Citizens for Accountable Elections today filed its initiative to change the King County charter to make the Director of Elections a separately elected non-partisan office. The initiative will be I-25, text here.
The charter change will:
* Carve the elections section out of REALS and make into a separate county agency.
* The director of elections will be a non-partisan elected official.
* If the charter change is approved in November 2007, the first election for the Director of Elections will be held in February 2008 and the voters' chosen director will run the November 2008 election. The first term will run through 2011. Subsequent elections will be in November 2011 and every four years thereafter.
Petitions will be available after approval by Clerk of Council. To donate to the campaign and/or request petitions, visit the campaign website.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 08, 2007 10:41 AM | Email ThisWas there ever a close election in KC that was decided in favor of a Republican?
Posted by: rbb on March 8, 2007 11:42 AMKing County Federal Reps:
4 Dems, 1 GOP
King County State Reps:
20 Dems, 3 GOP
Can you see the bias inherint in the system?
Um, that's not a bias to the system, that's a bias by the voters - they've decided that your sort of backwards thinking isn't what they want. It's not a conspiracy, it's just your side losing.
Posted by: Willis on March 8, 2007 12:15 PMYup, and to think a GOP candidate would win an election for King County Elections Director is wishful thinking at best. Passing the buck to an elected official doesn't solve the problem.
Elections in no way ensure that the winner is qualified to hold the office - merely that the winner is the person chosen by a majority of those casting votes.
It does provide some direct accountability to the voters - but it sure makes it harder to dump someone who really screws up when you must wait four years and several elections to boot him/her.
There are countless examples - at every level of government - of woefully unqualified people holding offices. One need look no further than school boards or city councils (I'll let you pick which ones...) to see that qualifications for actually DOING the job required are clearly secondary considerations for many - if not most - voters.
This is one reason I question the value of electing certain positions - mostly judges. I'm a reasonably well-read, involved and interested guy when it comes to things political, and I'm not at all convinced I'm qualified to intelligently choose from the numerous judicial candidates that are on a given general election ballot. I usually have no legitimate basis for deciding why Candidate A would be better than Candidate B when it comes to sitting on a municipal court. I rarely have time to examine each candidates record in detail, nor would I even know where or how to begin.
I suspect personally vetting an elections director might be more straightforward. However, I'll go back to my earlier point that leaving the decision to people who do not seem to be overly concerned about qualifications may leave some people in the uncomfortable position of getting exactly what they asked for...and being quite unhappy with the result.
Posted by: Brian White on March 8, 2007 12:56 PM"...may leave some people in the uncomfortable position of getting exactly what they asked for...and being quite unhappy with the result."
Ahhh... But once unhappy, they also have the means to deal with that unhappiness. That's one level of accountability not available to voters today.
Agreed. I did mention that an elected post provides direct accountability to the voters. That is not a bad thing on the whole, but in this case it may not result in the outcome the promoters of the initiative are hoping for.
However, I'll reiterate that electing someone is no guarantee of a competent execution of responsibilities. And if something REALLY goes sideways in an election, it is MUCH harder to remove an elected official than an appointed one - short of a proven criminal act. And even then, you can look at the likes of Mayor Marion Barry in DC, Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana or our very own Jim McDermott - all reelected consistently, blatant corruption and illegal acts notwithstanding. Remember - this is King County Washington we're talking about. Ron Sims is repeatedly reelected by wide margins. I suspect, given the overall track record of King County voters, that the majority of those looking for a change in the Election Director post my not actually get someone better than Dean Logan - and very possibly worse.
At least widespread pressure on an executive can force the quick removal of an appointed official who is not performing.
As for election director, when you actually get selected/voted in, you do take more pride of ownership and have some semblance of wanting to do the right thing. Not much, but a little.
Posted by: swatter on March 8, 2007 01:34 PM"At least widespread pressure on an executive can force the quick removal of an appointed official who is not performing."
I'm not so sure this statement has been evidenced in King County recently.
It seems to me that if you have "widespread pressure" in hand to bring upon an executive for an (un)appointment then surely you would have "widespread voters" in hand to bring about an (un)election. Where is this pressure going to come from if not from the voters?
If the elected director botches the November 2008 election, voters will need to wait until 2011 - many elections later - to remove this person. Voters angry enough to do that, could put pressure on the exec to make it happen sooner.
Posted by: Brian White on March 8, 2007 01:56 PMEither appointed or elected, we are assured to have a partisan Democrat as head of KCE, so I'm not sure what the difference is, other than maybe we can feel good about voting someone like Dean Logan out when they screw up. On second thought, as long as the outcome was (D), he probably would have been re-elected.
Posted by: Palouse on March 8, 2007 02:22 PMRepublicans were happy when they were winning and claimed the Democrats were doing an injustice by asking for recounts. As soon as Dino lead went south they turned around and filed lawsuit after lawsuit asking for a recounts. Had they left King County alone Dino would have won.
GOP hypocrites have only themselves to blame for Dino's loss.
OUR revisionist history? Are you out of your mind? After thousands of additional, unsecured ballots were found, the Democrats were the only ones requesting recounts. And it was AFTER these found ballots and the recounts gave the race to Gregoire did the GOP file suit.
Pull your friggin' head out. You can't even get the basics right.
Posted by: jimg on March 8, 2007 03:29 PMSee, this is what partisan dolts like you don't understand. Most of us don't care what the political affiliation is of the person elected - just that they're elected and responsible directly to the voters and not some partisan hack appointed by a partisan county exec. Why can't you understand that?
And yeah. It would be all milk and honey if we could only get a Republican to handle the elections office. In case you haven't noticed, Einstein, there's an R next to the Secretary of State's name and you won't find a lot of people on this board happy with his performance. Geez. Get a clue, would ya?
Posted by: jimg on March 8, 2007 03:34 PMYou can't even get the basics right.
Likley true, my memory of the situation is not great. Oh well, thaks for the brief history lesson. =P
Posted by: Cato on March 8, 2007 03:35 PMSo why not go for an elected Auditor over the elections department, like all the other counties do? Why create a new system used nowhere else in the state?
Posted by: Chad Lupkes on March 8, 2007 04:59 PMTheoretically, such a person might be more concerned about his or her performance in order to keep the job. Rather than producing results pleasing to the King County Executive.
A case in point: Brian Sontag (the State Auditor) is a Democrat, he is not cut from the same cloth as Gregoire, Sims, et al.
Cato, could it get any worse? If so, how?
Posted by: Michael on March 8, 2007 06:28 PMIf an election director is appointed, he/she is surely going to be a Democrat or a RINO. If elected, there is some possibility that he/she will be a Republican. Republican or Democrat, an elected one is far preferable to an appointed one and all that implies.
Patriot
Posted by: Edwina Johnston on March 8, 2007 07:14 PMinstead of an appointed official that can be held accountable at any time, they want an elected official that can only be held accountable every four years. That makes no sense to me at all.Chad: the voters cannot hold the appointed elections director accountable ever. At most they can hold the County Executive accountable every four years. But the County Executive is judged on his entire record, of which elections is only one component. Why did the voters re-elect Sims? for his performance in transportation? housing? public health? environment? elections? Because he's good at the porkbarrel patronage game? How much of the outcome of that race was affected by the gossip about Irons family issues?
What if that race had been solely about elections performance? Do you really think that Sims would have been re-elected? Imagine if Dean Logan had to run for re-election in 2005. Would he have been re-elected? Based on his actual performance to that time, probably not. But if he went into the 2004 election knowing that he had to run himself in 2005, I imagine he would have done a much better job running the 2004 election.
Isn't that what we all want? Someone to run the elections office in such a way that they will win the reapproval of the voters?
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on March 8, 2007 08:59 PM"Isn't that what we all want? Someone to run the elections office in such a way that they will win the reapproval of the voters?"
I'm not sure that Dems care whether or not elections are fair and above board as long as their candidates are winning. The Dems that I have spoken with about our last gubernatorial election respond with something like, "Well, so what, Bush stole the election from Gore so it's okay." It seems to be a Democratic trait to condemn Republicans who get caught with theirs hands in the cookie jar, while defending Dems who do the same or worse. I suspect that a wrongdoing elections official would just get reelected in this liberal county as long as the scale was tipped Democratically.
Posted by: NW Denizen on March 9, 2007 09:08 AMBut where do we draw the line in this sort of thing?
With the Viaduct mess, Sound Transit over spending, SR 520 improvements looming, etc., planning, execution and spending for transportation projects is clearly a (if not THE) major issue these days. And there has been plenty of bungling attributed to state and local transportation agencies.
Last I checked, we don't elect the directors of WSDOT and SDOT - and they are pretty important agencies. We don't even elect the State Secretary of Transportation. Should Grace Crunican, currently head of the Seattle Department of Transportation be elected? She's a mayoral appointment. Why not elect the city Auditor? Currently Susan Cohen is appointed by the City Council.
The list could go on.
Posted by: Brian White on March 9, 2007 11:06 AM