All election results were certified Tuesday, including the defeat of the annexation of Finn Hill, North Juanita and Kingsgate neighborhoods. The measure, which garnered 10,496 votes, failed by just 16 votes. But the battle might just be starting.
Many questions are left in a process that will ultimately have a big impact on both the City of Kirkland and the Proposed Annexation Area (PAA).
The issue of a recount has surfaced. But there is no law making a recount automatic or mandatory for an issue such as annexation and it is an expensive process.
“There is no automatic recount,” said King County Elections spokesperson Meagan Coppersmith.
A request for a recount can be made by a group of five or more registered voters, one of whom needs to be the designated group chairperson. The group must file the recount application within three business days of certification. With the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend so close to the certification date, the application would have to be submitted by Wednesday, Dec. 2.
“We don’t currently have enough money for the recount and we don’t know that it would make a difference,” said Annexation Yes Committee Chair Johanna Palmer.
A recount process could cost as much as $7,000 for a machine recount and $25,000 for a hand recount. Those totals have to pay for Sherif staff, observers, overhead and King County Elections employees, among other things. Whoever requests a recount would have to put a deposit down at the time of the request to get the process started. The requesters will have to specify whether they want a hand recount or a machine recount. A manual or hand recount costs $.25 per ballot, which in the case of the annexation could be as much as $2,750. In a manual recount, all ballots for the race in question are pulled, sorted and sent to counting teams consisting of three people. The tally sheets are gathered and the data is entered onto spreadsheets that will produce the final results. Those results are presented to the Canvass Board for certification.
A machine recount deposit is $.15 per ballot or as much as $1,650. A machine recount enables the elections commission to double check the tabulation process for closer inspection to ensure that the equipment has an accurate accounting of all votes submitted for final tabulation.
The county would pick up the cost if the results were overturned and the deposit would be returned.
There were approximately 315 votes cast in the PAA without a discernible mark for or against annexation. While most of these ballots probably contain no attempt to vote either way, some might have marks that were not first recognized. A recount could conceivably look closer at these ballots.
“We’ve put out the call for pledges, but I’m not very hopeful that money can be raised by the end of next week when the recount request would have to be made,” said former State Rep. Toby Nixon, who is a big supporter of the One Kirkland or Annexation Yes Committee. Nixon is also the Fire Commissioner-elect for the district, which serves the majority of the PAA. “I also doubt we’d actually find (more) Yes votes than No votes in the recount.”
Palmer said that her group is prepared to take the issue back to the Kirkland City Council. There is precedent for the move from a 1987 annexation vote. But the annexations of the Lower Juanita, North Rose Hill and South Rose Hill neighborhoods in 1987 were not placed on the ballot in the same manner as this year’s annexation measure. The annexation and acceptance of debt issues were split into two separate measures for each neighborhood. All of the neighborhoods voted down the acceptance of indebtedness by more than 70 percent.
Two of the three areas accepted annexation by more than 60 percent. South Rose Hill failed to surpass the 60 percent needed, receiving 57 percent of the vote. Ultimately, the South Rose Hill annexation group took the issue back to the city council, which annexed South Rose Hill. The vote not to accept the city’s bonded indebtedness was accepted as apart of the annexation for all three neighborhoods.
“The fact is, 59.9(4) percent of the people in the (current) annexation area said they want to be annexed, even if they have to take on part of the city’s existing debt,” said Nixon. “If the annexation and debt assumption questions had been separated on the ballot, the percentage in favor of annexation would likely have been even higher than that. According to RCW 35A.14.085 … the council (can) pass a resolution (to accept annexation) by simple majority vote.”
