Analysis of one week’s worth of voting results from Sammamish shows Sound Transit 3 losing here by a 51.69% to 48.30% margin.

Vote counting continues to Nov. 29, when the election results are certified.

Sound Transit 3 is the $54bn mass transit plan that includes $27bn in tax hikes over 25 years.

Sammamish gets reduced bus service out of the plan and a prospective park and ride at the north end.

Who goes where

North end Sammamish commuters eventually will be able to go to Redmond to catch an extended light rail by 2025. South end commuters can go to Issaquah to Issaquah to do the same, but 2041. No date is targeted for the park and ride other than a vague 2018-2020.

Because of the loss of bus service to Sammamish, the cost and the timeline, the Sammamish City Council voted 5-2 to oppose ST3. Council members Bob Keller and Kathy Huckabay were the dissenters.

Vote breakdown

Sammamish is covered by three legislative districts, the 5^th, 41^st and 45^th, which provide an easy geographic reference to break down the voting patterns to counted so far.

The 5^th LD includes the greater Klahanie area, which was annexed to the City in January 2015. The 41^st is the southern half of the City roughly along SE 8^th St. The 45^th is the northern half of the City on the other side of SE 8^th.

Klahanie has close proximity to the big Issaquah Highlands park and ride and a convenient beneficiary to existing Sound Transit service.

The 41^st within Sammamish benefits from a Metro King County park and ride at Issaquah-Pine Lake Road and 228^th Ave. SE, where Sound Transit supplements Metro service today. However, under ST3, ST bus service will reroute to downtown Bellevue to feed the expanding light rail than going to Seattle.

The 45^th area residents of Sammamish don’t have convenient mass transit service today, save from a few bus routes.

Vote data

Theses geographic lines and the current services are reflected to some degree in the voting patterns.

The greater Klahanie area ended last week voting in favor of ST3 by a 51.69% to 48.31% margin. But because this is the smallest area within Sammamish, the vote difference between Approve and Reject choice is a mere 100 votes.

The 41^st LD area—the southern half of the City—thumped ST3 by a current vote of 53.1% to 46.9% margin. Losing service and having to face an Issaquah light rail in 2041 that routes through downtown Bellevue before heading to Seattle apparently doesn’t sit well. (Huckabay, one of two lone supporters of ST3 on the City Council, lives in precinct 41-2937. So far, her precinct is voting against ST3 by a slim margin.)

The 45^th LD area is supposed to get a park and ride before the end of the decade and a light rail in Redmond by 2025. These aren’t enough to generate approval, but the losing trend is narrower than in the 41^st: Approve is receiving 48.16% and Reject is 51.84%.

Valderrama in the 45th

Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama, who spearheaded the move on the Council to oppose ST3, ran for State Representative to the House in the 45^th as a Republican. He opposed five-term incumbent Democrat Roger Goodman.

Within the 45^th in Sammamish, where Valderrama won comfortably in two elections to City Council, Valderrama ended the first week of ballot counting with 39.4% of the vote to 60.6% for Goodman.