Release the Results!

Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy has announced her intention to wait until Friday evening or Saturday morning after the election to release the "as of" results of the Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) elections. There are no systems reasons why her department needs to wait so long to release these results.

Candidates, the media and the public will want to see these results much earlier in the process. Waiting so long will introduce unneeded suspicion of the process since McCarthy herself is a candidate in one of the hotly contested races. The media, the public and the candidates should pressure McCarthy to release results earlier.

The Auditor's Office has spent money buying software to quickly tabulate the results for RCV races. Now the department needs to use the software in a timely way. The public understands that "as of" results just represent the results based on the ballots which have been tabulated "as of" the time of the release. We have seen races change as more votes are counted. One obvious example was the last Governor's race.

The public wants to know if the contest is close so far or a blowout. The Auditor's office can allow the public to know this information by releasing the results on Tuesday and/or Wednesday evenings. The public is encouraged to email the Auditor's office to demand an earlier release of RCV results. Here is her email address:
pmccart@co.pierce.wa.us.