Would you like to know what's on your ballot?

Updated 9/10/2011 11:45pm


By Diane Hettrick

Several times in the past, I walked into my voting place, looked at the ballot, and was shocked to find a race I wasn't expecting on my ballot.

I learned to read the sample ballot on the wall before signing in and looked at all the fine print in the voter's guide, but it was still difficult to figure out which races were going to be on my ballot.

City Council, school board, and county council races usually get a lot of publicity. Even water commissioner and fire commissioner candidates have been known to wave signs on corners.

But Port Commissioners? Judicial candidates for the various levels of courts? Democracy is not for the faint of heart.

King County Records and Elections has made it easy. If you go to this page, you can enter your name and birthdate in the Voter Guide section in the right column and it will generate a list of everything that will be on your ballot.

I just ran mine and I see that we will all have four county races this time:

• Assessor - where Lloyd Hara is running unopposed
• Director of Elections - incumbent Sherrill Huff and challenger Mark Greene
• Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 2 - incumbent Gael Tarleton, and Richard Pope, who runs for something in every election
• Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 5 - Bill Bryant and Dean Willard

The rest of the ballot depends on where you live.

City is the next category. Shoreline has three contested city council races. Lake Forest Park has a mayor's race and three city council races, all contested.

Judicial - we all have the uncontested position with incumbent Michael Spearman which was already in the primary. (see previous article)

School Board - Shoreline and LFP will vote on three school board races. These positions are different from all the others because school board members aka "District Directors" have to live in their district. However, we vote on all the positions.

District races include fire, water, and wastewater races. 

• Shoreline is, I believe, wholly within the Shoreline Fire District. 
• Lake Forest Park is in the Northshore Fire District which includes Kenmore. 
• Shoreline has two water companies
• east Shoreline is in Shoreline Water
• west Shoreline is in Seattle Water 
• Lake Forest Park has four water districts
• Shoreline Water
• LFP Water
• Northshore Utility
• Seattle Water 
• Shoreline is in the Ronald Wastewater District
• The Highlands has its own sewer district
• LFP has two:
• LFP Sewer System
• Northshore Utility District

Although, it is apparently not a perfect system, as the King County Prop 1 Veterans and Human Services Levy that was approved in the primary still shows on my ballot.