Initiative group says it has signatures, needs cash to retrieve them

A campaign to put an elected auditor in charge of King County elections says it has collected enough signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot but can't submit them to the county because it doesn't have the cash to pay a signature-gathering firm.

Initiative 25 organizer and spokesman Toby Nixon said the campaign has 58,000 signatures in hand but is $20,000 short of being able to pay Citizen Solutions for 20,000 more signatures the Federal Way company has collected.

To qualify the initiative for the November ballot, the campaign must submit 54,732 valid signatures from registered King County voters. Additional signatures are critical because many people who sign petitions typically aren't voters or are registered in other counties.

The deadline for submitting signatures is next Wednesday. Nixon had hoped to turn them in Thursday, which was Flag Day.

"Unfortunately, the last few thousand signatures are still in the hands of the signature-gathering company, and they won't release them to us until we have the money to pay them," Nixon said Friday. "We're trying to raise that last bit of money."

If the drive is successful, voters will decide in November whether to replace the appointed director of records, elections and licensing services with an elected auditor.

The first nonpartisan election of an auditor would be in 2008. King County is the only county in the state that doesn't elect an auditor.

Despite the financial shortfall, Nixon said, "I'm confident that we will be able to get the signatures turned in."

Nixon, a former Republican state House member from Kirkland, is heading the Citizens for Accountable Elections' campaign for I-25.

The campaign reported raising $101,483 and spending $88,629 in its June 11 report to the state Public Disclosure Commission. Nixon said it has raised about $20,000 in the past two weeks.

The biggest contributor is Seattle developer Martin Selig, who gave $25,000. Other top donors are the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance, $15,000; Woodinville investment adviser Michael Dunmire, $10,000; and the Evergreen Freedom Action League, $10,000.

Nixon, a Microsoft program manager, has loaned the campaign $15,000.

Republicans on the Metropolitan King County Council have pushed for several years for an elected auditor, but the idea has been resisted by County Executive Ron Sims and several members of the council's Democratic majority. Last fall the council voted to put the issue before voters in 2009 — too long a wait for some of those supporting an elected auditor.

In April, Sims nominated assistant elections director Sherril Huff to become director.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com