King County finds elections director close to home

A nationwide search for a King County elections director ended where it started Thursday, when County Executive Ron Sims named Assistant Director Sherril Huff as his choice to take over the tough job.

Sims and several County Council members said Huff has played a key role in rebuilding an office embarrassed by management problems and ballot-handling errors in the 2002 and 2004 elections.

Huff ran Kitsap County elections as an elected auditor from 1979 to 1986 and has helped run King County elections for the past two years.

Sims said Huff is "the perfect person for this job. ... There clearly isn't time to have someone learn this over the next four to five years, particularly when you have a person incredibly capable who is already working for you."

If the appointment is confirmed by the County Council — as seems almost certain — Huff would succeed her former protégé, Dean Logan, who resigned in July to become the next-to-top election official in Los Angeles.

Logan was the second elections director in a row to leave under a cloud.

Huff, 61, said she hasn't decided whether she would be a candidate next February to keep her job if voters this fall approve county Initiative 25, which would put elections in the hands of a nonpartisan, elected auditor.

"That system is not a reality yet. If it becomes a reality, that's something I'll need to consider," Huff said.

She would have to move from Kitsap County to King County to run for auditor.

County Council Chairman Larry Gossett, D-Seattle, said the elections office has made "tremendous strides" since Huff arrived. Councilman Larry Phillips, D-Seattle, said Huff has "a wealth of experience" and he hopes she will be confirmed "sooner rather than later."

County Councilman Bob Ferguson, D-Seattle, also praised her work. When Ferguson asked Huff and her boss, interim director Jim Buck, not to conduct last month's Seattle viaduct vote by mail, "she was never defensive, she had her position, she felt they could execute that election in a way that was positive, and they delivered on that."

Councilman Pete von Reichbauer, R-Federal Way, noting Huff's "impressive credentials," said he was not concerned that she has been closely associated with Logan.

"She shouldn't be blamed for the fact that Dean Logan operated with his foot in his mouth most of the time. I think she should be evaluated by who she is, not by who she's associated with."

Logan, a family friend of Huff's, formerly known as Sherril Huff Menees, was a child when he worked on her first campaign for Kitsap auditor in 1978. She hired him to work in elections after he graduated from Bremerton High School in 1986.

King County Republican Party Chairman Michael Young said he was "shocked" that Sims' national search ended with Huff's promotion: "The national search ends up in your front yard with another partisan Democrat from Kitsap County."

Huff ran successfully twice as a Democrat for Kitsap auditor and ran unsuccessfully in 2000 for the Democratic nomination to a seat on the Kitsap County Council. But she said of her elections jobs, "This is nonpartisan work."

Sims did not find an elections director before last September's primary, as he had hoped.

Fifty candidates applied for the job after consultants Waldron & Co. restarted the search in January. Most were from smaller jurisdictions and two dropped out because they didn't want to run for election, Sims' office reported.

Huff applied for the job in February. If her appointment is confirmed by the County Council, she would earn $137,859 a year.

Staff reporter Sharon Pian Chan contributed to this report. Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com