Trumpy Joe splurges on a recount
I see that as expected, Joe Kent is paying for a machine recount after losing by 2629 votes to Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the Congressional race up in the 'Couve. Perez's margin of victory was something like 0.8 percent; because it's more than 0.5 percent, the taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for a vote count do-over. Which is a good thing, because as the district was recently gerrymandered, seven counties are involved.
The Kent campaign paid a deposit of $48,589.05 Friday for the recount, said Derrick Nunnally, deputy director of external affairs for the Washington Secretary of State.
In this era of reality detachment regarding elections, it will be a relief when the recount is complete and Perez is sworn in. Kent may never concede graciously, but at that point there will be no reason left to care what he says.
Between 2007 and 2021, in 125 recounts of general election results, the outcome changed in just three of those instances, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Each of those instances were in municipal elections and initial results had a margin of three or fewer votes.
By now, Kent's probably back to his day job, whatever it is. I wonder if he'll pay for a recount on his 2021 taxes.
I agree with your general sentiment about Kent and the recount here, but calling WA-3 gerrymandered is ridiculous. It's essentially a near square along county lines on two sides and the state line on the other two sides and a lityle bit added in from Thurston to get up to the needed numbers. There's no way to put Vancouver with the Portland area since they're in different states. WA uses a commission for redistricting, not a partisan legislative process and the 3 republican, 6 democratic, and 1 swing districts in WA is a little more of a democratic lean than statewide voting.
ReplyDeleteIf you have to have pieces of seven counties in a single district, something funny is going on.
DeleteThat’s some Alex Jones-level logic. WA-3 District is as fair a representation of SW Washington as possible. Do you think Yakima should be part of it? Are you troubled by the number of counties in Washington? I don’t think anyone knows why Wahkiakum is it’s own county, but I’m sure someone in Skamania and Klickitat could justify their separate existences.
DeleteI'm having trouble seeing how anyone at the southern Washington coast has much in common with that suspicious-looking bump into Thurston County. And you would think Klickitat and Skamania Counties should be together. But you are entitled to your opinion, however wrong.
DeleteMaybe you're right. I've been staring at that Thurston bump all day ...
DeleteThe Thurston bump is just there to get the district up to the 1/10th of Washington's population it has to be. One of the alternatives the redistricting commission considered had a bump out of Pierce instead. There's no perfect way to draw 10 equal population districts that doesn't look funny somewhere.
DeleteIf you stare at the bump long enough you’ll be a believer too
DeleteSo who exactly! came up with the money?
ReplyDeleteThe CIA bankrolls more politicians than most folks can ever believe. They have unlimited resources and are the private intelligence agency of Big Capital. And the peeps still think the Russians influence elections with Facebook ads.
ReplyDeleteSo much for intelligence in the CiA.
ReplyDelete