By Evan Smith
When Shoreline City Councilman Chris Eggen finished third in the Aug. 5 top-two 32nd District State Senate primary behind incumbent fellow Democrat Maralyn Chase and Republican Robert Reedy, he also lost his position as an elected Democratic precinct committee officer.
Final primary election results, certified by King County officials Aug. 19, showed Eggen losing the Democratic PCO position he held in Shoreline to former City Councilwoman Janet Way, 49 votes to 47 votes.
Even a two-vote margin is not close enough for a mandatory recount. State law requires a recount when the margin is less than 0.5 percent of the total votes for the two candidates. In this case, it's 0.5 percent of 96 votes. That's 0.48 votes.
So, unless the two candidates were tied, there would be no mandatory recount.
Eggen could ask for a recount by depositing 25 cents for every ballot cast in the precinct, even ballots from the 29 voters who didn't vote for Democratic PCO. A recount of 125 ballots would cost $31.25.
Eggen won election to the Shoreline City Council in 2007 and re-election in 2011. Way won a council position in 2005 before losing in the 2009 primary and losing a comeback attempt in 2011.
Reach Evan Smith at schsmith.com.
Updated 10:54pm
This is a late and trivial story of Eggen's loss in a PCO race. Where is the more significant story of his third place finish in the senate primary? It is only mentioned in passing here.
ReplyDeleteThe bigger story is Chris Eggen was a double loser in the primary election last month. And what was his platform? The Shoreline City Hall platform - Maralyn Chase's bill asking for a vote on the assumption of a special purpose district by a city. What are these cities afraid of anyway? They spend taxpayer money like drunks at a casino and somehow still manage to win these elections by using taxpayer money against the very same taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteI wrote earlier about his loss in the prmary.
ReplyDeleteIf you mean your Aug 26 post, no, you didn't. You tried to diminish Reedy's accomplishment, by citing his third place finish in King County. You could just as easily have reported that even with Eggen's distant second place in King County, and numerous endorsements from his colleagues in Shoreline, it still wasn't enough to advance him to the general election in November. Eggen didn't just lose in Snohomish County, with his pro-Shoreline, anti-Chase campaign; he got slaughtered. But you didn't.
ReplyDeleteStill waiting.
I read the other story awhile back, and what I took away is that, vs. Reedy, while Eggen did well in King County, he did very poorly in Snohomish County. As a result of the latter, which could have simply been from not spending much time/money there, he didn't get the coveted second spot in the "top two" primary, which may have been his goal to begin with (though I would think he'd have better ways to spend his time and money than to challenge a powerful, sitting senator as Ms. Chase is, which he should be well aware of by now). SAN should have listed a link for the Senate primary story.
ReplyDeleteMs. Way deserves kudos for challenging Mr. Eggen for PCO, for in so doing she expressed her displeasure with him with her feet as well as with her voice. She is more liberal than Mr. Eggen, and the 32nd District Ds tends to very liberal, so she's a better fit there. However\ this should cause the less-liberal to pause when the 32nd D members and/or organization endorse a candidate or issue, particularly when it's in-party (like this was) or where there are multiple alternatives of a similar nature.
Lastly, congratulations to Senator Chase and her supporters on winning the primary.