Steady stream of voters at Ballard drop box

Posted by Geeky Swedes on November 3rd, 2009

Update 8:15 p.m.: The first volley of election results are now available online. Greenwood resident Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan are in a dead heat. Referendum 71 is winning by a slim margin statewide (by a larger margin in King County), and Initiative 1033 is losing. For King County Executive, Dow Constantine is leading Susan Hutchinson. Ballard’s own Jessie Israel is losing to Nick Licata for City Council. For more coverage, visit SeattleTimes.com.

Earlier: The Ballard Library is just one of six locations in Seattle to drop off your ballot, and there has been a steady stream of voters all evening.

This was the small traffic jam along 56th St. at 6 p.m. Parking in the immediate area, as you can imagine, has been difficult to find.

Folks as far away as Magnolia dropped off their ballots. The Neighborhood Service Center handed out cupcakes and other refreshments.

We arrived just as King County was picking up a big batch of ballots. Stay tuned for election results, which we’ll link here when they’re available at 8:15 p.m.

Tags: Ballard Facebook

Ballardmom

I'm really surprised at how close the mayor's race is. One of my acquaintances is married to one of the candidates and I'm wondering if their family got any sleep last night! This has been an interesting election so far. As for dropping off ballots, a stay-at-home mom neighbor was walking down there yesterday so we all gave her our ballots to drop off. Not to mention mailing them is super easy. I think the whole process is about as easy as it could get.

larry

Why are you surprised? Half the folks I know are for McGinn, half are for Mallahan. Personally, I voted for the latter. But I honestly don't think it will matter, the city council runs the show. I am just thankful that Dow won handily!

Tell your acquaintance to take a nap. This mayoral election will take days.

SeaSpider

I agree, mayor in this town doesn't seem to wield much power. My two greatest issues are transportation and the schools yet the mayor has almost zero power over either issue. Transit is largely handled by King County and the schools are beyond the reach of the mayor. I went for McGinn just because prior to this Mallahan has shown little interest in civic involvement and I know too many people at T-Mobile who have worked with him.

trollswagen

The election results on the Seattle Times and KIRO websites were actually showing State Ref 71 being rejected by a large margin. I was so confused when I saw the results here, and was able to confirm on the state's election results website.

I know that the wording of this measure was confusing, but I would have thought the Seattle Times would get it right. The Seattle PI has the correct results as well.

Voter

the online links given just show king county results, so the Ref 71 and Measure 1033 are skewed to king county and not indicative of statewide results. For statewide results, go here:
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/Results.aspx?R...
or
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/

Voter

...I should add that statewide results still show Ref 71 as a yes and 1033 as no, but the margins are much closer, especially on 71.

Geeky Swedes

Thanks, Voter. We updated with link to statewide results.

Silver

Thanks for the link to the results page!

ktown69

Really Mia, Ballardgiant is right...you let a little inconvenience control your right and responsibility to vote. Lick a stamp and be done with it.

mia

Who was the think tank that came up with this idea? I drove around to drop off my ballot and was unable to park and no one was outside picking up from cars. So now I have my ballot in my car, missing the deadline and I don't even care.

Black_Sheep

Ballots were mailed out 10/16 - that's about a two-week timeframe to be able to find parking. I walked mine over from 8 blocks away, about a week before the deadline, and no one was there....

ruah

hi mia, mcginn folks will be at e pike and broadway until 11 collecting ballots to bring to the airport to post by midnight. hope this helps...ruah

ruah

(also at wallingford center until 11p)

FremontSheila

I wish I knew that last night. I was in that mess.

cdpenne

you could have parked in front of my house and walked. it's only 10 blocks. come to think of it, you could have parked just about anywhere within 3 blocks. hell, for as long as would take to drop off the ballot, you could have parked in the middle of the damn street. something wrong with your feet?

SeaSpider

Isn't it amazing how lazy some people are? One of my neighbors walked her ballot in and she's over 80 and uses a walker!

ballardgiant

One stamp and you're done!

cdpenne

I enjoyed walking down there to drop off my ballot. Originally I set out with my wife, daughter, and dog hoping to find a bunch of neighbors milling about drinking coffee. But my daughter tripped and skinned her knee so my wife took her back home and I continued with the dog. Just as well. No body did much but drop off thier ballots. I guess most everybody needed to get home and get dinner on the table.