SEATTLE - With just weeks to go before a new election, some King County leaders took a vote of ‘no confidence’ in their own county. The group of Republican County council members is asking the state to help prevent another botched election.
KING
In about three weeks, absentee ballots for the upcoming primary will be mailed out. In six weeks, the primary election will be held. Yet King County is still trying to hire a superintendent of elections, plus hire an outside management team to turn the troubled department around.
Some Republicans say the county is setting voters up for a repeat of election 2004.
“I think the fear is actually that we won't know who won again,” said King County Council member David Irons, who is leading a Republican chorus calling for change. As an example, Irons pointed to a King County voter registration card sent to him recently by a female constituent. It was meant for the woman's husband who died 11 years ago.
“The simple concept of doing the same thing again and expecting an outcome is a definition of clinical insanity,” he said.
Six Republican county council members signed a letter asking executive Ron Sims to ask for help, specifically requesting the Secretary of State's office to come in and run the upcoming election.
This comes after an election fiasco that saw countless missing ballots, hundreds of provisional ballots that were incorrectly counted, and the demotion of the county's superintendent of elections.
Six weeks after the county began searching for a replacement, there are still no takers.
A spokesperson for Sim's office said the county is working on changes, and working hard to find a new superintendent.
Sims' office says one thing it knows is that the Republican's proposal is not the answer. He would rather take his advice from an independent non-partisan commission rather than what is clearly a naked and partisan political ploy.
Sim's office says it has hired 14 new election workers, plus set aside more money for training of workers and managers.
Both council members Reagan Dunn and David Irons are running in the upcoming election. Irons is specifically trying to unseat Sims.
The Secretary of State's office told KING 5 news that if it is asked it will help King County in anyway it can, but it does not have the staff to run an entire department.
