OLYMPIA, Wash.—After a month-long struggle to correct challenged votes and conduct a manual recount of 1.99 million ballots in Washington State’s Aug. 6 Primary, Dave Upthegrove was certified as second-place winner Sep. 6 by a 49-vote margin in his race for Public Lands Commissioner in the Nov. 5 general election.
Upthegrove, a Democrat, currently a member of the King County Council, was in a cliffhanger race against Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson for second. Former Republican Congresswoman, Jaime Herrera-Beutler, won the primary.
If Pederson had won, it would have meant two Republicans, Pederson and Herrera-Beutler, facing each other in the Nov. 5 election. It would have ensured the first Republican statewide officeholder since Kim Wyman was elected Washington Secretary of State in 2012.
Now voters will have the choice of “Green” Democrat Upthegrove or pro-corporate Republican Herrera-Beutler, known as one of a handful of Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching President Donald Trump.
Upthegrove is campaigning fast and furious to become the Public Lands Commissioner, a position which heads the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that oversees six million acres of publicly owned forests, rivers, lakes, and wetlands.
DNR auctions off the timber on state-owned lands, with the profits distributed to fund public schools and other public services.
It took the round-the-clock struggle by nearly 400 volunteers to ensure Upthegrove a spot on Washington State’s all-mail general election ballot. When the votes were counted in the hours following the Aug. 6 primary, Upthegrove was initially far behind because his stronghold King County is notoriously late in reporting its returns. Sure enough, as returns from Seattle and other King County communities were counted, Upthegrove pulled even and inched ahead of Pederson, by 51 votes.
It was so close, that the Upthegrove campaign appealed for volunteers to help contact the 23,396 voters whose ballots had been “challenged” for faulty signatures, addresses, or other errors. Nearly 400 volunteers statewide were on the phones to these voters. Ultimately, well over 10,000 ballots were “cured,” the errors corrected and added to the total.
Then came the mandatory ballot recount since the vote was so close. Again, hundreds of volunteers served as observers at Courthouses and other venues where the hand recount was underway.
Ultimately the accuracy of the original count was confirmed by the hand recount: “99.99% accurate.” In King County, for example, 1.39 million mail ballots were counted. Upthegrove gained six votes, and Pederson gained four on the recount.
The entire vote count was complicated because there were five Democrats and two Republicans on the ballot. The five-way split in the Democratic vote caused a near disaster for the Democrats and opened the way for the Republicans to make a huge gain.
The combined total for all five Democratic candidates was equal to 57% of the votes cast, and for the two Republican candidates, 43%.
Only 41% of Washington State’s 4,874,877 registered voters mailed in their ballots in the primary. The voting rate ranged from 67.3% for those above age 65 to 49.5% for those aged 55-64. For voters aged 25 to 34, the rate of voting was 22.1%, and for youth 18 to 24, it was 20.9%.
The fact that 79.1% of youth voters did not cast their ballots is shocking proof that a vast majority simply do not believe their vital interests are served by voting, the most precious democratic right.
This is the evil fruit of right-wing extremism with its Big Lie, enunciated by Ronald Reagan, that “Government is not the solution, it is the problem.” It is the way that the “Billionaire Class,” a tiny minority, exerts near total power in the United States.
The Republican strategy of obstructionism, blocking all legislation aimed at solving problems, feeds this ideology of non-voting.
Arguably, the Public Lands Commissioner is the second most important position on the Washington State ballot, since he or she plays a crucial role in protecting the state’s clean air and water, and preserving forests and wildlife.
Upthegrove has a long and distinguished history of fighting to preserve wilderness and wildlife in Washington State. He refuses all campaign contributions from timber corporations while all his opponents—Republican and Democrat—have accepted millions in cash from logging corporations that have clearcut vast acreage of these precious forests.
In his mission statement on his campaign website, Upthegrove declares: “Our state lands don’t belong to industry. They belong to ‘We the People.’ They are public lands. They are our lands.”
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