Election-director initiative likely to qualify for ballot

King County elections officials have certified that one citizen initiative collected enough petition signatures to qualify for the Nov. 6 ballot, and a second initiative is well on its way to qualifying.

Initiative 24, which would create a new system for citizens to give input to county government, has submitted more than the required 52,817 petition signatures, Elections Director Sherril Huff formally notified the County Council clerk last week.

Election workers are verifying signatures for Initiative 25, a more controversial proposal that would put administration of elections in the hands of a nonpartisan, elected director. Huff said that task -- originally targeted for completion by Aug. 31 -- should be finished sometime this week.

"We're moving quickly," Huff said. Election workers checked 31,000 I-25 signatures and validated 24,000 between Tuesday and Thursday, according to elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan. I-25 has the same 52,817-signature validation requirement as I-24.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan King County Council members Reagan Dunn, R-Maple Valley, and Jane Hague, R-Bellevue, introduced an emergency ordinance Thursday that would allow election workers to speed up signature verification by checking a statistical sample rather than verifying the entire number of required signatures. The council is to decide today whether to send the ordinance to committee or vote on it immediately.

Huff said she supports legislation to allow statistical sampling -- which is routinely done with statewide initiatives -- but said it's too late for a new method to speed up validation of I-25.

Initiative 25

If I-25 meets signature requirements as expected, the County Council will have to decide whether to adopt the initiative, which would put a county-charter amendment before voters Nov. 6. If voters were to approve the amendment, an elections director would be elected next February and take office in March.

Alternatively, the council could put the initiative -- not the charter amendment -- on the November ballot, delaying a vote on the amendment for a year. The council also could propose a charter amendment of its own.

While the council's four Republican members support an elected elections director, the five Democrats have been divided. Currently, the county executive appoints a director of records, elections and licensing services.

Councilmember Bob Ferguson, D-Seattle, last year supported a charter amendment that would have put an elected auditor in charge of elections but then supported legislation that put off a vote until 2009.

Timing of a possible amendment is sensitive, in part because the County Council has directed Huff to institute a switch to all-mail voting next year.

Initiative 24

I-24, written by Dick's Drive-In restaurant chain co-founder Dick Spady and his son Jim Spady, aims to increase citizen involvement in county government by creating a privately funded "citizen-councilor network" of small discussion groups that would study issues and give their input to the County Council.

Validation of initiatives was speeded up last week when Huff and the Prosecuting Attorney's Office reinterpreted county law in a way that reduced the number of required signatures.

Responding to a query from Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer's office, officials agreed that the county code bases the signature requirement on the number of votes counted in the last county executive race, not on the number of votes cast in that election.

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