Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Out of a Freak-Ridden Wastelan... | Protest Garrison Keillor »

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Spin Off

posted by on March 14 at 10:24 AM

Given that the elevated option they endorsed only scored 45% support, The Seattle Times editorial spin this morning conveniently chalks up voter sentiment to confusion and anger at the ballot (rather than to what voters literally said: No to both freeway options on the waterfront).

The Seattle Times cavalierly states that the frustrating vote “prompted many to refuse to participate.”

What? KC counted 100,000 ballots last night out of about 117,000 that came in before the deadline. They anticipate that ultimately they’ll see a 55% return rate (on a mail-in election in mid-March!)—about 186,000 votes.

Where is the evidence that “many” refused to participate?

The Seattle Times is hauling out an off-point, unhelpful (untrue?) bit of analysis that distracts from the momentum that’s building among leaders: We need to think differently about this corridor; particularly when it comes to the talisman of “capacity.” Mayor Nickels, who had worshiped at the altar of car capacity throughout his efforts to sell the waterfront tunnel, heard the voters and changed his message last night, talking about capacity in terms of “people” rather than cars.

It will be interesting to see if that message is repeated at today’s press conference in Olympia. I’m heading down now.

RSS icon Comments

1

I hate them soooooooo much.....clueless, rich, white, tightassed bastards....

AND the fuckers didn't use my quotes from yesterdays webstory.....

AND they fired me two years ago for being injured and missing 2 days of work....

fucktards...

Posted by michael strangeways | March 14, 2007 10:29 AM
2

Do a poll. Hire an outside of the area company. Let them write the poll. Have 1/2 people be in Seattle and the other half in the greater metropolitan region. Split the cost between the city and state. Interview 1200 people.

Posted by Sherwin | March 14, 2007 10:40 AM
3

The number of times I have to say "if I had a subscription to Seattle Times/PI I'd cancel it" should be made into a drinking game.

Posted by monkey | March 14, 2007 10:42 AM
4

Rebuilt or repaired, I expect to be driving on the Alaskan Way Viaduct 20 years from now.

Posted by ivan | March 14, 2007 10:49 AM
5

The amount of intellectual dishonesty shown by all sides will go through the roof. Here is your "result":

45% for a rebuild, 30% for a Tunnel, and "x" for one or more of the following: Surface/Transit/Job-Killer, Retrofit, "Prepare and Repair", and "The Choices Suck".

"x" represents an unknown. It could be 25% or 75% of those that voted, but split four or more ways, could be anything. Because there were no other "choices" and because there is not enough information available to determine "x", the only real information we have is that:

30% of 30% (only 30% turnout) definitively support a tunnel. That's 10% of registered voters.

45% of 30% wants a rebuild, just under 15% of registered voters.

Everyone else who voted "no/no" or didn't vote at all: no one really knows. That is why the election was a failure: no one on any side wanted a clear answer. Not even the Stranger can interpret their way into saying the results supports Surface/Transit--unless no one there passed the 8th grade.

The real story is why did the city council design an election that would fail to produce results? Because they didn't want a vote in the first place; remember?

Posted by georgetown stew | March 14, 2007 10:55 AM
6

Hey, georgetown stew (the same genius who suggested we boycott this ballot)... If you don't like the way the ballot was structured, run for City Council, support your faux "working class hero" David Della as he runs for re-election to City Council. The governor made the choice to force a vote on this city, and it was this city's prerogative (this city's elected representatives' prerogative) to design a vote that didn't force us to pick between two false choices.

Believe me, if the "Yes on 2" had won or even come close to 50%, folks like you would be crowing to no end about the legitimacy of this ballot.

Posted by cressona | March 14, 2007 11:09 AM
7

With 2 votes to cast and combining the votes on the two measures, Seattle voters cast 37.4 percent of their votes FOR waterfront freeway options and 62.6 percent of their votes AGAINST waterfront freeway options. Nuff said; let's get on with an open, fair, and comprehensive analysis of non-freeway Surface + Transit options.

Posted by R on Beacon Hill | March 14, 2007 11:10 AM
8

What does no/no mean?

1. Surface/transit
2. Surface freeway
3. Retrofit
4. Repair and Prepare (1 and 2)
5. Elliott Bay Bridge
6. This vote sucks so screw you all

Posted by Mudride | March 14, 2007 11:11 AM
9

cressona @ 6:

Is that an endorsement?

Posted by georgetown stew | March 14, 2007 11:19 AM
10

Told you. But you wouldn't believe me, huh?

Now, remember that it was the city council and the mayor that actually killed Surface Plus Transit - and now they act like they backed it ....

Better off fighting to get the 50 percent tax revenue the county gets from Seattle's 40 percent of the population of our MLK Jr. County that gives us in Seattle only 30 percent of new transit ... insist on DOUBLE LOCAL TRANSIT.

But, dude, you're getting a Viaduct.

Posted by Will in Seattle | March 14, 2007 11:35 AM
11

I didn't boycott the ballot as much as I don't care anymore. Whatever happens I'll be long dead when whatever they build is finished. I don't like the idea of another viaduct. The tunnel idea sounded kind of cool if the Utopian vision of a park on top were to come true, but I knew it would just be a bunch more million dollar condos. Had there been a surface option, I would have got off my ass and voted for it.

Posted by elswinger | March 14, 2007 11:35 AM
12

@11 - you have only the council and mayor to blame for that one - they designed the ballot.

Posted by Will in Seattle | March 14, 2007 11:38 AM
13

This is exactly the result I feared, with the rebuild getting a plurality and no clear way to interpret the results. This is certainly playing out well for the surface crowd, but assuming a surface+transit supporter would vote no/no, unless most of the tunnel supporters voted for the rebuild as well (highly unlikely) they certainly are not a majority. In fact it is quite likely that fewer people voted no on both than voted for the tunnel. Of course we don't know for sure without the numbers for the various ballot combinations.

What do we know? Clearly a majority (55%) don't want another bigger elevated freeway on the waterfront. A majority (70%) don't want to pay the cost of a tunnel. And a majority (probably close to 75%) don't want to permanently lose a freeway. So that's a good place to start negotiating from, right?

Gotta love Seattle.

Posted by Eric L | March 14, 2007 11:50 AM
14

The Seattle Times - Criticizing Your Intelligence When We Don't Get Our Way(TM)

Posted by Noink | March 14, 2007 11:54 AM
15

Mudride @8...You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Regardless one's position, outside of a tunnel or
voter's pamphlet viaduct rebuild, the NO-NO result leaves the field wide open. Contrary to what you personaly think, this endorses nothing and means nothing...which is why I too originally promoted boycotting the vote.

Based on number of votes cast versus the number of voters eligible, it appears most Seattlites heeded my and
Georgetown Stew's call to boycott the vote. The vote has little or no meaning.

An independent poll would have cost less and provided far more substantive results than this vote.


---Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | March 14, 2007 11:55 AM
16

Light rail construction is well under way. By 2009 we'll have service to SeaTac - just like the voters were promised. The taxes have not increased. Projects for the most part are coming in on time, and under budget. The problems of the old days are long past, and the new administration is nationally recognized for excellence. The elected leaders on the board are charting a prudent, effective course. We need real mass transit in this region. We can build on our successes with ST2!

Posted by we_need_transit | March 14, 2007 11:57 AM
17

R @ 7:

By your logic, if everyone had voted yes for exactly one of the two options, half the votes would have been for no waterfront freeway! And if just a few vote no on both, well then that must be the clear winner right?

Unless 25% or more of the votes were yes on both (virtually all of the tunnel supporters being rebuild supporters as well?) we can be certain that most of the city voted in favor of a waterfront freeway in one form or another.

I'm genuinely curious as to just how many ballots actually had a no vote on both measures. Was no/no a more popular vote than the tunnel? We really don't know. But it shouldn't be that hard to go through a sample of ballots and find out.

Posted by Eric L | March 14, 2007 12:04 PM
18

Yes, hooray for ST2...which does not serve the AWV corridor...

Posted by JW | March 14, 2007 12:19 PM
19

So a clear No / No majority means that most people want a new freeway???

Alice, the rabbit just went down the hole.

This vote is a clear message that most voters don't want a rebuild or a tunnel that we can't afford. If you think otherwise then the Denial Express is going full steam today (Hello Nick Lacata)!

Posted by Original Andrew | March 14, 2007 12:33 PM
20

ST2 doesn't serve the AWV corridor because Seattle had its own plan, you'll remember.


The financing developed a limp, so Nickels took it out behind the barn and shot it.

I hope this election gives some momentum to Sims and Nickels getting together and getting streetcars out to WS and Ballard.

With TransitNow!, the operations funding is there. Get a little RTID and city cash to lay some rails, and we can have rail transit instead of different color buses.

Posted by Some Jerk | March 14, 2007 12:44 PM
21

And the early winner from the Governor/Mayor’s press conference?

Retrofit! Who knew?

Posted by BB | March 14, 2007 12:48 PM
22

RTID's dead.

But you could always use Fed/State/Port/County/City funding to build Vancouver's SkyTrain along the former monorail Green Line and at the same time build a surface boulevard with the outer lanes being truck/Bus-only and lights every 5 blocks ....

After you get the county to spend more of the 50 percent in taxes we in Seattle give them instead of the paltry 30 percent we get for bus service from our 40 percent of population ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | March 14, 2007 12:53 PM
23

I heard the Governor say "Repair & Prepare."

Sanity, finally.

Posted by David Sucher | March 14, 2007 1:31 PM
24

Don't hate cause I've got the big ideas.

Anyway, who says RTID is dead? I don't myself agree with the extent of suburban paving it'll have, but that does attract suburban votes. 520 gotta be replaced, too. Without the controversial tunnel funding in there, the shotgun marriage to light rail should git'r'done in the city, too.

Posted by Some Jerk | March 14, 2007 1:43 PM
25

@23 - don't believe the phrase - pay attention to the details - she's waiting for Saturday final count. Meanwhile, of the 1000 things they can do, they're doing the ones that everyone knows have to happen.

And RTID is still dead.

Posted by Will in Seattle | March 14, 2007 2:35 PM
26

Original Andrew @ 19:

What's so hard to understand? And what exactly do you mean about "No/No" majority? On each measure individually, a majority voted no, but it is almost certainly not the case that a majority voted "No/No"

Let me walk you through this one more time.

Imagine, just hypothetically, that of voters in the last election, 45% supported an elevated rebuild, 30% supported putting the viaduct in a tunnel, and the other 25% supported some other solution, let's say that would be the surface+transit vote. You see that this hypothetical Seattle is largely (75%) against tearing down the freeway and not replacing the capacity. Now consider how these voters would vote on each of the measures that were on the ballot. Wouldn't both measures fail, in fact by the very margins we saw in the election? Isn't this really the most logical way we would have gotten the election result we did?

It is of course possible that some people voted Yes/Yes as sort of a "Just do something already" vote. We don't have the breakdown for the four possible combinations, but basically we know that the percentage that went No/No is 25%+the percentage that went Yes/Yes. So if 5% voted Yes/Yes, then surface+transit may be as popular as the tunnel. And if 30% voted Yes/Yes (this is the most it could be -- this would be everyone voting for the tunnel voting for the rebuild as well) then 55% voted no on both measures. However it seems unlikely to me that all the tunnel voters voted for the rebuild as well, so I have my doubts that a majority voted against both options. That said, you can't be sure without the actual 4-way breakdown of the votes.

Posted by Eric L | March 14, 2007 3:39 PM
27

A lot of people including myself mailed in blank ballots. i wondered if those were counted in the 55% and how many others did this.

Posted by ac | March 14, 2007 8:40 PM
28

Hi Jim. You letter i received. Thanks! Photos is GREAT!!!!

Posted by Slim | March 20, 2007 8:56 AM
29

Hi Jim. You letter i received. Thanks! Photos is GREAT!!!!

Posted by Slim | March 20, 2007 8:57 AM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).