Recall vote to be an all-postal event

The Dec. 6 recall election for Mayor Jim West is going to give Spokane Auditor Vicky Dalton a chance to try out one of her favorite ideas – an all-mail election – because, well, she can.

Usually, the choice in how a special election is conducted is up to the government where the election is held. So a city council would choose the method for a special city election, a school board would choose for a special school election, and so on.

But recall elections are a special kind of special election under state law. The county auditor makes the call and for Dalton, who’s been trying to harangue and cajole the county commissioners into turning Spokane into an all vote-by-mail county, it was a no-brainer.

She was practically gleeful last week in explaining the election would be conducted by mail, with a couple of ballot drop-off sites, at locations to be determined.

Could be a big one

Because the election will be conducted by mail, Dalton is predicting heavier than normal participation. Permanent absentee voters are more diligent about casting ballots than poll site voters, as we saw in the Sept. 20 primary when more than 30 percent of the mail ballots came back, and the poll site turnout was in single digits.

Plus there’s the interest factor, she said. “This is an issue the community is very involved in.”

Her prediction: 70 percent or more of the ballots that will be mailed out in mid-November will be cast.

Swan song

Recall petition author Shannon Sullivan may have been the only person with a bigger smile than Dalton on Friday when the petition was certified for the election. And it wasn’t solely because she had managed to lead an effort that collected more than enough voter signatures to put the recall on the ballot.

It was also because she was stepping away from the fray, and letting other people run the recall campaign.

“I hope this is the last time you guys are all in my face,” she joked with the assembled television photographers.

At least she didn’t make the kind of Nixonian, this-is-my-last-press-conference statement. Those pronouncements can come back to haunt you.

Hard to trace

A group calling itself We The People is making “robo-calls” against Rep. Cathy McMorris, urging people to call her and demand she give back “tainted money” from GOP House leader Tom DeLay. Whatever one thinks of the travails of Tom “the Hammer,” there are a couple of annoying problems with these automated calls.

First, as mentioned in a previous column, McMorris’ money comes from a different political action committee than the one involved in the Texas indictments. She got money from Americans for a Republican Majority, or ARMPAC; DeLay’s got ‘splaining to do for Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC, which focused on the Texas legislative races.

The other is the difficulty in finding out anything about this group, because it uses the first three words from the preamble to the Constitution. There are several 527 campaign groups – the ones that can be set up as independent attack organizations – that use the ubiquitous phrasing, but none connected with this particular effort.

Without knowing who’s doing this, it’s hard to determine how extensive the effort is. But it seems like a high-volume effort in some parts of Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District.

“I went to church last Sunday in Colville, and five different people talked to me about it,” she said.

McMorris said her office received two to three dozen calls last week from people responding to the robo-calls. Some passed on the group’s message, others were angry about the calls.

Catch the candidates

The League of Women Voters will hold a series of candidate and ballot issue forums on Tuesday evening at Spokane City Hall in the Council Chambers.

City Council candidates and the ballot proposal to lift the lid on the property tax levy will be on tap from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Then they’ll take a break and start on a forum at 7 p.m. for the statewide ballot measures and the county’s advisory measures on mail-in ballots and the sales tax increase for mental health services. That’s due to wrap up about 9 p.m.

They’ll also have a forum for Spokane Valley council candidates on Thursday at the Valley Library, 12004 E. Main Ave., starting at 7 p.m.