Huff wins election director's race

King County Elections Director Sherril Huff won a decisive victory over five challengers tonight in the county's first vote to choose an elections administrator.

Huff held more than a 2-to-1 lead over her second-place competitor, former Metropolitan King County Councilmember David Irons.

This was King County's first election to be conducted almost entirely by mail. Officials said earlier that the vote totals released after 9 p.m. were expected to represent roughly half of all ballots cast. Ballots had to be postmarked by today.

In the returns just released: Huff had 75,983 votes, or 44 percent; Irons had 33,200 votes, or 19 percent; state Sen. Pam Roach had 28,896 votes, or 17 percent; former banking-industry manager Bill Anderson had 14,775 votes, or 9 percent; former King County Elections Superintendent Julie Kempf had 12,069 votes, or 7 percent; high-school teacher Christopher Clifford had 6,854 votes or 4 percent.

More ballots will be counted in the coming days, with the next new vote totals to be released late Wednesday afternoon. Given Huff's commanding lead, it would defy the odds for her to ultimately lose.

Huff said the six-way race was difficult to predict, but she was surprised by the size of her lead. "I'm of course feeling great. I'm just delighted," she said.

She attributed her apparent victory to her experience and incumbency. Many voters weren't familiar with her name, Huff said, but when campaign volunteers told voters about her, "they felt confortable with the experience."

Officially, the race was nonpartisan, but Huff was backed by the Democratic Party, and the man who had appointed her as elections director, Democratic County Executive Ron Sims. Her two closest competitors, Irons and Roach, are prominent Republicans.

The special election, held without a primary, was scheduled after voters decided in November to choose the elections director who, until now, was appointed by the county executive. King County is joining Washington's 38 other counties in electing the person who runs elections.

The job will pay $146,000 a year.

Enumclaw, Fall City measures

Other contests were on the ballot in Enumclaw and Fall City.

In Enumclaw, voters were giving a modest margin of support to a four-year school levy to pay for technology in classrooms and to fund building improvements at Enumclaw Middle School, Westwood Elementary, and Enumclaw High School. In results released this evening, 2,154 had voted yes, or 52 percent; 2,021 had voted no, or 48 percent.

In Fall City, voters were approving a proposal to create a new park district. District operations would be funded by a property-tax increase of 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation. So far tonight, the total is 574 votes yes, or 59 percent; 394 votes, or 41 percent no.

Staff reporter Nicole Tsong contributed to this report. Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com