Ladenburg & co. take on IRV

Last year Pierce County voters approved a landmark charter amendment implementing instant runoff voting (IRV) for most county offices, but now that the auditor's office has had some issues preparing for the 2008 county elections several politicians including outgoing Executive John Ladenburg are seeking to postpone the implementation of the new system or do away with it completely. The issue at hand, according to Pat McCarthy (the county auditor), is that all available voting software is unable to rank more than three candidates. This revelation will probably force voters to choose the next path in the form of more charter amendments, depending on how many are chosen to go to ballot by the county council. Ladenburg wants to get rid of the system altogether (apparently now that he's term-limited out of office he no longer cares about the will of voters?), while Dick Muri is supporting a postponement of the system until 2010. McCarthy believes a delay isn't necessary and prefers either changing the system to ranking the top three or changing to all-mail voting as to temporarily eliminate the need for the necessary software.

Pierce voters already approved the system so coming back and telling them to second-guess themselves is ridiculous. While I typically dislike it when an elections office wants to change to all-mail voting, since it takes away voter choice, in this instance it's probably the best and least intrusive way to remedy the situation. Without suitable software to implement the system electronically it makes sense to go all-paper in order to meet voters' wishes.

2008 spreadsheet uploaded

I've now uploaded an Excel spreadsheet to the right for next year's elections, with a different workbook for federal, statewide, legislative, and local races. At this early stage few candidacies are listed and incumbents are italicized as speculative entries. There are currently no predictions for takeovers as a result of this, though in several cases I suspect they will eventually occur.

Spreadsheet update

Late is better than never, I suppose. The 2007 Locals spreadsheet under the Downloads header at the right is now updated for all the filings this year. I'm also working on an early spreadsheet for 2008.

Darcy v. Rodney takes shape

Earlier today, Senator Rodney Tom confirmed rumours that he will be running for Congress from the 8th district next year. He joins a race that already contains Darcy Burner, last year's Democratic nominee, and starts off as a likely underdog against her. Tom kicked off his campaign at Renton Technical College with Eastide Reps. Deb Eddy and Larry Springer appearing with him, saying that he has the experience to beat two-term Congressman Dave Reichert. The seat has yet to elect a Democrat to Congress, but Reichert has won close contests both times he has run.

I supported Reichert in last year's campaign as he was the more moderate candidate of the two that was closer to my personal ideology. However, with a bona fide moderate like Senator Tom in the race I now have my candidate for 2008.

Another presidential endorsement

I can't find confirmation of it online, but I heard that former Congressman and 2004 GOP US Senate nominee George Nethercutt has endorsed Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. Not terribly surprising, considering the aid Giuliani gave Nethercutt and Dino Rossi in their respective 2004 campaigns.