Comments on New Burner-Reichert Numbers

So apparently Instant Runoff voting and Proportional Representation got a boost in the elections...I received the following message from the Washington Citizens for Proportional Representation:

Proportional and/or IRV voting was on the ballot in four cities yesterday and all are projected to win! Two of those measures were the first PR proposals to win in a half-century. One of those wins was in our own State's Pierce County and may offer a prototype for us to emulate in King County. We are very excited!

This is the current picture:
Winning 68%-32% in Oakland (CA)
Winning 65%-35% in Minneapolis (MN)
Winning 54%-46% in Davis (CA)
Winning 53% to 47% in Pierce County (WA).

The Pierce County measure was in the form of a County Charter Amendment which in turn came out of their county review process. King County is about to begin its charter review process. Shall we try to do the same?
...
The Pierce County measure, of necessity, applies only to county elected positions. But those positions, beginning in July of 2008 will no longer appear on the Primary Election ballot. All nominees will go directly to the General Election ballot and be elected giving the voter the option of ranking more than one vote per office. This could be the beginning of a statewide movement away from Primary Elections. Details can be found on wwwyesonthree.com.

Anyhow - no matter your view on IRV and PR, it's an interesting change. Keep your eye on it.

Dude you guys! We took the Senate!!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/election.main/index.html

The King County voters do not appear to be "heavily" favoring Burner. With 60% of the King County precincts reporting, Burner is up 62,516 to 61,595. She may very well still pull it off (I hope so), but I think it is probably more fair to say that King County voters "just barely" favor Burner.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006//pages/results/states/WA/H/08/county.000.html

Please don't turn into the liberal Sharkansky once this thing goes into its inevitable recount, and talk about nothing but the vote recounting. Or else Dan needs to can you just like he did Shark.

The answer to most of this lies in how Burner did at the polls vs how she did with the first absentees in both counties. If they reflect sort of what it looks like now, ie both are around 51-49 Reichert, she is in trouble. If she is much better at the polls, but was hammered by the earls absentees, then the later absentees should start to look more like the poll vote and she could win.

when did sharkansky go? i must have missed that part...

New numbers up tonight show Reichert pulling away. More than 3,000 now. Darcy's toast. Sorry.