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...

An update…

…on our local cliffhangers. Both City Council candidate Jesse Salomon and Ronald Wastewater Commissioner Arne Lind have closed their deficits slightly in the latest report from King County Elections, but the lack of remaining votes makes them increasingly improbable victors.

In both cases I think my description of the local outcomes as a status quo election holds. Though Salomon was running for an open seat, his opponent, Robin McClelland, was positioned as the 'establishment' candidate, the representative of the current controlling faction (not party - as I've noted elsewhere, what we have is closer to uni-partisan than non-partisan government) at City Hall. That's not awful, really - as I've said, our local races are, for the most part, between well intentioned and generally liberally minded folks - but I was hoping this election might stir the pot just a bit, and it appears it won't.

Bob Ransom, Arne Lind's opponent in the sewer commission race, was pretty transparently the agent of that controlling faction. His campaign was based on putting himself out of office by transferring the responsibilities of the Commission to the city government. The notion isn't without merit, but I agree with Lind that it should be the result of an open debate and public vote, not the administrative shift that Ransom advocates.

There'll be another count tomorrow, and it will probably be pretty definitive in favor of McClelland and Ransom, which isn't the way I voted, but isn't enough to make me contact Canadian immigration, either.

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.