Public Periscope
Chances for a spectator sport?
Counting the ballots last Tuesday night went relatively smoothly even though the Spokane County elections office was in new digs - the Champions Room on the lower level of the Spokane Arena. A steady stream of poll workers drove up, handed their ballot boxes through car windows to waiting elections workers and drove off. … It allowed poll workers to avoid the challenge of finding a place to park near the courthouse and also avoid having to schlep the boxes across streets or up sidewalks. At times, traffic was backed up onto Post Street, but Spokane County Auditor Vickie Dalton said she expects to have those bugs worked out by the November general election. … The only problem was that the setting is fairly - how shall we put it nicely? - boring.
To spice things up, Dalton could move the ballot counting to the main floor of the arena, flash the tallies on the scoreboard and pipe in the organ music for each update. Maybe the arena could rent out the luxury suites to candidates and their campaigns for victory parties. Average citizens might even be willing to sit in the stands, provided there were a 50-50 raffle and regular visits by the beer man.
Can’t stay away
Bill Donahue may have overseen more elections than anyone else in Spokane before he retired this year as county auditor. So on the first big election night since his retirement, where was Donahue on Tuesday? … Watching over the ballot counting at the arena, of course. Donahue was there with his successor, Vickie Dalton, and Elections Supervisor Tom Wilbur as the computer scanned some 41,000 ballot cards and spit out results. But he wasn’t there for the county. Instead, he’d been delegated by the Spokane County Democratic Party to watch the count.
Not going great guns
The local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has come out against pistol-packing politicians at the courthouse. Sheriff Mark Sterk recently offered to deputize elected county officials, thus allowing those with permits to carry concealed handguns into the building to protect themselves as they make those controversial decisions. … Bad idea, says the NAACP: “There is no valid past experience in our county officials’ workplace that warrants such extreme measures. The county courthouse is possibly the most securely patrolled of all public facilities.” … Sure the courthouse is safe - now. But what about before the commissioners dropped the ban on smoking at the Interstate Fair?
One for all?
The Reform Party of Washington has a new idea it’s trying to interest voters in. It’s called unicameral. … No, that’s not a camel with one hump. It’s a legislature with only one house. Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, the most recognizable elected Reform Party official, says he thinks single-chamber legislatures make sense, and so does local party chairman Steve Thompson, who believes the idea would streamline the legislative process and save money. … Actually, it’s not a new idea. One of the great small “r” reformers, George Norris, came up with it more than a half-century ago. He even convinced his home state, Nebraska, to enact it into law. Other states have studied Nebraska’s system over the years, but so far, none has followed suit.