A sharply divided electorate

Published 11:41 am Friday, August 27, 2010

Last week’s primary revealed a sharply divided Edmonds electorate, with votes closely split among two candidates in one race and three in the other, with one race probably headed for a recount.

It’s hard to use the primary to predict November winners since the August primary brought only 60 percent of the number of voters who cast ballots in the last city general election.

With the races this close, the 5,800 additional voters expected in November will probably decide both races.

A Wambolt-Petso recount?

Adrienne Fraley-Monillas held a small lead Monday over incumbent Councilman Ron Wambolt and former Councilwoman Lora Petso.

But we could wait for weeks to know whether Wambolt or Petso will face Fraley-Monillas in November.

That’s because elections officials will count ballots for another week, and, unless those ballots show a big change, we’ll have a recount.

The question is whether it will be a quick machine recount or a time-consuming manual recount.

State law requires a recount whenever two candidates are separated by less than 2,000 votes or 0.5 percent of the votes for the two candidates. As of Monday, nearly 5,600 votes went to either Wambolt or Petso, meaning a 28-vote difference would trigger a recount. Wambolt led by eight votes.

The law requires a manual recount when the separation is less than 150 votes or 0.25 percent of the two candidates’ votes. So, if the two stay within 14 votes, we’ll have three people sitting in the county auditor’s office counting all 8,735 ballots cast by Edmonds voters.

This make a me wonder: Who were the 139 people whose write-in votes could have decided this contest or the nine people who voted in the other Edmonds council race but not this one?

Whatever happens, Wambolt is in trouble. If Petso beats him, he’s out. If he survives, he’s likely to be rejected by the 66 percent who chose either of the other candidates in the primary. His only hope would be to pick up most of the 40 percent of general election voters who didn’t cast primary ballots.

Expect a close Buckshnis-Peterson race

Diane Buckshnis was ahead of Strom Peterson 46 percent to 44 percent in Monday’s count of primary ballots.

This means a hard-fought general election between the two, with both having to appeal to the 9 percent who supported Al Rutledge, the 1 percent who cast write-in ballots and the 40 percent who didn’t vote.

Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@verizon.net.