Seattle Times: "Election-director initiative likely to qualify for ballot"
Elections Director Sherril Huff reports 31,000 signatures (of 74,000) have been checked, with 24,000 valid (towards a 52,817 target), and expects to finish this week. Good.
The County Council should have plenty of time before the September 21 deadline to debate whether to put the Charter change question on this November's ballot so we can elect the Elections Director before the 2008 election, or whether to make us vote on the question twice and postpone electing the Elections Director until 2009. The only stated objection to the former is this:
Timing of a possible amendment is sensitive, in part because the County Council has directed Huff to institute a switch to all-mail voting next year.This makes no sense. The Council Democrats have been telling us that most people want mail-only voting and the opposition is insignificant. How would democratizing the elections office derail a widely embraced, common-sense reform like mail-only voting? Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 20, 2007 11:36 AM | Email This
If the charter amendment is affirmed this fall, when does the election for thenew positionhappen?
special election in spring of 2008?
who's going to run?
Posted by: Seattle Democrat on August 20, 2007 11:54 AM
If the charter change is approved by the voters (which would have to be at a November general election), the first election for director will be held at the subsequent February special election.
So yes, if the charter change is approved by the voters this November, the director would be elected in February 2008.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on August 20, 2007 11:59 AMNotice the 'selected' election director is all of a sudden speeding up the counting. We'll be done by the end of the week and not month as originally forecast by the director during the 'slowdown'.
Posted by: swatter on August 20, 2007 01:34 PMYou're going on the assumption that a local whiny political blogger has real power. Sound Politics is not Daily Kos/Powerline Blog. I seem to recall that most people who receive SP endorsements end up loosing in the general election (Reichert being the exception).
I don't think for one second that Stefan's railing at the work slowdown by staffers on a vendetta to humilate Stefan and the election process had much of an effect.
However, I do think his railing hit some cords on some politicos on the R side, including sponsor/cosponsor/supporter Toby Nixon, Chris Vance and others that forced the issue.
If Stefan did not have his facts out there and if the actions of the very "unpublic" servants weren't so obvious, this wouldn't have happened.
Posted by: swatter on August 20, 2007 04:36 PMI dunno....maybe The Slog. Not all political but they certainly dwell on their fair share of issues (and they make endorsements). I don't know the traffic breakdown between Horses Ass and Sound Politics (nor do I really care).