Follow-up on 6th: recount coming
With Spokane County having counted all their absentee ballots and finalizing numbers later today, Rep. John Serben did indeed reach the threshold required for a state-financed machine recount in his 6th district House race against Democrat Don Barlow. The pre-recount numbers:
Don Barlow [D] 26,226 (50.249%)
John Serben [R] 25,966 (49.751%)
That's a pretty tight finish, but consider what this post at Washblog points out. Now, I don't personally consider undervotes as part of the percentages, but still, if one vote is taken from Serben's total then he falls statistically outside the 0.5% spread required for a recount. Not that he wouldn't have probably financed his own or anything, but it is an odd statistic.
posted by TMW @ 11:53 AM
10 Comments:
have you heard of any legislative recounts that actually swung the other way?
No, though in spite of my legislature interest I admit I have never looked into that. I doubt Barlow has much to worry about from a recount.
Aside from the post I have really found this blog insightful...I really pay far more attention to state politics as opposed to the federal mess we have...Any idea when the Dem's are picking committee assignments in the House?
If I'm not mistaken, they're in the process right now. I read something in The Stranger the other day about Frank Chopp supposedly trying to cut Helen Sommers' power through committee assignments, and a little before that caught an article on the ensuing struggle to secure the Transportation Chair. I believe last session's vice-chair, Deb Wallace, is considered the favourite but that John Lovick is also lining up supporters. Rumour is that if he loses it he might jump the House and run for the open Snohomish County Sheriff spot since Sheriff Bart will be challenging Aaron Reardon for county exec. In any event, it seems the Democrats will be sorting out the committee assignments in the near future.
Did a quick news browse and apparently Lovick removed his name from consideration but won't comment on the sheriff race: http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/11/21/100loc_b1lovick001.cfm
The Herald also lists Jeff Morris, Judy Clibborn, Dennis Flannigan, Bill Fromhold, and Geoff Simpson as aspirants, though it seems to me that Wallace has a definite edge.
I've heard that Clibborn has the inside track - not that my saying that means much....
When I was doing campaign work in Whatcom County Kelli Linville, at almost every community forum, said she was only staying in the legislature because she is promised approp's chair...Although that might have been contingent on her helping Jasper MacShallow take Doug Ericksen's seat...So we will see...
"I've heard that Clibborn has the inside track - not that my saying that means much...." - Anonymous
Could be they're throwing a thank you bone to those ever so successful Eastside Democrats? I hadn't heard that news prior, I'll be curious to see if that is indeed the case.
"Kelli Linville, at almost every community forum, said she was only staying in the legislature because she is promised approp's chair" - Peter
Interesting. That would explain why she didn't run for Senate even though she probably would have won. I like her a lot, so hopefully she gets a satisfactory committee assignment.
Linville would not have won the senate seat...The only reason why she took such a high percentage of the vote was because her opponent was an idiot and didn't pay almost 1/2 a million in payroll taxes, and the news mysteriously came about a month before the election...She is not that popular in Whatcom county, and if she had an at all credible opponent with some money she would be in the political fight of her career.
I don't know, she's been a fairly consistent winner the last decade. I think Senator Brandland lucked-out big this year, after his several gaffes I thought he was vulnerable but after drawing an underfunded and lesser-known challenger I thought he would prevail. Considering he still only won 53% of the vote, I think it's quite reasonable to speculate somebody with as much name recognition and experience as Linville would be able to draw enough undecideds to tip the result.
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