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Some votes critical in determining the Seattle mayoral race may not get counted until next Tuesday. Vandals tried to get at a ballot drop box in Tukwila in the early morning hours after the election. "The metal cover plate that we seal the ballot drop box with at 8pm on Election night was ripped off," said Kim Van Ekstrom, with King County Elections. Ekstrom said the ballots themselves weren't tampered with because the box's design doesn't allow access unless you have the keys. The question is whether anything was slipped in that shouldn't have been. "They were in the process...

In Washington State, another referendum on gay couples' equality was also a squeaker. But in this one, gay couples won. The state's domestic partnership law grants gay couples all the rights of married couples at a state level. The usual forces tried to reverse it, as they tried in Maine. But in Washington, the gay side won by 51.1 to 48.9 percent. Again, it's such a slender margin, it's stupid to draw any vast conclusions. But I do want to point out that, from the perspective of just a decade ago, to have an even split on this question in...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Washington state voters on Tuesday were narrowly approving the state's new "everything but marriage" law that marks a significant expansion of rights for gay couples. With about 50 percent of the expected vote counted, Referendum 71 was leading 51 percent to 49 percent. The measure asked voters to approve or reject the final expansion to the state's domestic partnership law, which grants registered domestic partners additional state-granted rights currently given only to married couples.

Referendum Measure 71 concerning rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners Approved 165,340 44.89 % Rejected 202,954 55.11 % Total Votes 368,294 100.00%

For Washington go to http://protectmarriagewa.com/ and and for Maine http://www.standformarriagemaine.com/index.php?home=1 If you know anyone in these states that can go vote to protect marriage or can donate, get other people to the polls let them know

The attacks were sharper. The barbs more focused. But in the end, the underlying message was the same in the latest King County executive's debate. Dow Constantine and Susan Hutchison upped the rhetoric and the slings and arrows had a little more punch, but the two kept coming back to this: Constantine is responsible for the King County budget mess. Hutchison is a Republican in moderate's clothes with no experience. When the two did get to issues, Hutchison announced that she believes light rail over Lake Washington should go on a new 520 Bridge, not I-90 as voters approved. Constantine...

About a month ago, I did a story about a voting battle being played out in Pierce County in Washington state. Back in 2006, Pierce County put on its ballot an initiative to change its voting system to ranked choice voting. RCV) is the American English term for a voting system used for single-winnerelections, in which voters rank candidates in an order of preference. If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate's ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (BP)--Voters in Washington state this November apparently will get to decide whether to keep or overturn the state's same-sex "everything but marriage" law, which grants homosexual couples all the legal benefits of marriage and which conservatives warn will lead to the legalization of full-fledged "gay marriage" in the state.

Washington's Secretary of State Sam Reed Seattle, Wash., Sep 2, 2009 / 06:55 am (CNA).- Preliminary, unofficial figures from the Washington state Elections Division shows that a sufficient number of signatures have been gathered to place on the ballot Referendum 71, a measure that would preserve the unique place of marriage by rescinding the state legislature’s expansion of homosexual domestic partnership benefits. Protect Marriage Washington, which is sponsoring the proposal, submitted nearly 138,000 signatures on July 25. State checkers of the signatures accepted 121,617 signatures. According to David Ammons, writing on the blog of the Washington Secretary of State’s...

After two terms as mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels is now conceding.

Washington state officials are ready to verify signatures for a proposed referendum on Washington state's newly expanded domestic partnership law. Secretary of State Sam Reed said Thursday that supporters of Referendum 71 turned in 137,689 signatures, about 14 percent more than the minimum needed to win a place on the November ballot. The average historic error rate is 18 percent. At least 120,577 valid voter signatures are needed to get on the ballot. Election workers will begin verifying signatures Friday.