Proposition 3 Defeated In Recount Measure Would Have Made City Initiatives More Difficult

A proposal to change the city of Spokane’s initiative process apparently has failed after all.

Spokane city Proposition 3 passed by a single vote the first time ballots in the Nov. 3 election were counted. But when county officials finished a recount of 47,959 ballots Wednesday, it had lost by seven votes.

A citizens group against the proposal paid $3,000 for a recount by hand. Because the result was reversed, the group will get its money back.

Two weeks ago, county election officials announced that voters had approved city Proposition 3 by a vote of 23,943 to 23,942.

The final tally, this time around: 23,976 for and 23,983 against.

The count is 74 votes higher than the original because it includes ballots that were rejected the first time. The hole in those ballots wasn’t fully punched and so weren’t counted by the computer.

The recount was performed by hand.

“With all the modern technology we have, it always comes back down to the human being,” said County Commissioner Phil Harris.

One more recount can be requested, said Tom Wilbur, county elections supervisor. City officials haven’t discussed whether to seek another recount.

Assistant City Attorney Larry Winner said some of the ideas in Proposition 3, including mandatory legal review by city attorneys and a time limit on gathering signatures, could be adopted by the City Council as an ordinance.

Proposition 3 would have set a six-month time limit for collecting petition signatures, required a conference between the petition sponsors and the city attorney, and made some ballot measures advisory only.

With Wednesday’s tally, the current initiative rules remain in place.

The recount began Monday.

By Wednesday morning, the hand counting was nearly finished. Fewer than six dozen ballots remained uncounted.

Following strict election rules, the county’s election canvassing board was convened at 11 a.m. to scrutinize 68 ballots that didn’t seem to be punched all the way through.

Commissioner Harris, county Auditor William Donahue, and county attorney Jim Emacio reviewed each of the ballots, watched closely by Wilbur and Sheryl Moss from the secretary of state’s office, who supervised the full recount.

Ballots were held up to the light, gently bent, tapped on the table, and softly stroked with a paper clip-like stylus to see whether the chad would fall out.

The chad is the little dot that voters punch out to signify their choice. By noon, Emacio had a pile of the little beige dots on the table in front of him.

“Unless it is loose, we can’t count it,” said Harris. “I’ve never had to do this before.”

Wilbur said the hand counting is precise and reliable.

“We counted some of them four times before we decided if it was correct,” he said.

Proposition 3 would have tightened the citizen initiative process.

Petitions need signatures from at least 5 percent of the voters in the last general election to appear on the ballot.

But under Proposition 3, petitions getting between 5 percent and 15 percent of voter signatures would have gone to the ballot as advisory votes.

If the non-binding vote was passed, the City Council would hold another hearing and decide whether to adopt the ordinance.

The Proposition 3 vote was especially important to David Bray, whose initiative seeking to elect City Council members by district could have been the first affected by the new rule. His petition comes before the council Monday.

His initiative collected signatures from fewer than 15 percent of voters.

Bray also was among the citizens who requested the Proposition 3 recount, paid for by Metropolitan Mortgage.

“It’s important to everyone who lives here, because if it was upheld, it means citizens who want to change laws have to spend more money and time gathering signatures to the 15 percent level.” he said.