Slow but sure...

...Jesse Salomon's lead in the Shoreline City Council Position 6 race continues to grow. It's now at 90 votes, with a margin over double that required to avoid an automatic recount.

I'll keep checking in on this till they're done down at King County Elections, but I'm ready to make a call.

Congratulations, Councilman-elect Salomon!

A significant step forward…

…for Shoreline City Council candidate Jesse Salomon, whose lead has increased to 77 votes and, more notably, whose leading margin has grown to .52%, raising it just above the mandatory recount threshold.

Assuming that margin holds or, as it has done every day this week, grows, Robin McClelland would still have the option of gambling a couple thousand dollars on a requested recount (the 15 cent per vote deposit would be returned if the outcome were reversed) though I have no hint of the likelihood that she'd do so.

As it happens, the Brilliant and Beautiful Bride of Upper Left and my ballots are among those verified but not counted, according to King County Elections, so there's at least two more to add to Jesse's total when they open the envelopes (or not...h/t N in Seattle)

If you're a King County voter, you can check the status of your ballot with the online Ballot Tracker.

Inch by inch...

...vote by vote, Shoreline City Council candidate Jesse Salomon's lead has grown to 49 votes. Still in mandatory recount territory, but the bigger his margin going into the second count, the better for him, and, from my perspective, for all of us here in town.

I'm not bold enough to call it yet, but it's starting to feel like a win.

Call him "Landslide" Jesse Salomon.

In the last close one I'm following, Jesse Salomon's lead in the Shoreline City Council Position 6 race has grown by by some 27% over yesterday's report.

In raw numbers, that's six votes, increasing his actual advantage to 28, about .2%.

Congratulations are probably best held for the recount outcome.

Cliffhanger report.

Ronald Wastewater Commissioner Arne Lind still trails challenger Bob Ransom by over 300 votes, and it's not likely they're out there, but in close elections, never give up is often good advice.

A good example of that is in the race for the open seat on the Shoreline City Council, where Jesse Salomon, after a run of bad news in earlier returns, has slipped a scant 22 votes ahead of Robin McClelland. When the election is certified, though, a scant lead is a sufficient lead.

Still reason to stay tuned...

What if they had an election…

…and our side won? Won a bunch. All over the place.

Like I said, yesterday was a good one for the good guys.

Key Republican issues and political strategies took hits from coast to coast. Voter suppression? Maine offered the first blow for liberty of the day, restoring the same-day voter registration that Republican legislators had taken from them. Mississippi, of all places, scored a hat trick of sorts, setting back the Republican anti-science, anti-choice and anti-woman agendas when they rejected Amendment 26, which would have granted "personhood" to embryos.

Republican ant-unionism was dealt a critical blow by Ohio voters, with 82 of 88 counties rejecting Gov. John Kasich's attack on public-sector workers right to organize and bargain collectively. Republican anti-immigrant champion Russell Pearse, President of the State Senate, was removed in a recall election after sponsoring legislation that provided a blueprint for devastation of agriculture in several states. (Another noteworthy Arizona outcome - both Tucson and Phoenix have Democratic Mayors for the first time in decades.)

Here in the upper left, voters approved stronger training and regulation requirements for home health care workers, took the state out of the retail liquor business (a probably good thing accomplished in a highly dubious fashion) and, so far, are rejecting Tim Eyman's effort to cripple our transportation infrastructure.

Our local elections have turned out to be a pretty status quo affair. Where the results are clear, they're clearly in favor of incumbents for the most part.

Sherril Huff will continue as King County Director of Elections with over 75% of the vote against a patently unqualified challenger. Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton has a margin of 33,000 votes over her opponent, but apparently won't be joined by fellow reformer Dean Willard, who trails incumbent Bill Bryant by a margin of 37% to 62%.

Here in Shoreline, that pro-incumbency trend holds, with City Councilmembers Chris Eggen and Doris McConnell having margins of over 60% after the second day of ballot counting. I'm afraid that means my friend Janet Way won't be returning to the Council, but the Janet I know is indefatigable, and it won't be long before she sets her eyes on a new target for her effective activism.

In the open seat for Shoreline City Council, Jesse Salomon is less than 500 votes behind former Planning Commissioner Robin McClelland, still too close to call in my view.

Our School Board incumbents, Mike Jacobs and Richard Potter, appear safe at this point.

After the Huff/Greene and Willard/Bryant races, the campaign that brought generated the most search engine interest according to my logs was for our local sewer service, the Ronald Wastewater District. Bob Ransom, a fixture in local politics for decades and a former School Board member and City Councilmember, took on longtime sewer commissioner Arne Lind, largely over the question of whether and how the city should absorb the district. Ransom says it's time, and that it can be done administratively. Lind is not so sure, and favors a public vote before any change is made. Ransom, with an overwhelming advantage in name recognition, is leading by a scant 311 votes in another race I won't be ready to call for a while.

So what happened where you are?

A pretty good day for the good guys...

...across the country yesterday, though, as expected, some of the local races I'm interested in are too close to call after the first ballot drop. By the time I have time to add 'em up and write 'em down we should know more. Off to the salt mine perfect tavern for a bit. See ya'll later...

Happy Election Day!

Go vote. If you're hereabouts and you haven't, fill it out and mail it in.

There are some things I'm learning to like about universal vote-by-mail. Election day isn't one of them, because many if not most of the races I'm tracking won't have a definitive result tonight. The margins in some of the municipal races on the ballot will be in the dozens, not hundreds, of votes. There will be enough votes in the counts between now and the weekend to bring dismay to election night leaders.

Still, the convenience of voting at home, the way vote-by-mail eliminates many of the Republican voter suppression strategies and the continuing promise of higher voter interest and participation when parties and campaigns master the challenges of a new GOTV enviroment are meaningful trade-offs compared the demands for instant gratification from return junkies like me, I suppose.

I'll still look 'em up and try to read the tea leaves, of course, so stay tuned.

The hard part.

The choices for King County Elections and the Port Commission are almost comically easy. The choices for our local city council are more difficult. That's actually a good thing.

Like our big neighbor to the south, "non-partisan" government in Shoreline tends to produce uni-partisan government. Happily, the party in question is the Democratic Party. As a result, both sides of local races usually feature folks of generally liberal outlook, although most of the municipal issues they contend with in office don't hinge on ideological division. Friends and allies, personal and political, tend to pop up on the endorsement lists of all the candidates, a sign, I suppose, that we're still a pretty small and surprisingly stable city. Most political choices come down to keeping the bad guys out or getting the good guys in. Not so much in Shoreline, where the options are all, or nearly all, qualified, compassionate, public-spirited neighbors.

If they're all good, some are better, and that discernment is the hard part. These are fairly low profile, low budget campaigns, so there's not a flood of paid media. You have to read the voter's pamphlet, check endorsement lists and candidate evaluations, attend candidate forums and, perhaps most importantly, answer the doorbell when it rings. Shoe leather can still win elections here. In fact, like the presidential primary voters in New Hampshire, folks hereabouts like to vote for people they've met.

I haven't met Jesse Salomon, who's running for an open seat on the Council, because I wasn't home when he dropped by, but the Brilliant and Beautiful Bride of Upper Left answered the door and came away favorably impressed. That's about all the recommendation I need. Jesse is a neighborhood activist, a public defender and my choice for Position 6. I can see a political future beyond the city for him if he wants it, but while we have the chance to enjoy his talents locally, we should take it.

Chris Eggen is running for re-election, and I'm supporting him again. I got to know Chris as a workhorse in the local Democratic Party, and he's been a workhorse on the Council. He deserves another term.

I admit to a general bias in favor of incumbents, absent some egregious reason for removal. There's no such reason with the incumbent in Position 4, but I'm supporting the challenger, Janet Way, just the same.

You can learn a lot about a politician from a campaign, and a lot more from the way they conduct themselves in office after they win. Sometimes you learn the most of all, though, after they lose. When Janet lost her re-election bid in the last cycle, she didn't retreat an inch from her energetic activism on behalf of environmental, cultural and historic preservation. She started a blog that's become the go-to source for local information about those issues and the sustainability-based economic growth and development that she champions (and some terrific wildlife photography!). She's continued to listen, to learn, and to teach in turn. She'll be an advocate for ideas and concerns that are too seldom part of Council discussions these days.

I'm voting for Janet, Chris and Jesse. If you're hereabouts, I hope you do, too.

Possibly the most under-rated decision we make…

…in King County is who will serve on our Port Commission. The Port's most visible symbol is probably the massive container cranes on the south end of Elliot Bay, but it's reach extends to the operation of Sea-Tac International Airport and what's fast becoming one of the busiest cruise ship terminals on the west coast. It's doubtless the largest economic driver in the region, and King County voters are charged with electing Commissioners to protect the public interest in its operations. It's no small thing. Happily, the choices are nearly as easy as the Director of Elections race.

Gael Tarleton was elected four years ago, attracting a broad coalition of support including Democrats and labor with her call for reform at the Port. She's kept the faith and her friends during her first term and deserves another. Her opponent is a perennial candidate with the usual anti-tax axe to grind. I'm voting for Gael.

Dean Willard gives us the chance to strengthen the reform movement Gael has spearheaded. I endorsed Dean in the primary election and I'm standing by him with my general election vote.

The Elections election…

…between King County Director of Elections Sherril Huff and "Political and Literary Consultant" Mark Greene is among the easier choices I'll ever have to make. Greene is a Republican crank with a chip on his shoulder about a primary loss. Huff is an elections professional who has led the county through the transition to all-mail elections so deftly that even I have come to a grudging appreciation for the system, and her administration of it, though the curmudgeonly longing for my polling place lingers.

Sherril Huff. Without a doubt.

Meanwhile, here at home...

…my 2011 general election ballot has arrived, reminding me that I've been spending too much time obsessed with next year when there's an election right in front of my face. Beyond a trio of initiatives and a pair of amendments to the state constitution, the races on my ballot are municipal, ranging from county-wide offices to local special districts, but the affect of the choices made can affect the lives of the voters more rapidly and directly than the outcome of next year's higher profile campaigns.

It's no secret that I consider the initiative process corrupted beyond correction, so my default bias is 'no' on each and every one. On the other hand, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and I like to think my my mind is one of generous proportions, so this year I'll be voting for one of the three, I-1163, the SEIU backed proposal to provide background checks and training standards for long-term care workers and providers. The fact that we're voting on this is to some degree an indictment of the legislature, which should have provided these basic protections to some of our most vulnerable citizens in the normal course of business. They didn't, though, and the question remains "Should this measure be enacted into law?" The answer is yes.

Initiative 1125 is this year's offering from one of the initiative process' principal corrupters, Tim Eyman, which is all most right, erm, proper-thinking people need to know to join me in voting no. It's a typical effort to undermine the legislature's budget authority and responsibility combined with and effort to restrict infrastructure revenues that annoy Eyman's wealthy clients. No, no, as many votes as you have in your household NO!

Another example of the corruption that's turned our initiative process into a circus mirror reflection of its original progressive intent can be found with I-1183, this year's liquor privatization initiative. While I'm a supporter of privatizing the distribution and sale of liquor and getting rid of our East German style state retail outlets, I-1183 isn't the way to do it. Costco and the major grocery chains have self-financed a proposal that grants them sort of joint monopoly on retail sales of spirits. The campaign's on each side, funded by industry rivals, are both dishonest and distracting. It's not really a question of where liquor should be sold, or who to, or for how much. It's about whether corporations should be able to buy their own laws via the initiative process. They shouldn't. Vote no.

There are also a pair of constitutional amendments submitted by the legislature, one essentially housekeeping and one to strengthen the state's "rainy day" fund. I'm voting approve both of them.

Candidate races coming up...