but who's counting.
Here's another:
5. Each polling location shall have a locked ballot box.
The polling place I went to had a cardboard box... tape is now considered a "lock"
4. Unfortunately, now we have to be suspicious of the numbers coming out of this election. '04 showed we just can't be sure.
I think the SEattle number IS suspicious; espcially with what sounded like very lax procedures for this election, such as bmvaughn just described.
5. I heard about this the day before the election via email from a friend. I'm sorry that I didn't make it, especially since it would involve a trip to Carnation. I think this was designed to make it harder for non-206 area code folk.
6. I wasn't calling into question the results of the election. I think it's quite plausible that Mr. Gelb had a number of co-workers show up at the polls that day... who knows, maybe he sent out an office-wide email telling people to vote.
What I was questioning was their adherence to their own bylaws... it seems odd to me that they would write in provisions for good parking and then hold the polling place at 5th & James... not exactly the most accessible. In addition, I'd question why there was no locked ballot box... I don't think there was necessarily a reason to have a locked ballot box in the first place.... but why was it specified in Section 500 then?
True.. had the Seattle polling place not been there, Mr Gelb would likely not have won... though it would have been tougher to convince his coworkers to drive to Enumclaw. Luckily, they could all vote on their lunch hour.
7. Dave Ross publicized the election on his talk show the day of the election. I believe he is in fvor of the Critical Areas Ordinance and am almost certain most of his listeners are. His efforts may have contributed to the result in Seattle, though you would have to look at past elections to see if those numbers are unusual. (They don't strike me as unusual, offhand.)
8. Just a general comment- great stuff over the past couple weeks- you guys really do a good job.
One observation on why KC Elections doesn't get involved in this election...couple of days ago, Ron Sims mentioned in a Seattle P-I article that the "public wants less elected officials"..perhaps there is some truth to that backed up by policy in his election dept.
I think the article was regarding an ombudsman for the rural areas. I thought elected officials were to be ombudsmen for their constituents. Novel idea, I know.
9. OK, now that readers here have flexed their political muscles in the Conservation District realm, would someone kindly explain to us what heck Conservation Districts actually do and how most readers here are in any way affected by their actions?
PS: I already know the answer ... but do you?
10. Elections for CD's are written into RCW 89.08, I think. They call for an election in the first quarter of the year, if memory serves me. It's an archaic (sp?) system to be sure, designed long ago. Efforts in the past few years have been made to correct this with no success since it will require changing the state law. With elections being so expensive and most conservation districts having so little money, it would be impossible for most districts to hold an election in the usual sense of the word. Boards consist of 2 appointed officials by the Washington State Conservation Commission and 3 elected officials by the terms of 89.08. CD's are a subdivision of the state of Washington. They function as a nonregulatory agency working with farmers to help them keep their farms legal and operational in a world of ever increasing regulations on them. In many cases, farmers cited for illegal activity, like polluting waterbodies of the state with dairy waste, for example, are given the opportunity to voluntarily begin working toward mitigation of their activities without a regulatory fine. It's a good idea since many farms are operating on the edge of going out of business all the time. It's important to keep them operational since food does not actually come from Safeway, but from farms. No farms, no food. It's really very simple. In the past decade, CD's have been at the leading edge of dealing with salmon habitat since much of this habitat is on rural lands, hence more tax and grant money going to the districts. I support election of district board members being in the general election but a system must be developed that keeps it from becoming as expensive as it is, otherwise, the already tight conservation oriented dollars would be used to pay for elections and not conservation practices.
11. Bob the Builder wins the prize!
12. Andy, matt and Stefan have made it very clear. It is a vast left wing conspiracy whenever it is something right wing nutters don't like!
Haven;t you learned ANYTHING from unSound Politics?
It's the Pravda of the KKKvi radio brutes