For this week and next I will be in and out of wifi and cell phone range. The usual MWF posts may be short or sporadic.
Elections:
The ballots from last Tuesday’s municipal primary election that have arrived are all counted—and there don’t appear to be any cliff hangers. Although the election won’t be officially “certified” until Tuesday, August 15, a week from tomorrow, the results fairly conclusive. Typically about a third of registered voters return their ballots in the August primary (while nearly half are usually turned in for the November general election)—at least in these odd-numbered year municipal elections. With such differences in turnout there is no guarantee that a good showing in the primary will lead to success in November. (The 2011 Mary Verner/David Condon election contest is the prime example.) Nonetheless, the primary result is a helpful indicator. Looking only at the primary results for the City of Spokane, the general election ballot will offer two candidates of opposing stripes for each position: for Mayor Lisa Brown v. Nadine Woodward, for City Council President Betsy Wilkerson v. Kim Plese, for City Council District 1 (NE) Lindsey Shaw v. Michael Cathcart, District 2 (South) Paul Dillon v. Katy Treloar, and District 3 (NW) Kitty Klitzke v. Earl Moore.
For an excellent discussion of the City of Spokane primary results click and read Logan Camporeale & Carl Segerstrom’s article “Breaking down the primary elections”. (And while you’re there, sign up for RangeMedia’s email notifications—and make a donation to their effort, if you can. There is no paywall, and RANGE offers great articles on local issues.) Additional discussion can be found (probably with a paywall) at “Spin Control: Spokane mayor’s race is hard to predict based on primary data, but one can try” by Jim Camden in the Spokesman.
Neither of these articles covers Spokane Valley, any of the smaller community elections or any of the school board elections except for a brief (and very welcome) mention of Mike Wiser’s nearly 57% of the votes cast in the primary in District 81 (Spokane Public Schools).
I will try to analyze the other school board election results in subsequent posts. I suspect there are races set up by a low-turnout primary in which the two choices in the general election are both unpalatable.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry