Armed with the latest results and additional data, HA now projects challenger Charlie Wiggins the winner in his race against incumbent State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders, by a 12,758 vote margin… you know, give or take a couple thousand.
For each county I divided total votes cast in the race by total ballots counted, and multiplied that by the estimated ballots on hand to calculate the estimated votes remaining. Then, to adjust for the late-ballot trend, I divvied up the remaining votes between the two candidates based on the percentage of the vote each respective candidate has received in results released after election night.
While Sanders has led Wiggins since the first ballot drop, and remains ahead by 3,785 votes, the late ballots have trended strongly in Wiggins’ favor throughout much of the state. Wiggins led in only eight counties on election night, but has led in 14 counties in the ballots counted since. Furthermore, more than half of the votes remaining lie in King County, where Wiggins has won over 61 percent of the late ballots. If anything, my calculations underestimate Wiggins strength, by failing to adjust for the favorable trend within the late ballots.
Based on these numbers it is safe to project that Wiggins will take the lead (and never give it up) once King releases today’s results. But I’m guessing it won’t be until early evening tomorrow before the rest of the media declares Wiggins the winner.
Another race where Goldy calls it first!
Hey, Goldy: Please take a look at the 41st LD Senate race. Randy Gordon now trails Steve Litzow by only 775 votes. Can Gordon pull this one out?
You’re failing to take into account the massive undervote that occurs with these judicial races. There are much fewer votes left for Wiggins to get in King County than it appears.
Tyler @3,
No I’m not. Read the post. I divided the votes counted by the ballots counted. In King that comes to 73.5%, a few points shy of the 76.6% rate for the state as a whole. My spreadsheet adjusts for this on a county by county basis.
Sarge @2,
Unfortunately, Randy would have to win almost 54% of the remaining ballots to pass Litzow, and he hasn’t been enjoying that sort of margin in any of the counts.
Well, yay.
@5 Goldy: I just found a batch of uncounted ballots in the back seat of my car.
I am dying to see tonight’s new counts. I voted for Wiggins, I hate Colonel Sanders, and this should be sweet.
Sarge: I think you’re breaking the law.
@1 And our trolls argue Goldy isn’t a journalist and HA isn’t a new outlet? Once again, they’re prove wrong. But then, they’ve never been right about anything.
erratum @9: proven not prove
@8 Please don’t confuse the (late) good colonel with the gadfly justice. Thank God it’s only a state supreme court, and not the real thing.
Just to head off any potential confusion, my preceding comment isn’t inconsistent with some previous comments I’ve posted that appear to defend Justice Sanders. I have a problem with Sanders’ off-bench behavior, which on several occasions has flirted with inappropriateness if not crossing the line, and I’ve said so. I’ve also defended him as an independent thinker who’s not in the BIAW’s or any other special interest group’s pocket (which is true), as a libertarian who defends individual rights and civil liberties on the court (which also is true) as opposed to the conservative stalinists who favor using the power of government to force their values and beliefs on everyone else, and as a smart and thoughtful guy with whom you can have an intelligent conversation on such fascinating topics as constitutional law (which also is true) even if his views are somewhat tainted by dogmatism and therefore true intellectual give-and-take is lacking (which also is true). In other words, Sanders is a mixed bag; you could do worse, but you also could do better, and I voted for Wiggins because Wiggins is better.
Shit, Roger!
When it comes to a reproductive freedom and sexual orientation, he’s a fascist just like the conservatives. And then there is the nutty and gravely dangerous glibertarian notion of anything goes when it comes to property rights — neighbors be damned!
That he is a friend to the criminal defense bar doesn’t come close to making up for those things.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
Wabbit: “…conservative stalinists”
This is so very true. Scratch a conservative and many of them are Stalinists (look up Lysenkoism for example). They worship power, especially the power to be an asshole.
Glibertarians like Sanders exhibit the same tendencies, even those who compare themselves to anarchists–claiming they detest “the state”. Their thinking tends to be even more sloppy and reckless than just about any Stalinist.
Congratulations, Judge Wiggins.
And Zeiger Loses!
All is right with the world.
@13 “When it comes to a reproductive freedom and sexual orientation, he’s a fascist just like the conservatives.
I think whether a fetus should be considered a non-human cell mass and whether aborting it should be a personal right of the woman carrying it, or whether a fetus should be considered a human being deserving of society’s protection against its destruction by the mother, is a legitimate issue for debate. I don’t claim to know the answer to that one. SCOTUS admitted in Roe v. Wade they couldn’t figure out the answer, so they drew arbitrary lines between the first, second, and third trimesters.
Is abortion an exercise of “reproductive freedom”? Or homicide? Rhetoric counts for a lot in the abortion debate — but doesn’t provide any answers to the truly deep questions underlying this debate.
I personally believe abortion is a moral wrong. I base this on my personal values, and my personal moral and religious beliefs. It’s also part of my abortion position that other people’s values, and moral and religious beliefs, may differ from mine and I don’t have a right to dictate to them. Thus, I think abortion should be a personal moral decision.
Given this issue’s complexity, and its openness to a variety of views, I don’t think it’s appropriate to label anyone a “fascist” for saying abortion is a wrong that society should prohibit, like other actions we label as cimes because they hurt someone other than ourselves. Yes, they want to tell you want you can or can’t do, but isn’t that what we all do when we tell a mugger he can’t rob us? The right-to-lifers are sincere people with an honest motivation: They believe they’re trying to save the lives of innocent babies from a social and legal policy they believe to be wrong. Calling them “fascists” is too harsh. In my view, they become “fascists” when they harass abortion clinic workers and patients, blow up buildings, and murder doctors. Sinply arguing their moral case doesn’t make them “fascists.”
But, Roger: There is only one valid view: Trust women. Everything else is obfuscation that mask distruct of women and their individual rights.
Let’s assume the womb fascists got their way.
How do we punish?
Isn’t the level of Gov surveillance, etc. necessary to enforce and punish a woman for the choice she makes about her body renders any glibertarian that has an ant-choice view at least a proto fascist and most definitely a hypocrite?
How many “pro-lifers” do you know that do not have a religious (superstitious) basis for their “conviction”?
Essentially, the superstitious basis of their views makes them bigots. The level government control implied to impose their superstitious view of the world makes them fascist bigots.
@18 There is no issue on earth for which there is only one valid view.
Sorry, Zotz, I’m on Roger’s side on this one. The use of the words “Fascists” and “Bigots” isn’t justified in dealing with people who have sincere beliefs on the abortion issue, regardless of the basis for those beliefs, or whichever side of the issue they fall.
And like Roger, I researve the right to apply different criteria to people depending upon their actions.
Prior to Roe vs. Wade, there were a multitude of court decisions trying to decide whether a fetus was “viable” for the purpose of sustaining life outside the womb. Most of those decisions came with respect to murder prosecutions, where the mother might have survived an asault but her unborn child did not. Reading those cases reveals the rather arbitrary nature of the line we try to draw to designate the start of life. As Roger noted, the court in Roe vs. Wade tried to exercise a similar logic, applying the best science as they knew it at the time, and more or less punted on the outcome in what appears to be a compromise decision.
So when does life begin? The Bible teaches that life exits even before conception, which has been the basis for the Catholic church’s position on birth control. Some argue that it begins the moment the mother’s egg is breached by the sperm cell. Others argue it begins the time the egg attaches to the womb. Still others go by the trimester approach, and the most ardent abortion rights advocates say it begins only upon actual delivery.
As for me, I have no idea. But like Roger, when a potential for human life is involved, I tend to err on the side of caution in exercising protection of that potential life.
I guess this makes me a fascist or a bigot, in your eyes. So be it.
Peole will differ on their personal religious viewpoint or their personal moral viewpoint re: abortion, contraception, or what have you. However, our republic is not allowed to support an establishment of religion.
The problem with “deciding” that a zygote must have its “life” “protected” is that by doing so you are using the power of the state to force a woman to give birth against her will.
When will we stasrt sending women to prison for hard time for terminating a pregnancy? Doctors too. And Midwives. Parents, boyfriends, and/or girlfriends of the perp should go the the slam as accomplices.
Oh, and rhp?
Wrong, wrong, wrong. “The most ardent abortion rights advocates” say that the legal personhood of a (previously) unborn child, the point at which it acquires the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of a legal person, begins at delivery.
The problem with “deciding” that a zygote must have its “life” “protected” is that by doing so you are using the power of the state to force a woman to give birth against her will.
When will we stasrt sending women to prison for hard time for terminating a pregnancy? Doctors too. And Midwives. Parents, boyfriends, and/or girlfriends of the perp should go the the slam as accomplices.
Oh, and rhp?
Wrong, wrong, wrong. “The most ardent abortion rights advocates” say that the legal personhood of a (previously) unborn child, the point at which it acquires the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of a legal person, begins at delivery.
I thought we couldn’t post twice? Weird.
Daddy Love: perhaps it allows you to post twice, if you really, really mean it.
I agree that’s HALF of the problem. The total problem is that we have two lives, mother and fetus, which are inexerably bound together at least through birth, if not beyond. Their interests sometimes conflict with one another.
When that occurs, which side should we protect? It might make it easier and more convenient to decide to ignore the interests of one side, by determining that it is not yet a valid entity worthy of protection. But does that make it the correct decision?
If you believe that life begins sometime before birth, then wouldn’t any fair balancing of the interests of the mother and the fetus reach the conclusion that delivering a baby, although a significant sacrifice by the mother, is less harmful to her than the death of the fetus is to it?
As for the impact of protecton upon state vs. inididual liberties, I agree that enforcement is a tricky issue. But note that currently we are willing to imprison a woman who refuses to nurse or otherwise feed a newborn child, or protect it from cold or danger. Some states have sought to imprison mothers who used drugs during pregnancy. In both instances, the mother’s rights are seriously impared by her obligation towards her newborn. (Of course, she can discharge some of her responsibility by surrendering her baby to the care of the state). Does a few days, or weeks, make that much of a difference so that the rights of the mother toward the fetus/baby reverse themselves 180 degrees? And at what point does that reversal occur – can anyone say with any certainty that it begins at the border of the first trimester, the second, or the third, or at actual birth?
Wiggins now up 4K, with 80K votes left in King County (where he’s winning, 58/42).
WOW! Wiggins up!
http://vote.wa.gov/elections/W.....de=Results
Richard B. Sanders
902,771 49.90 %
Charlie Wiggins
906,262 50.10 %
Total Votes 1,809,033 100.00%
I think Snohomish County posts at 7:00 p.m. I’m keeping my fingers crossed there.
Interesting to see that Garfield County is marked in yellow, Wiggins is winning there.
But with only some 850 or so votes counted, that means only a couple of dozen votes difference.
I doubt either side is looking to make up significant numbers with any remaining uncounted ballots there!
Only if your view is based on superstition and you advocate the force of law to impose it on others, in this case women.
Well, I did take into consideration undervotes (25% of people statewide have been skipping this race), and I did three tests. All assume that the ballots remaining times 100%-undervote (different per county) will be cast. One is the expected total, and the other two give each candidate a boost of 5%. All three models state that Wiggins will win the race. So it appears HA is correct.