If there was any last-ditch hope by supporters that remaining votes would bring an affirmative vote to annex the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area to Issaquah, it’s gone.

Today’s vote count (Friday, Feb. 21) saw only three more votes added to the tally–one for the “Against Annexation” side and two for the “For Annexation” side. The vote now is 1,534 Against Annexation and 1,504 “For Annexation.” The spread narrowed one vote to 30 and the percentages are now 50.49% Against Annexation and 49.51% For Annexation. This is outside the requirement of 0.25% for a mandatory recount.

The election is certified on Monday. There could be a couple more votes come in, but hardly enough to change the outcome.

Now it’s up to Issaquah’s City Council to throw in the towel and give up the Klahanie PAA to Sammamish.

Fourteen more votes were tallied by King County Elections today (Feb. 19) and the Klahanie annexation vote spread tightened to 28 from 34, still favoring “Against Annexation” over “For Annexation.”

The vote count now is:

For Annexation: 1,500 or 49.54%

Against Annexation: 1,528 or 50.46%.

This is still outside the mandatory recount criteria.

The election is certified Feb. 25.

The King County website is down (at 4pm), so I called the Elections department to get an update on the Klahanie vote.

I was told there wasn’t going to be an update today anyway because so few ballots had been received to count; this is county-wide, but obviously has application to the Klahanie vote.

So we are left with Friday’s results, where the “Against Annexation” is leading “For Annexation” by 34 votes.

This also suggests there are no appreciable ballots left to be received (unless there is a flood of votes from the military service personnel overseas who are focused on the annexation issue).

Thus, as I did on Friday, I continue to “call” the election: the Klahanie annexation to Issaquah was rejected.

The result is outside the automatic recount. Issaquah could pay for a recount, but I see little point in doing so.

Friday’s election count returns in the Klahanie annexation vote for Issaquah saw the “Against Annexation” vote widen to 52.3% 50.56% to 47.7%, 49.44% and a 349 spread.

For annexation: 3,575 1,490

Against annexation: 3,922 1,524

I accidentally put the Bag Ban figures in there. The spread and trend still widened, with “For” picking up 19 votes and “Against” picking up 24 votes. Unless there is a flood of votes to be counted, which I don’t believe is the case, the trend continues to be against annexation.

I’m declaring the annexation defeated, even though final results won’t be certified until Feb. 25. The trend has been negative from the second day and the spread is too great.

This result is outside the requirements for a mandatory recount:

(From King County Elections website:)

Required (mandatory) recounts

Recounts are mandated by law when votes for offices or statewide measures fall within a certain range. State law does not provide for a mandatory recount of local issues.

Mandatory machine recount

Any office or state measure must be recounted by machine when the difference between two candidates or choices is:

• Less than 2,000 votes difference AND
• Less than ½ of one percent

Mandatory manual recount

Statewide offices or measures must be recounted by hand when the difference between two candidates or choices is:

• Less than 1,000 votes AND
• Less than ¼ of one percent

For all other offices, ballots must be recounted by hand if the difference between the two candidates is:

• Less than 150 votes AND
• Less than ¼ of one percent

*****************

Meantime, one of the local newspapers continues to miss the fact that if the annexation vote passes by 50%+1 (an increasingly unlikely prospect), Issaquah could still annex the area. The city posted this on its website Feb. 13:

Posted on: February 13, 2014

Klahanie Area Vote: What’s Next