Redstate

By Matt Rosenberg Posted in Elections — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

A couple of important contests in Washington State today, none more so than in the vote fraud hot spot of Seattle-King County, where incumbent Democrat Ron Sims is facing (Republican King County Council member) David Irons for King County Executive. Nearly 2,000 mail-box voter registration addresses in Seattle have been challenged in recent days by King County Republicans - a small percentage were mistaken, prompting great controversy which has somewhat obscured the systemic election integrity problems still haunting the county's vote-counting apparatus. And skanky things are happening right up to the minute today, as my intrepid colleague Stefan Sharkansky reports at Sound Politics.

Read on.....(UPDATE below fold)

In the County Executive contest, Irons has stressed his private sector business experience, contrasted to Sims' career entirely in the public sector. Irons has also emphasized his support for a successful move to shrink the council's size from 13 to 9 members; the need for an elected county auditor to safeguard elections integrity; and the need to develop a better plan for the county's sizeable homeless population.

Sims has talked about learning from his mistakes, making tough budget cuts, and improving the county's bond rating. Irons got one important Seattle-area newspaper endorsement, from the suburban King County Journal, but angered some GOP stalwarts with his opposition to I-912. That's another big item on today's ballot, a statewide measure which would roll back a gas tax hike passed by the legislature earlier this year to fund road construction and safety projects.

The charismatic career politico Sims has been helped by a labor-funded PAC airing nasty Bush-themed hit ads aimed at Irons, but two of the contributing labor unions exceeded the post-Oct. 17 donation limit, by $10,000 and $3,000, respectively, and received refunds from the third-party PAC by order of the state Public Disclosure Commission. Meanwhile, a Sims surrogate admitted to contacting a local lefty blogger to help advance a controversial story (subsequently picked up by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer), involving charges by Irons' diabetic mother that he once struck her in a dispute at the then-family business, a charge Irons strongly denies. As you can see, this is the closest that a Republican has come to winning King County Executive in a while; Seattle-ite Tim Hill was the last, leaving office in 1994.

In addition to the Irons-Sims contest, and the proposed rollback of the gas tax increase (I-912), other high profile votes include I-900, (state-funded performance audits of state, regional and local government units - advanced by WA state tax cut initiative king Tim Eyman); and I-901 (public indoor smoking ban, extending 25 feet past entrances of public buildings). Both are expected to pass by ample margins. There are also dueling medical liability initiatives, I-330 (from the doctors) and I-336 (from the trial lawyers.

UPDATE, Nov. 9: Republican Irons gets creamed, sadly, in King County. The gas-tax rollback goes down; the public indoor and workplace smoking ban passes handily; as does the state-funded performance audits measure.