“What in the world is this ballot for? And who are these people?”
A friend asked me these two questions last week. So, I told him: “There’s an election on Feb. 3 to choose an elections director for King County and all of those people are running.”
I also told him: “If you had read my column, you’d know who these people are.”
His sheepish grin and switch of topics to Mariners spring training suggested he may have missed a couple of columns. So, here’s an update.
The public voted to change the King County charter to make the director of elections elected, rather than appointed. The public also voted to make the position non-partisan. The election is Feb. 3, and there are six candidates running for the position. There is no primary and it’s winner take all, meaning the winning candidate could have only about 20 percent of the vote.
As this race has unfolded, it has really come down to two candidates. Sherril Huff is the appointed incumbent director and has held the position for two years. She is an experienced and certified elections administrator with previous experience in Kitsap County. She received an “outstanding” rating from the Municipal League. Huff is a moderate Democrat, but has maintained a distance from the party and King County politics. As a result, she has very little name recognition and hasn’t raised very much money.
Initially, Huff wasn’t planning to run for the office, but was persuaded by county leaders and elections professionals after everyone saw the weak list of candidates.
The other candidate to receive the same rating from the Municipal League is David Irons, who is a former eastside Republican county councilman. Irons has name familiarity and loaned his campaign $90,000. He has no elections training and would need to go through the two-year training process to become certified.
There were two positions that might have been of some assistance to a new elections director, should the public decide to go that direction. One is the Assistant Elections Director position, which Huff once held. The other is the Superintendent of Elections, which has been vacant for several years. However, the assistant director position was eliminated in the county budget cutbacks, and while the county has advertised for the superintendent position, none of the top potential candidates were interested because of the fear that a politician would get the director job.
Huff has been effectively holding all three jobs for the past two years. Huff has been endorsed by all the other Elections Directors/Auditors statewide, along with several county leaders, and has received most of the major media endorsements.
Irons is supported primarily by conservative Republicans, and many moderate Republicans are notably absent from his list of endorsers.
In analyzing the race, Huff clearly comes across as the candidate who is most qualified and should win. But without money to establish name familiarity, that may be difficult.
Three other candidates — Chris Clifford, Julie Kempf and Pam Roach — received “adequate” ratings from the Municipal League and shouldn’t be a major factor, although Roach and Clifford are conservative Republicans who may draw votes from Irons. The last candidate, Bill Anderson, is a banker from Auburn who got a “very good” from the Municipal League. My Auburn friends speak highly of him, but there are too many candidates in this race who are better known. The winner of this race will be determined by those who do their research and the demographics of who actually fills out their ballot.
So go to that stack of mail and find the ballot you weren’t expecting — and exercise your right to vote on a race you didn’t know was occurring. The winner is going to be running your elections department. Who do you trust?
