McCarthy still leading County Executive race
Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy saw her lead shrink in the preliminary results published tonight, but the lead appears to be significant enough to hold up through further vote counting.
In the results published Tuesday night, McCarthy's lead over Pierce County Council member Shawn Bunney was 8507 votes after the allocation of Mike Lonergan and Calvin Goings' supporters' second choices. Tonight the lead had shrunk to 6695 votes. This represented a significant decline in the percentage lead, but Bunney will need stage a big swing in the remaining ballots to overcome McCarthy's 6695 vote lead.
McCarthy is still receiving more support from Lonergan and Goings supporters than Bunney. The big margin amongst Goings supporters was expected since both McCarthy and Goings are Democrats. Lonergan, though, tried to run as a Republican, but was rejected. One would have expected that Lonergan supporters would mostly be Republicans, but McCarthy and Goings were getting the majority of the second choices.
The schedule calls for these results to be updated again next Friday. Given the closeness of the race, it would be good if the Elections Department added a Monday or Tuesday update to this race.
Labels: Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer race, Pierce County Council race, Pierce County Executive race
posted by Kelly Haughton @ 8:51 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
I'm confused, Kelly.
The TNT states that Bunney has taken a 2 point lead over McCarthy
(see http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics/2008/11/07/executive_s_race_bunney_cuts_into_mccart).
I'm also confused about how to read the document at
http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/xml/abtus/ourorg/aud/Elections/RCV/ranked/exec/summary.pdf.
Dale Washam is crazy. Not even "Oh I don't like his politics" crazy - he's literally crazy.
Not a good sign.
Hooray! for Dale Washam. Let's get professional politicians out of office and elect a person of the people. Ken Madsen has been an embarrassment for Pierce
County and is better known for his politically expedient methods, his knowledge of property taxes was non-existent. Go Dale and clean up the mess.
I thought I liked RCV until I realized that it will take at least 1-1/2 weeks after the voting is done to declare a winner in a simple race for County Executive. Voters, not to mention the candidates, are entitled to know the day of an election, or shortly thereafter, on the outcome of all races.
WA needs to require all vote by mail ballots to be received the day before the election so that they can be tabulated by the time the polls close. If polling places are to remain at all, then "early voting" (up to 2 weeks prior to the election date) must be the law in WA so that election day lines and problems are eliminated. These are easy, simple fixs, but it seems like there are problems every election cycle in WA (although not as bad as some states back East).
Enough is enough! And I say scrap RCV if it can't be completed timely in spite of some potential merits.
@4
you know what is more important than a speedy elections count?
Accuracy. We can wait a few weeks.
My understanding from an early post by Kelly was that the pierce county elections board made the decision to wait before publishing the complete recount, one b/c of the mail in ballots, but for some other reason I can't recall. My recollection, though, was that it wasn't a necessary delay.
In other words, you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don't scrap RCV; tweak the implementation.
To Brian: We can wait a few weeks!!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? You've got to be kidding me. With millions invested in technology, the results should be instantaneous if the process is run correctly. Require all mail-in ballots to be in early. Use electronic machines at the polls, not paper. Tabulate immediately. If RCV can't get results done quickly, drop the whole program and go back to simply majority wins.
It is ironic that the RCV results have not come forth yet and that McCarthy sent out that survey with every absentee. I think Bunney has cause for protest if he loses a close race. But then again this is Pierce County and we are suppose to trust thy elected officials.
No Dale isn't crazy ~ Dale is the winner of a really nice cozy County job. We all should be so smart. Of course I do believe he rode on the coattails of those coming in to cast their presidential vote and his name happened to have the preferred first place listing.
Post a Comment
<< Home