July 25, 2006
"Dunn and Ferguson: Let Voters Decide on Elected Auditor"
King County Councilmembers Reagan Dunn and Bob Ferguson held a press conference today announcing that a majority of the Council is now ready to put the question of electing a County Auditor on the November ballot. When adopted by the Council, the measure would place the charter amendment on the November 2006 ballot. If passed by popular vote, an election for County Auditor would occur in November 2007, with the newly-elected Auditor taking office in January 2008. Just in time for the Presidential election.
This the most encouraging election reform step I've heard in a while. Let's rally behind this ballot measure and commend all of the Councilmembers who agreed to put it on the ballot.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 25, 2006
10:54 AM | Email This
1. Hurray! But why does it have to take so long to implement? Is King the only Washington county that does not have an auditor? Did it ever have an auditor?
2. 1 At least it's a start
2 When do Mr Dunn and Mr Ferguson plan to bring this to the council for a vote?
3 What is the final day, it has to be approved to make the printing deadline for the Nov 2006 election?
4 What's the status of the vote by mail plan?
5 Are they trying to implement in in Nov 2006?
3. And when the voters shoot it down as nothing more than a right-wing political ploy, what then?
4. That may be worth something where you have a plurality of voters that will elect someone who takes the job seriously. But in KC? Yea right
5. ivan - good statement. Could you enlighten me what this 'ploy' is? The only 'ploy' I can see is making the auditor responsible to the people. That is pretty sick!
6. Amen to that news. I'm excited already to see the 2007 campaign for this position if the charter amendment passes.
7. Hello.
Ivan, I have a sneaking suspicion that this will not be 'shot down' if it were to come up to a public vote. There are a LOT of people, who are generally silent, who want to see a change in this situation. And all those people who are silent will make their intentions known come November if given the chance.
Domo.
8. Only the most strident Commie pinkos would vote against this initiative. I know that there are some in Seattle, but they are a minority in King County - a vocal minority who believe that everyone else should be silenced.
9. And when the voters approve it in overwhelming numbers - allowing King County to join the state's other 38 counties with an elected auditor - despite the union goon's desire to prevent the elections office to be overseen by a person directly responsible to the electorate, what then?
Crawl back under your rock on the island, Ivan. Your absence wasn't missed in the least.
10. Jimg:
I read Sound Politics, and every comment on every thread, every day, so my "absence" is only in your imagination -- just like your politics are.
11. Hey Ivan, you crack me up! Only a red tinged lefty would brand people having a say in shaping their government a "political ploy". Ha! Ha! Ha!
Really wack!
12. Anyone notice that Ron Simms vehmently opposes this. I think someone is scarred that his stronghold over the county may be in jeopardy. As for Ivan why would you not want an elected official overseeing elections. This way if the election was screwed up the auditor could be held accountable by the people regardless of political party.
13. We have an elected auditor in Pierce County. What are King County Democrats afraid of?
14. What are Democrats afraid of? Truth, justice, the American Way, personal responsiblity, accountability, fiscal responsibility, entrepreneurs, well educated people...
15. Blithering idiots like iban are afraid that their best efforts to game yet another election would fail in the case of this particular office. The implications of that failure are too plain and too painful to ignore, even to dullard, er iban.
iban, is it time for another change?
16. I suspect that this is Bob Ferguson's way of begging forgiveness after sticking with his party to rewrite Elections policy to go to all-mail voting.
He may win forgiveness from some for supporting the fairness of an elected auditor, but I won't forget that he took the side of Sims and Logan to push a party-line change to our county's elections process.
Nice try, Bob, but it doesn't undo what you did.
17. Sim's words "...We are a modern government. We should act like one." within his response, posted this afternoon on his Web site, is positively laughable. For the poor folks at REALS who've been forced to work in a disgustingly dysfunctional management culture with no hope for improvement, for the voters who haven't been able to trust the County to do what it needs to do to get dependably accurate vote counts and taxpayers who have to foot the bill for all this wasteful nonsense.
How dare Mr. Sims whine about critics he says are "politicizing elections" when he's had all this time to professionalize the Elections department by hiring a few skilled managers and chose instead to further his own political goals. WOW! Was THAT ever short-sighted, even for a Democrat.
My idea for a cure for the short-term: With any luck (though we'll probably have to settle for dumb luck at this point), he'll appoint a new head of Elections who knows enough about running a business to manage and motivate the talented pool of lower-level managers that already works at Elections. They would be the ones who've been struggling for 3 years to keep the system afloat IN SPITE OF their bosses' shortcomings.
And for the long term: A non-partisan auditor works for me. Shame on Mr. Sims & his blind following on the Council for being so completely politically-minded and irresponsible to voters--you go Bob!!
18. Sims said : ...We are a modern government. We should act like one."
What he really meant is that "We are a modern totalitarian government and we shall act like one." And all of the shills like Julia Patterson, Dow Constantine and Larry Phillips will get behind him like the mind-numbed blathering liberal robots that they are.
19. This was a long time comming. Finially we may get an elections office accountable to the people and not a puppet of Executive Sims.
20. What I really would like to see with this change to elect an auditor is separation of elections from records. Sure, elections produce a lot of record keeping, but why would an auditor responsible for elections be also responsible for automobile registration, real estate records, etc.?
21. I just want to say that Jane Hauge is my favorite member of the Council. I do not live in her district yet, she responds to my e-mails and keeps me updated about whats happening with the attack on my right to vote (all mail voting). She is a better Councilmember to me than my own Councilmember Julia Patterson. I sent her an e-mail months ago. I reqested a responce through her web page on the county site. Nothing. Councilmember Jane Hauge is a true Statesman.