Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[Meeker]

Turnout is lagging slightly behind 2007, significantly behind 2005, 2003 and 2001 FYI

[Meeker]

New SUSA polls:

R-71
Approve: 50%
Reject: 43%

I-1033
Yes: 38%
No: 50%

Clearly the No on I-1033 folks have been doing something right...

[Nhoj]

New SUSA polls:

R-71
Approve: 50%
Reject: 43%

I-1033
Yes: 38%
No: 50%

Clearly the No on I-1033 folks have been doing something right...

any cross tabs from SUSA?

[Meeker]

New SUSA polls:

R-71
Approve: 50%
Reject: 43%

I-1033
Yes: 38%
No: 50%

Clearly the No on I-1033 folks have been doing something right...

any cross tabs from SUSA?

They'll be released later tonight.

[Meeker]

Crosstabs up: http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=fa112324-530e-497f-9871-069fbd6261b8

SUSA did kind of an interesting thing with I-1033. They read half of the respondents a reasonable summary of what the initiative did and then read half of the respondents the actual ballot language. They then averaged them out for the final poll result. The numbers don't differ radically between the summary and the actual language though.

Amongst the already voted I-1033 is failing 42-53 and R-71 is passing 53-42.

[Holmes]

If R-71 is approved, the same-sex marriage bill has to be passed either next year or in 2012. If it comes up for a vote in an off-off year, then I don't know if it would be able to win at the ballot box considering R-71 is closer than it should be, for Washington.

[And if it abolishes the Domestic Partnership registry like DC's bill, I'd be angry... and it's stupid how it's only for gay and senior couples. Why not open it to all couples who just don't wanna get married but want the legal benefits? Anyway...]

[CultureKing]

Hmm... Is Washington really 32% conservative, 43% moderate and 20% liberal?

I feel like that is way off.

[Alcon]

We have one mainstream poll with weird probably-overconservative crosstabs, we have another university poll with just-plain-weird crosstabs, and an unpublished internal with God knows what.

This race could feasibly be anywhere between a toss-up and a 20-point landslide.

Edit: and, wow, turnout sucks.  Pierce County called this one (about 45%)

[Meeker]

Edit: and, wow, turnout sucks.  Pierce County called this one (about 45%)

You have any theories as to why this might be happening? It seems very counterintuitive - we've got a high-profile, hot-button statewide referenda, competitive races in most of the major geographic areas (King County, Seattle, Tacoma, vast majority of the medium-sized municipalities, etc.)... it seems logical that turnout should be up this year.

The only thing I've got is this: The influx of new registrants from 2008 is deflating the turnout percentage. The same people who've always been voting in municipal elections are still voting (and perhaps even a few more due to the reasons mentioned above), but the massive amount of "one-hit-wonder" voters is off setting the percentage and making it appear as if turnout is down.

[Alcon]

That's the only theory I could come up with.  But even in raw ballot returns, we're barely edging 2007 and getting killed compared to 2005.  It doesn't make any sense to me at all.

[The Mikado]

So, could someone make up for my criminal lack of knowledge about a state I have significant personal ties to and explain this R-71 business to me?

[Alcon]

So, could someone make up for my criminal lack of knowledge about a state I have significant personal ties to and explain this R-71 business to me?

Washington started with a weak, legislatively-passed "domestic partnership" law, which is more accurately a civil union law, since it involves the government.

Then, it was expanded.

This year, it was expanded again, to match all the rights of marriage without having the name -- except the federal ones, of course.

A somewhat weaksauce coalition of Christian right folks petitioned the Senate Bill onto the ballot as Referendum 71.  They got enough signatures only by the skin of their teeth.

Now, we are voting to either Approve or Reject that expanded domestic partnership law, as Referendum 71.  And by "we," I mean Meeker, me, and the seven other people who are going to vote this year.

An "Approve" vote keeps the "Everything but Marriage" bill.  A "Reject" vote rolls it back to the medium-strength version.

[Meeker]

So, could someone make up for my criminal lack of knowledge about a state I have significant personal ties to and explain this R-71 business to me?

In 2005 the State Legislature, after 25 years of trying, passed a landmark gay rights bill which added sexual orientation to the state anti-discrimination statue (making it on par with things such as race, gender and religious creed). Buoyed by this success and increased Democratic majorities from the 2006 elections, in 2007 the first domestic partnership law was passed. This law granted same-sex couples and heterosexual couples with one partner over the age of 65 many of the rights granted to married couples but not all of them. This spring the legislature continued with this work and passed a bill making the domestic partnerships equal in all aspects to a marriage - essentially creating gay marriage in everything but name.

Radical conservatives (many from out of state) didn't like this cause it's a sign the gays are taking over and stuff. So they succeeded in gathering enough signatures (barely) to refer the law to the people for a vote, asking the people if they want to "Approve" the law as passed by the legislature (thus keeping the everything-but-marriage domestic partnerships) or "Reject" the law as passed by the legislature (which I suppose would revert everything back to the 2007 domestic partnership law).

Alcon and probably Holmes could provide more details as to the actual campaign as they seem to be better versed on it than I.

ETA: K, I had this all written so I'm gonna go ahead and post it and Alcon can suck it.

[RI]

And by "we," I mean Meeker, me, and the seven other people who are going to vote this year.

My girlfriend and I have already voted Accept, though not my dad, who, for the lamest of reasons, voted Reject...

[Meeker]

I just checked what was on the ballot in 2005 to see if it would help explain the difference in turnout. We dealt with the I-330/I-336 nonsense and the attempted repeal of the fuel tax, but I don't think either drove up turnout that much... especially since the fuel tax ended up failing.

Sometimes things happen in election statistics that are simply unexplainable. Maybe this is one of them.

[Meeker]

Completely unrelated to anything: A member of the Eatonville Town Council has had his registration challenged as it's become apparent he now lives in Vancouver. lol

[Alcon]

Completely unrelated to anything: A member of the Eatonville Town Council has had his registration challenged as it's become apparent he now lives in Vancouver. lol

haha, wow.  I Googled him out of curiosity (since you rarely see any challenges, let alone two on one person) but I didn't realize he was the incumbent.  That's pretty funny.

ah eatonville, always justifying my constant inability to distinguish you from enumclaw.

[Meeker]

Breaking allegations of sexual misconduct by Constantine with a former county employee. Sound Politics broke it and the Seattle Times is digging around pretty heavily.

Fuck.

[CultureKing]

Breaking allegations of sexual misconduct by Constantine with a former county employee. Sound Politics broke it and the Seattle Times is digging around pretty heavily.

Fuck.

What a horrible candidate.

Couldn't King County come up with someone better?
Hopefully there are enough early votes to not let Hutchinson in, but really I am not sure if Constantine deserves it.

[Alcon]

Breaking allegations of sexual misconduct by Constantine with a former county employee. Sound Politics broke it and the Seattle Times is digging around pretty heavily.

Fuck.

What a horrible candidate.

Couldn't King County come up with someone better?
Hopefully there are enough early votes to not let Hutchinson in, but really I am not sure if Constantine deserves it.

If the General is anything like the primary, late voters are where Constantine needed to have done well.  We'll see how it plays on the news tonight.

[Ogre Mage]

Breaking allegations of sexual misconduct by Constantine with a former county employee. Sound Politics broke it and the Seattle Times is digging around pretty heavily.

Fuck.

The timing of this strikes me as awfully convenient, given polls have recently shown Dow surging ahead and there are only days left to vote.  And it goes without saying that anything on Sound Politics should be taken with huge grain of salt. I am going to need harder evidence than conveniently-timed rumor-mongering by the (un) Sound Politics crowd about an anonymous "Jane Doe" who did not file a formal complaint against Constantine.  It smells like desperation from Hutchison's backers.

Call me optimistic but unless there are further revelations, I think the public will see this ploy for what it is.

[Alcon]

For reference, Pierce County turnout multipliers (that is, total mail ballots returned over return rate of the day equivalent to today) were:

2001: 2.34
2003: 2.23
2005: 2.29
2007: 2.88

As you can see, remarkably steady, except for an obnoxious 2007 outlier.  In any case, if this election tracks like 2001-2005, we can assume a final turnout of 37%-39% for Pierce.  If our multiplier is more like 2007, we're more on target for the county's estimates -- somewhere between in the neighborhood of 45%, maybe more.

King County is trailing even worse.  I don't have historical multipliers for them, but it's going to be hard for them to hit 56%.  It would take a multiplier like Pierce saw in 2007.  Otherwise, they may not even hit 50%.

I just checked a handful of rural counties, and everywhere else is around 25%, some nudging 30%, almost twice Pierce's current return rate.

[Holmes]

Why does King county just not care?

[Meeker]

I've received word that the Pierce County post offices are just holding on to ballots with insufficient postage (you need 61 cents this year) and then plan on charging the county for the difference come election day. I don't know how many ballots that'll affect, but if it's a significant number it could help explain the turnout lag.

[Meeker]

The results from the all-important Student Mock Election have been posted by the Secretary of State. I-1033 failed 44-56 and R-71 was approved 59-41.