Normally, I eagerly await King County’s 4:30 pm day-after-Election-Day ballot drop in order to spot election-changing trends in late ballots, but in a nod to the total lack of drama in Tuesday’s results, I instead chose to go hiking yesterday afternoon. And as expected, in the one race that was truly being decided in this election, Seattle Proposition 1 (Metropolitan Park District) slightly expanded its comfortable election night lead from 52.4%-47.6% to an even more comfortable 52.7%-47.3%.
That shift may not sound like much, but it pretty much plunges a stake through heart of any chance that the No side might prevail through a surge of late ballots. Of the 14,107 Seattle ballots tallied yesterday, greater than 54.9% of them voted Yes on Prop 1. And while two data points isn’t generally enough to plot a trend, given the fact that ballots are generally counted chronologically, first in/first out, these late-ish ballots (mostly arriving Monday and Tuesday) safely indicate that late voters were at least modestly more supportive of Prop 1 than those who mailed in their ballots over the prior three weeks.
In any case, there just aren’t that many ballots remaining. King County Elections reported 138,929 Seattle ballots had arrived by 8pm yesterday. That number won’t dramatically increase. Yet 113,928 have already been counted. That means the No camp would have to win better than 62 percent of the remaining ballots in order to overcome their current 6,158 vote deficit. Not gonna happen.
So, yeah, Prop 1 wins. And probably by about an eight-point margin.
No wonder the Seattle Times editorial board is almost aphasic in its apoplexy.
I wonder if the advertising might of the Times matches its editorial might.
Sometimes seeing the handwriting on the wall, but not wanting to accept what it says, causes one to be aphasic. You would have thought the Times would have gotten the message at the inaugural ball of Governor McKenna.
I don’t think all newspapers are dead. I think some newspapers are dead. You wonder why any candidate shows up for a Times endorsement meeting any more.
“late voters were at least modestly more supportive of Prop 1”
That may have something to do with you, Goldy. You’re the journalist who exposed the dirty tactics and vacuous lies of the “No” campaign.
I only get the Times to support the UNION workers and the friends I have who work there.
Oh….I suppose for the comic relief too.
I actually changed my vote, was voting no, but the negative campaign, and a little research into the Tacoma Metropolitan Parks District, changed my mind. Although the Seattle District will be governed by a board made up of council members, Tacoma’s MetroParks, with it’s directly elected board, has been around for about a hundred years. It’s one model of a Metropolitan Parks District in Washington State, though.