Sound Politics: First returns in Viaduct advisory vote

March 13, 2007

First returns in Viaduct advisory vote

King County Elections reports:

Tunnel? YES: 30.1% NO: 69.9%
Elevated? YES: 45.5% NO: 55.5%

Meaning ... whatever you want it to mean.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 13, 2007 08:16 PM | Email This

Comments

1. So far, I'd say it means that the people of Seattle really DON'T want the tunnel.

Sorry Greg.

Posted by: SouthernRoots on March 13, 2007 08:29 PM

2. Stefan,

A more meaningful post would indicate total ballots counted, total yes and total no on each measure.

Where is the data coming from?

Posted by: Bart Cannon on March 13, 2007 08:30 PM

3. Well, two of my predictions are coming true. Will be interesting to note what the number of "No/No" "Yes/Yes" ballots along with the half dozen other permutations.

Posted by: Reporterward on March 13, 2007 08:31 PM

4. Bart: sheesh. Click on the link.

Posted by: HT on March 13, 2007 08:37 PM

5. First the MLK fiasco, now this...please--somebody press the political reset button.

Posted by: Organization Man on March 13, 2007 09:01 PM

6. 98639/ 341062 28.92%

Tunnel:
Yes 28154 30.12%
No 65311 69.88%

[No vote recorded] 5174 5.2%

Elevated:
Yes 42590 44.52%
No 53072 55.48%

[No vote recorded] 2977 3%

Posted by: SouthernRoots on March 13, 2007 09:06 PM

7. If these returns hold this will empower the City and the Seattle delegation to fight for the surface option. It is likely also that Chopp may either reverse course or more likely soften his stance. Least the new viaduct be sardonically referred to as the Frank Chopp expressway.

Its going to be an interesting next few weeks.

Posted by: Giffy on March 13, 2007 09:07 PM

8. OOPS! So that's what the olive colored type is. A link! Sorry to have made an ignorant comment.

Neat. MLK's image is already on the site.

It appears that total votes on each measure are a few thousands less than the total votes cast.

And there appears to be a less than 10% disparity between the logical YES-NO totals on each measure.

This suggests to me that the NO-NOs are less than 10% at this point.

But now that I've once and for all proven myself stupid, a math and intuition expert should chime in.

Posted by: Bart Cannon on March 13, 2007 09:08 PM

9. Now we can take the $2 billion and put it into replacing the SR-520 Evergreen Point floating bridge, since the people of Seattle don't want to spend it on replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Posted by: Richard Pope on March 13, 2007 09:11 PM

10. It means very, very little what the results of this ballot measure turn out to be.

The fact that the political establishment allowed an expensive, meaningless vote to take place shows they like the appearance of process over substance.

That is a bad indicator.

Posted by: alf on March 13, 2007 09:31 PM

11. As we've been saying this was a meaningless vote.
Caveat aside, however, the new Elevated structure "won" this race with 45 percent of the vote.
The tunnel came in second with 30 percent.
By deductive reasoning then the No and No vote came in third with 25 percent.
Obviously these numbers can fluctuate since my influential "Yes and Yes" campaign could have influenced enough people to throw the numbers off a slight percent and replicate vote totals.
Since it's the surface alternative folks who were the main backers of the "No and No" campaign it turns out that they're the biggest losers.
But we already knew that.

Posted by: Reporterward on March 13, 2007 09:57 PM

12. In order of this to be a win for the rebuild one would have to think that at least 20% of the people who voted Yes tunnel No rebuild actually would support a rebuild despite voting against it and that is assuming there are no YES-YES votes at all.

I would actually think that YES_YES is not a really uncommon response. Many who would like a tunnel but would settle for a rebuild (some in West Seattle for one) might vote Yes-Yes. That means substantially more then 20% would need to support the rebuild despite checking NO.

Posted by: Giffy on March 13, 2007 10:40 PM

13. wiggling one's finger off to the side in a schoolyard fist fight.

as long as the populace is engaged & distracted with silly actions like this vote, local legislators can go about their productive business.

more votes on presidential impeachments, trans-fat-free, hate-free- or nuclear-free zones, anyone?

Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on March 14, 2007 04:30 AM

14. The surface option is NOT happening.

Everyone seems to ignore the Burlington Northern right-of-way.

That isn't something you can seize with a little creative eminent domain. It would be a one-way-trip into Federal bureaucracy hell.

Posted by: Al on March 14, 2007 09:16 AM