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How Likely is a Recount in the Mayor's Race?

News   November 5, 2009 at 12:43 pm Erica C. Barnett

Mike McGinn currently leads Joe Mallahan in the Seattle mayor’s race by 462 votes. That’s 49.77 percent to 49.33 percent out of 104,014 votes counted—a margin of 0.44 percent of the total vote so far. As I reported yesterday, there are about 100,000 to 110,000 votes in Seattle remaining to be counted.

So how close will the final vote have to be to trigger an automatic recount? According to King County Elections, a machine recount is required if the difference between the top two candidates is less than 2,000 AND less than 1/2 of one percent of the total votes cast for both candidates. The current margin between the two candidates would trigger a machine recount, because it meets both criteria. A manual recount, on the other hand, only kicks in when the margin between the top two candidates is less than 150 votes and less than 1/4 of one percent, so the current margin wouldn’t trigger a manual recount.

King County will release the results of the next batch of ballots this afternoon at 4:30.


  • Giffy

    I have a hard time believing that 100k are outstanding in the mayoral race. King County only has 130k on hand http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/VoterTurnout.aspx?ElectionID=32

    Assuming 1/3 of those are Seattle that’s about 43k. I doubt there is going to be twice that number to come as most ballots have probably arrived by now. Maybe another 10-20k, but not much more than that.

    I think turnout is less than was predicted.

  • Giffy

    I have a hard time believing that 100k are outstanding in the mayoral race. King County only has 130k on hand http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/VoterTurnout.aspx?ElectionID=32

    Assuming 1/3 of those are Seattle that’s about 43k. I doubt there is going to be twice that number to come as most ballots have probably arrived by now. Maybe another 10-20k, but not much more than that.

    I think turnout is less than was predicted.

  • Giffy

    I have a hard time believing that 100k are outstanding in the mayoral race. King County only has 130k on hand http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/VoterTurnout.aspx?ElectionID=32

    Assuming 1/3 of those are Seattle that’s about 43k. I doubt there is going to be twice that number to come as most ballots have probably arrived by now. Maybe another 10-20k, but not much more than that.

    I think turnout is less than was predicted.

  • For-Caster

    the good news is that this afternoon McGinn will widen his lead. The question is how much. I am betting more than 910 votes. If this does not happen this afternoon, and Mallahan takes lead than i am not sure where this is going.

    I am hoping McGinn will take a good lead. let us find out this afternoon

  • For-Caster

    the good news is that this afternoon McGinn will widen his lead. The question is how much. I am betting more than 910 votes. If this does not happen this afternoon, and Mallahan takes lead than i am not sure where this is going.

    I am hoping McGinn will take a good lead. let us find out this afternoon

  • For-Caster

    the good news is that this afternoon McGinn will widen his lead. The question is how much. I am betting more than 910 votes. If this does not happen this afternoon, and Mallahan takes lead than i am not sure where this is going.

    I am hoping McGinn will take a good lead. let us find out this afternoon

  • http://www.horsesass.org/ Goldy

    Giffy @1,

    Don’t pay attention to the on hand number; it changes as ballots come in and are processed. Current projections still predict about a 56% turnout countywide, which means there’s still about 300k ballots outstanding.

  • http://www.horsesass.org Goldy

    Giffy @1,

    Don’t pay attention to the on hand number; it changes as ballots come in and are processed. Current projections still predict about a 56% turnout countywide, which means there’s still about 300k ballots outstanding.

  • pl

    I dropped my ballot off at the King County Admin building on Tuesday afternoon. Checking here:

    https://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/mailballottracking.aspx

    I’ve determined that my ballot isn’t shown as being received by the County yet–a lot of ballots still left to be counted.

    Everyone should track their ballots and make sure their vote is being counted.

  • pl

    I dropped my ballot off at the King County Admin building on Tuesday afternoon. Checking here:

    https://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/mailballottracking.aspx

    I’ve determined that my ballot isn’t shown as being received by the County yet–a lot of ballots still left to be counted.

    Everyone should track their ballots and make sure their vote is being counted.

  • pl

    I dropped my ballot off at the King County Admin building on Tuesday afternoon. Checking here:

    https://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/mailballottracking.aspx

    I’ve determined that my ballot isn’t shown as being received by the County yet–a lot of ballots still left to be counted.

    Everyone should track their ballots and make sure their vote is being counted.

  • Giffy

    @3 When were those predictions updated?

    I take the 130k number to mean the number of ballots received by yesterday, is that not accurate? If its not then yeah*, but if it is I find it hard to believe that there are another 170k that will arrive today and later. That would be almost 40% of the total received this far. Especially since a good chunk of the ballots (probably a majority) that were mailed the day before or on election day would have been received by now.

    *I guess what I am wondering is that number reflective of ballots on hand or are there ballots that were received before the last update, but not included in the count.

  • Giffy

    @3 When were those predictions updated?

    I take the 130k number to mean the number of ballots received by yesterday, is that not accurate? If its not then yeah*, but if it is I find it hard to believe that there are another 170k that will arrive today and later. That would be almost 40% of the total received this far. Especially since a good chunk of the ballots (probably a majority) that were mailed the day before or on election day would have been received by now.

    *I guess what I am wondering is that number reflective of ballots on hand or are there ballots that were received before the last update, but not included in the count.

  • Giffy

    @3 When were those predictions updated?

    I take the 130k number to mean the number of ballots received by yesterday, is that not accurate? If its not then yeah*, but if it is I find it hard to believe that there are another 170k that will arrive today and later. That would be almost 40% of the total received this far. Especially since a good chunk of the ballots (probably a majority) that were mailed the day before or on election day would have been received by now.

    *I guess what I am wondering is that number reflective of ballots on hand or are there ballots that were received before the last update, but not included in the count.

  • http://peacetreefarm.org N in Seattle

    Giffy, according to the KCE Mail Ballot Return Statistics page, as of 8pm last night they had 164,113 Seattle ballots in hand, of which 27,560 were received on Wednesday.

    That’s received, not verified. The count of verified ballots isn’t available, as best I can tell, but the count of tallied ballots (the count shown at the top of the Seattle section of the results pages is a subset of the verified ones. Some proportion of the verified ballots hadn’t yet been run through the counting machines.

  • http://peacetreefarm.org N in Seattle

    Giffy, according to the KCE Mail Ballot Return Statistics page, as of 8pm last night they had 164,113 Seattle ballots in hand, of which 27,560 were received on Wednesday.

    That’s received, not verified. The count of verified ballots isn’t available, as best I can tell, but the count of tallied ballots (the count shown at the top of the Seattle section of the results pages is a subset of the verified ones. Some proportion of the verified ballots hadn’t yet been run through the counting machines.

  • http://peacetreefarm.org N in Seattle

    Giffy, according to the KCE Mail Ballot Return Statistics page, as of 8pm last night they had 164,113 Seattle ballots in hand, of which 27,560 were received on Wednesday.

    That’s received, not verified. The count of verified ballots isn’t available, as best I can tell, but the count of tallied ballots (the count shown at the top of the Seattle section of the results pages is a subset of the verified ones. Some proportion of the verified ballots hadn’t yet been run through the counting machines.

  • http://peacetreefarm.org N in Seattle

    Oops, forgot to close a parenthetical phrase. My second paragraph should read:

    That’s received, not verified. The count of verified ballots isn’t available, as best I can tell, but the count of tallied ballots (the count shown at the top of the Seattle section of the results pages) is a subset of the verified ones. Some proportion of the verified ballots hadn’t yet been run through the counting machines.

  • http://peacetreefarm.org N in Seattle

    Oops, forgot to close a parenthetical phrase. My second paragraph should read:

    That’s received, not verified. The count of verified ballots isn’t available, as best I can tell, but the count of tallied ballots (the count shown at the top of the Seattle section of the results pages) is a subset of the verified ones. Some proportion of the verified ballots hadn’t yet been run through the counting machines.

  • http://peacetreefarm.org N in Seattle

    Oops, forgot to close a parenthetical phrase. My second paragraph should read:

    That’s received, not verified. The count of verified ballots isn’t available, as best I can tell, but the count of tallied ballots (the count shown at the top of the Seattle section of the results pages) is a subset of the verified ones. Some proportion of the verified ballots hadn’t yet been run through the counting machines.

  • Giffy

    @6, I was looking at the states page which had 129k as the estimate on hand for the county.

    Looking at that page getting to 56% turnout seems very unlikely. They would need to get 30% of what they have gotten so far. Assuming no ballots(or very few) will arrive after Saturday, that would mean we would need about 23500 on both those days, which seems unlikely since on Wednesday they only got 27000 and the numbers are going to drop off pretty quickly.

  • Giffy

    @6, I was looking at the states page which had 129k as the estimate on hand for the county.

    Looking at that page getting to 56% turnout seems very unlikely. They would need to get 30% of what they have gotten so far. Assuming no ballots(or very few) will arrive after Saturday, that would mean we would need about 23500 on both those days, which seems unlikely since on Wednesday they only got 27000 and the numbers are going to drop off pretty quickly.

  • Giffy

    @6, I was looking at the states page which had 129k as the estimate on hand for the county.

    Looking at that page getting to 56% turnout seems very unlikely. They would need to get 30% of what they have gotten so far. Assuming no ballots(or very few) will arrive after Saturday, that would mean we would need about 23500 on both those days, which seems unlikely since on Wednesday they only got 27000 and the numbers are going to drop off pretty quickly.

  • Giffy

    King County as a whole would have to receive almost 20k more on each of those days then they did on Wednesday to hit 56%.

  • Marsh

    @9: Why is that so unlikely? Lots of people voted on Monday and Tuesday. Lots of people who voted earlier than that have not had their ballots counted.

  • Marsh

    @9: Why is that so unlikely? Lots of people voted on Monday and Tuesday. Lots of people who voted earlier than that have not had their ballots counted.

  • Marsh

    @9: Why is that so unlikely? Lots of people voted on Monday and Tuesday. Lots of people who voted earlier than that have not had their ballots counted.

  • http://gomezticator.livejournal.com/tag/2009+election Gomez

    I know Mike McGinn raided some extra ballots on Tuesday night, guys, but I highly doubt we see more than 50% turnout unless something fishy’s going on.

  • http://gomezticator.livejournal.com/tag/2009+election Gomez

    I know Mike McGinn raided some extra ballots on Tuesday night, guys, but I highly doubt we see more than 50% turnout unless something fishy’s going on.

  • http://gomezticator.livejournal.com/tag/2009+election Gomez

    I know Mike McGinn raided some extra ballots on Tuesday night, guys, but I highly doubt we see more than 50% turnout unless something fishy’s going on.

  • David Miller

    First, McGinn does not have a “0.44 percent” margin. He has a 0.44 percentage POINT margin (yes, a pet peeve of mine.

    Second, here are the Seattle-specific numbers as of YESTERDAY.

    Total projected turnout in SEATTLE is 57% or 214,938 ballots. Total received at King County 164,113.

    Total counted in Seattle as of yesterday’s data was 109,874.

    Using yesterday’s figures, there are 54,239 ballots to be counted FOR SURE and probably (if the projections are right) about 105,000 ballots to count before the counting is done.

    About 5% of Seattle ballots thus far did not vote for Mayor, so adjust accordingly.

    Data here:
    http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/200911/Respage23.aspx

    http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/abstats/

  • David Miller

    First, McGinn does not have a “0.44 percent” margin. He has a 0.44 percentage POINT margin (yes, a pet peeve of mine.

    Second, here are the Seattle-specific numbers as of YESTERDAY.

    Total projected turnout in SEATTLE is 57% or 214,938 ballots. Total received at King County 164,113.

    Total counted in Seattle as of yesterday’s data was 109,874.

    Using yesterday’s figures, there are 54,239 ballots to be counted FOR SURE and probably (if the projections are right) about 105,000 ballots to count before the counting is done.

    About 5% of Seattle ballots thus far did not vote for Mayor, so adjust accordingly.

    Data here:
    http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/200911/Respage23.aspx

    http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/abstats/

  • David Miller

    First, McGinn does not have a “0.44 percent” margin. He has a 0.44 percentage POINT margin (yes, a pet peeve of mine.

    Second, here are the Seattle-specific numbers as of YESTERDAY.

    Total projected turnout in SEATTLE is 57% or 214,938 ballots. Total received at King County 164,113.

    Total counted in Seattle as of yesterday’s data was 109,874.

    Using yesterday’s figures, there are 54,239 ballots to be counted FOR SURE and probably (if the projections are right) about 105,000 ballots to count before the counting is done.

    About 5% of Seattle ballots thus far did not vote for Mayor, so adjust accordingly.

    Data here:
    http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/200911/Respage23.aspx

    http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/abstats/

  • sgiffy

    @10 because local mail is quick and only takes a day or maybe two to deliver. I would think most of the votes that were mailed on Monday or Tuesday have arrived by today.

  • sgiffy

    @10 because local mail is quick and only takes a day or maybe two to deliver. I would think most of the votes that were mailed on Monday or Tuesday have arrived by today.

  • sgiffy

    @10 because local mail is quick and only takes a day or maybe two to deliver. I would think most of the votes that were mailed on Monday or Tuesday have arrived by today.

  • Giffy

    King County as a whole would have to receive almost 20k more on each of those days then they did on Wednesday to hit 56%.