November 3, 2010 in News, City

Close local races remain close

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Close races remained close Wednesday after the latest Spokane County ballot totals were released this evening.

But for some candidates who were counting on a big surge, the new numbers fell short.

Democratic state Sen. Chris Marr, for example, conceded in a televised KHQ TV interview this evening that the 3,000-ballot lead held by his opponent, Republican challenger Michael Baumgartner, likely is too great to overcome.

Two countywide races remain too close to draw any conclusions: the race for Spokane County Commission between incumbent Democrat Bonnie Mager and Republican Al French; and the race for Spokane County treasurer pitting incumbent Democrat Skip Chilberg against Republican Rob Chase.

14 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  james_l on November 03 at 5:57 p.m.

  Anyone notice that Ozzie is running away with the vote; as of right now he has about 75%. Not a bad margin, considering he is running unopposed. I wonder where the other 25% are going.

  I wrote in Alan Creach.

• 

  JBlim on November 03 at 6:18 p.m.

  I heard Fred Flintstone was in second place.

• 

  PlanB on November 03 at 6:24 p.m.

  james, I did the same thing.

  I’m not sure how accurate this is, but the Spokane County Prosecuting attorney race had a total of about 93,000 votes for both candidates, and Ozzie has only gotten about 73,000. That’s almost 20,000 people who decided to not vote for Ozzie.

• 

  johnclarke on November 03 at 6:47 p.m.

  I wrote in Ralph Nader.

• 

  Albert on November 03 at 7:01 p.m.

  I wrote in Mark Sterk.

• 

  ericdx on November 03 at 7:18 p.m.

  My wife and I wrote in Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

• 

  misjustice on November 03 at 7:25 p.m.

  I wrote in Alan Creach, also.

• 

  Shylock13 on November 03 at 8:17 p.m.

  Apparently any issues involving law enforcement personnel will continue to be “Tuckered” away! DISGUSTING!!!

• 

  zelda on November 03 at 9:03 p.m.

  Last time I the results at spokanecounty.org, this (below) is what it shows for Ozzie K. A huge number of “under votes.” The only other local race with such a significant number of under votes is county clerk, also running unopposed. (Maybe that’s because nobody knows what the county clerk does and decided not to waste time filling in the oval.)

  This is anecdotal, but a number of people I talked to were very disappointed that so many important office holders were running unopposed.

  Bottom line — more than 35% of those who mailed in their ballots did *not* vote for Ozzie K., either via under voting or write-in.

  County Sheriff
  Vote For One 1
  Ozzie Knezovich … … . . 73,420 96.18
  WRITE-IN… … … . . 2,915 3.82
  Over Votes … … … 0
  Under Votes … … … 23,158

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on November 03 at 9:06 p.m.

  I also voted Creach.

• 

  Scoutster on November 03 at 10:43 p.m.

  I voted Creach as well.

  Wouldn’t there be some threshold that could be reached where they would be obligated to name a write in candidate and how many votes s/he received?

• 

  zelda on November 03 at 11:02 p.m.

  I don’t know what the statutes are in WA or this county, but doesn’t someone have to declare him or herself as an official write-in candidate?

  There was an article a couple of days ago about how Rierson could promote himself as a write-in, but because of some registration process, none of the write-in could be counted legally.

  Look what’s happening with Murkowski in Alaska. She had to mount a huge advertising campaign so people would spell her name exactly as registered when they write her name on the ballot.

  So all the agitation about writing in Alan Creach’s name counts for nothing except maybe it will give the sheriff something to think and reflect on (which one hopes he’s done already. I hope he realizes that voters were trying to register their dissatisfaction.

• 

  SpokaneLiberal on November 04 at 7:36 a.m.

  Zelda

  That dissatisfaction was all I was trying to do.

• 

  stewartcpa on November 04 at 9:30 a.m.

  If you don’t like the fact that lots of people ran unopposed then perhaps you should consider running yourself. See how well you do under the public microscope. Until then, no complaining. :P