Friday Night Drama $15 pay on the cusp of losing SeaTac election By Jack Mayne Drama has set in with an evening report of returns for the now nationally storied opponents of Proposition 1 is just 43 votes shy of moving into the win column. The 8:30 p.m. report from King County Elections has Yes at 2,544 and No at 2,501, already an election dead heat. Each report of returns has whittled the once small edge the Yes side had. On Tuesday evening, the measure was passing by 261 votes, that went to 237 on Wednesday, to 179 on Thursday, to just 55 votes on Friday afternoon and just 43 by mid-evening. It is likely that no matter what future return counts show, a recount will probably be demanded, most likely by the unions supporting the measure. But the question is, will these labor union want to pay the roughly $100,000 for a recount of the estimated 6,000 ballots. In close elections for people, the state or county will pick up the cost of a recount, but Gary Smith of the consulting firm for the opponents of the measure, says this is not true with ballot measures, where one of the groups involved in the campaign must foot the tab. Then there is the complicated matter of ballots set aside for a variety of technical reasons, such as voters did not sign the ballot envelop or the voter may have changed his or her vote on the ballot, or a host of other technical reasons. All of this must be considered and then a committee of experts must rule on many of these individual ballots, a time consuming and costly enterprise. At any rate, the drama must wait until next week for more counting by King County Elections and then decisions by both sides on how to proceed. Several observers are hoping it won’t be December before we know whether SeaTac has a $15 minimum wage and businesses have a lot of hurdles to jump in 2014 – and if the lawyers don’t sponge up a lot of time and money battling the measure.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 05:39:25 +0000
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