Blanking out: Thousands skip governor race

After years of political experts telling us every vote counts and urging people to the polls, the Washington governor’s race gives them a race they can point to and say “See. We told ya so.”

Expect to hear this repeatedly for a generation, after the first round of counting some 2.8 million ballots left Dino Rossi 261 votes ahead of Chris Gregoire.

Just a few more voters in each county coming out to cast a ballot for Gregoire, and she could’ve won, they’ll tell us. Or going to the polls for Rossi, and he could’ve avoided a recount.

All due respect to our “good government” friends, but that’s horse puckies. Washington’s turnout stands at 82.2 percent. Any better than that, and we’d be suspected of being a Third World dictatorship.

The real reason this race is so close has nothing to do with the voters who stayed home. It has everything to do with the people who voted, but didn’t like Gregoire, Rossi or Libertarian Ruth Bennett, and passed over that race without marking a circle or punching a hole.

More than 63,000 voters – the exact total isn’t yet available from some counties – did just that. They cared enough to vote for president, or for Senate or some statewide initiative. But they didn’t vote in the governor’s race.

These so-called undervotes show up in every election, and are generally dismissed by political experts.

“It’s normal that there’s a drop-off as you move down the ballot,” University of Washington communications professor John Gastil told Spokesman-Review reporter Richard Roesler last week when the undervotes were mentioned. “There are people who show up every four years just to vote for president.”

And the numbers do bear that out, to an extent. In Spokane County, only 804 people who cast ballots didn’t vote for a presidential candidate, while nearly 4,000 didn’t vote for governor, and some 12,000 didn’t vote for lieutenant governor.

But that’s not the point in a race like this one. Getting people to the polls takes the big effort. Once they decide to go and vote for something, or someone, getting them to mark one more circle for your candidate – particularly for a race like governor – shouldn’t take that much more effort.

They’re going to vote anyway. You just have to get them to expand their horizons a little bit.

This year, if Gregoire had “made the sale” to 7 more of those undervoting voters in each of Washington’s 39 counties, she’d be ahead right now. (Well, actually, she’d need eight votes in 38 counties, because tiny Asotin County says it didn’t have any blank votes in the governor’s race. Good, serious voters down there in Asotin County.)

If Rossi had convinced 45 of those “I don’t knows” in each county, he’d be beyond a recount.

This isn’t the only race that was decided by “I don’t knows.” Brad Benson beat Laurie Dolan for a state Senate seat by 1,209 votes, but 3,647 people didn’t mark their ballot for that race. Mark Richard beat out Bill Burke for a county commissioner spot by just under 5,000, but 35,000 people didn’t vote in that one.

Maybe it’s time for candidates to stop spending so much time trying to up the turnout by a few percent, and hone their message to shake more actual voters out of their “none of the above” attitude.

As it is, it’s the undervoters who have Washington headed for a recount, not the non-voters.

McMorris gets busy

Cathy McMorris has reportedly hit the ground running in Washington, D.C., during freshman orientation. Congressional Quarterly reports she was elected to the freshman class spot on the Republican Steering Committee. This is no mean feat for two reasons, CQ reports.

One is that she was competing against a Texas congressman, and there are five new reps from Texas, while only two from Washington. The other is that this is a coveted spot that helps build political capital, because a steering committee member can help other new members secure the assignments they want.

Party folks

The next political elections aren’t next fall, they’re in January, for party leadership. In Spokane County, the Democrats already have one announced candidate, who might pump some new blood into the party. Katie Kirking, a public defender and president of the county’s Young Democrats, sent out an e-mail expressing her intent.

Among Republicans, County Chairwoman Robin Ball said she’s not seeking a second term, but Vice Chairman John Wyss is looking to move up.

For map lovers

Some readers said they really enjoy the red vs. blue maps on party support, like the one in last Sunday’s Spokesman-Review on Spokane County’s precincts. Those who have Internet access might want to try a Web site from the University of Michigan, which has state-by-state, and even county-by-county maps of the nation in several formats, including one that uses a broad color spectrum from red to blue, so that the closer counties are shades of purple. Find it at www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election.