Elections

King County voters have hired the current top elections administrator, Sherril Huff, as their first popularly elected director of elections.

One more tidbit, courtesy of The Elway Poll: Even though it was a work day for most, two-thirds of Washington voters sampled by Stuart Elway said they watched the Obama inauguration on TV or listened to the radio live feed. About 22 percent said they were unable to tune in and 10 percent said they didn't have any desire to.

James Vaughn of Orting, Pierce County, has filed proposed initiatives dealing with affordable health care and replacing the main state business tax with "a fair corporate tax." If you want a copy of what Vaughn turned in, e-mail me -- [email protected] As always you can track initiatives on our website. A reminder: It only takes $5 to file an initiative, but it's not easy to qualify for the ballot. It takes over 240,000 valid voter signatures on sponsors' petitions, by July 3.

Check out these voter registration transactions, broken down by type, for all of last year. (OLVR = Online Voter Registration). As a refresher, during 2008, Washington State held a Presidential Primary in February, a State Primary in August, and the General Election in November:

A guy from Kenmore writes to ask why in the world Secretary Reed is hot for legislation to require ballots to be received back at the elections office by election night, not just postmarked. This is what my reply was: