Political rivals say Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy is promoting herself in correspondence accompanying mail-in ballots that began arriving in mailboxes in recent days.

McCarthy, who oversees county elections, is one of four candidates for county executive. In her capacity as auditor she solicited voter feedback on the county’s new ranked-choice voting system in a survey included with mail-in ballots. McCarthy wrote and signed a brief note prefacing the survey.

McCarthy said she’s just doing her job, which includes seeking voter input on a new voting system that allows voters to rank their top three choices.

“I run the auditor’s office with great integrity, transparency and openness,” McCarthy said. “I stand by my record.”

Other candidates for county executive say putting her name on correspondence included with the ballot gives McCarthy an unfair advantage.

“I don’t know what the rules are, but I know what common sense and fair play are,” said executive candidate Mike Lonergan. “It doesn’t pass the test.”

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Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will square off against Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman in a debate over the merits of $17.9 billion Proposition 1.

The debate will be at 4:30 p.m. tomorrow at the University of Washington, Parrington Hall, Room 309. It will be hosted by the Evans School of Public Affairs.

Proposition 1 would add more Express buses, expand commuter rail and build 36 miles of light rail in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties between 2009 and 2023.

King County is first with 1,102,152 registered voters and Snohomish County is third with 371,356.

The state is 100,000 higher than its previous record with 3,609,157 voters.

David Ammons at the state elections office sent out this memo:

Washington has just surpassed the 3.6 million mark for registered voters for the first time in state history. The old mark, set in 2004, was 3,514,078. Today’s fresh numbers, reflecting some, but not all, of the in-person registrations completed by the Oct. 20 deadline, show 3,609,157 … and climbing. The fresh daily number will appear at the top of www.vote.wa.gov , the state’s General Election voter-education page, so check in each day. We are now nearly 100,000 above the previous record, even after numerous registrations were cancelled or put on inactive status as a result of roll review. Since the state launched a computerized database in January of 2006, about 482,000 registrations have been cancelled or made inactive, including about 160,000 duplicate, deceased or felon voters. As of mid-October, about 713,000 new or re-activated registrations were posted during the same time period.

National polls are showing Washington's governor race as a virtual dead heat, but Seattle pollster Stuart Elway continues to show Gov. Chris Gregoire with a lead over challenger Dino Rossi.

The latest Elway Poll shows Gregoire increasing her lead over Rossi to 51 percent to 39 percent, up from 50 percent to 42 percent in September.

By comparison, a Survey USA poll conductd for KING-TV and KATU-TV released last week showed Gregoire with 48 percent and Rossi with 47 percent.

A Rasmussen poll released Oct. 3 showed Gregoire and Rossi both with 48 percent.

The latest Elway results are exactly at the average of the results over the last three months, Elway reports. Ten percent of voters are undecided in the Elway Poll, a figure that's higher than the other polls.

The results are based on telephone interviews with 405 registered voters conducted between Oct. 16-19. The margin of error is 5 percent.

Voters were asked who they intended to vote for, unlike in previous polls where they were asked whether they were inclined to "definitely" or "probably" vote for each candidate.

Gregoire kept all of her "probables" from September and added 1 percent from the undecided column, according to The Elway Poll. Rossi lost 3 percent overall.

Four years ago, none of the polls forecast a 133-vote margin of victory for Gregoire.

In October 2004, Elway's poll was closer to matching with other polls at the time. An Elway poll conducted Oct. 14-16, 2004 put Gregoire ahead of Rossi 45 percent to 38 percent.

Strategic Vision put Gregoire ahead of Rossi 47 percent to 42 percent, while a Mason-Dixon poll put Gregoire ahead 48 percent to 43 percent.

Click ahead for more details from the new Elway poll.

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Stuart Elway's latest poll, which contacted 405 registered voters Oct. 16-19, shows that Tim Eyman's Initiative 985 (traffic congestion) is leading 49-33 with 18 percent undecided.

Elway's poll has a 5 percent margin for error. (If you did the poll 100 times, it would turn out this way 95 times.) Elways said this is his last poll before the election.

Booth Gardner's Initiative 1000 (assisted suicide), is leading 55-37, with 8 percent undecided.

The SEIU's Initiative 1029 (homecare worker training), is leading 72-10, with 18 percent undecided.

(My colleague, Jason Hagey, is posting an item about the governor's race, so I'm looking down the ballot.)

There are so, so many undecideds with only two weeks to go.

"That's what keeps them up at night," Elway said of the other statewide office seekers.

Rob McKenna leads John Ladenburg 48-29 in the attorney general race, with 23 percent undecided.

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By now, many Pierce County residents have received their November ballots in the mail. Those ballots feature a new system for electing candidates to county offices called ranked choice voting. Under that system, voters rank candidates in order of preference. The News Tribune is answering questions about ranked choice voting.

Q: If I rank my favorite candidate first, second and third on my ballot, is the candidate more likely to win?

A: No. Under ranked choice voting, your second and third choices only count if your first choice is eliminated.

Let’s say you picked Candidate A first, second and third. If Candidate A gets a majority of first-place votes, Candidate A wins the election, and your second and third choices never come into play.

If Candidate A is eliminated, then voting officials will turn to your second choice. But your second choice is also Candidate A, who has already been eliminated. So voting officials will look to your third choice. Again, you picked Candidate A, who has been eliminated.

Once Candidate A is eliminated, he or she is gone for good. Getting your second and third-choice votes won’t “revive” the candidate.

Q: What if I choose Candidate A as my first choice but don’t list a second or third choice?

A: It doesn’t make Candidate A more likely to win the election. If Candidate A is eliminated, he or she is gone for good. By not picking a second or third choice, you just cost yourself a chance to pick among the remaining candidates.

Of course, you’re free to choose only one candidate if you just can’t bring yourself to vote for anyone else. But if you can live with other candidates, the smartest thing to do is to rank them in order of preference. Even if your first choice doesn’t win, you’re more likely to wind up with someone you can live with.

Got a question about ranked choice voting? Contact reporter David Wickert at david.wickert@thenewstribune.com.

For more information on ranked choice voting, visit the county auditor's Web site or call the office at 253-798-VOTE.

And after the governor leaves, the legislative candidates will shred your documents, or something like that.

UPDATE: The location changed from the UP Shopping Center to Clover Park Technical College. Read on...

Governor Gregoire rallies with Pierce County Democrats

Join Reps. Troy Kelley, Tami Green, Dennis Flannigan, Steve Kirby, Steve Conway, Jeannie Darneille and Sens. Debbie Regala, Rosa Franklin and 28th LD Senate candidate, Debi Srail. The momentum is building for Democrats in Pierce County – let's send them to Olympia to fight for us!

Please join Governor Gregoire at Clover Park Tech College – Sharon McGavick Center, 4500 Steilacoom Blvd SW, Lakewood, WA 98499. Doors open at 8:00 and the event starts at 9:00 am. Following the event, participants will canvass the county and get-out- the-vote!

Please RSVP to Chuck Rowling at crowling@chrisgregoire.com or 253-683-4187.

Here's the earlier and erroneous release...

State Representatives Troy Kelley and Tami Green, Senate Candidate Debi Srail to Host Governor Gregoire and Event to Stop Identity Theft

University Place, Washington – Please join State Representatives Troy
Kelley and Tami Green, and Senate Candidate Debi Srail in welcoming Governor Gregoire at 9:00 am on Saturday, October 25, 2008 at the University Place Shopping Center (8415 27th St. W- at Grandview Dr.).

Following the visit of Governor Gregoire, there will be a shredding truck available for people from 10:00 am-1:00 pm to destroy personal documents containing sensitive information: old bank records, receipts, bills, binders, floppy disks, cds and other materials to put a stop to identity
theft. All items will be immediately shredded while you wait.

That's what a study by the Washington State Department of Transportation concluded after interviewing trucking companies. And that doesn't include the lost wages.

All of that loss was from 8 days of closures: 4 days on Interstate 5 around Chehalis when it flooded Dec. 3-7, 2007 and 4 days on Interstate 90, when Snoqualmie Pass was blocked Jan. 29-Feb. 2 by two avalanches.

Naturally, DOT says is makes the case for finishing I-90 project, which would route the freeway further away from the avalanche chutes.

From the study:

A total of 2,758 surveys from the trucking industry and freight-dependent sectors were received and analyzed. The results of the surveys showed that last winter’s I-5 and I-90 road closures cost freight-dependent businesses nearly $75 million. More than $47 million of the total loss is attributable to the I-5 closure, with almost $28 million attributable to the I-90 closure. The closures were the result of severe weather that overwhelmed the roadways and disrupted freight and passenger movements across the state and West Coast. In all, the highways were closed for eight days—four days for I-5 and four days for I-90.

Here's the report by DOT.

And here's the news release from last week.

Report confirms WSDOT roads are key to freight economics
Date: Thursday, October 16, 2008
Contact: Tonia Buell, WSDOT Communications, 360.705.7439
Barb Ivanov, WSDOT Freight Systems Division Director, 206.716.1166

OLYMPIA – A new report released this week by the Washington State Department of Transportation shows just how important road maintenance and operations are to the state’s economy.

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Washington gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi is the guest speaker tomorrow at the King-Pierce County Farm Bureau annual dinner and banquet.

Rossi has the endorsement of the Washington State Farm Bureau's political action committee, and he had a "near-perfect" voting record with the farm bureau during his tenure as a state senator, according to the group's press release.

"Dino Rossi understands that in order for agriculture to be successful in Washington, it needs a business climate that is favorable and a regulatory climate that is not suffocating for farmers and ranchers," said PAC chairman Bob Stuhlmiller.

Tickets for the carved prime rib and chicken breast dijon buffet cost $25 for farm bureau members, and $35 for non-members. Pay at the door, but call Gerald Sorensen at 253-862-8868 to reserve a seat.

A social hour begins at 6:30 p.m. Dinner is at 7 p.m.

The location: The Liberty Theater, 116 West Main, Puyallup.

U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks and his challenger, Doug Cloud, are scheduled to attend a candidates' forum tonight in Tacoma.

The event, sponsored and conducted by the League of Women Voters of Pierce County, will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at The News Tribune, Baker Rooms, 1950 S State St.

This is Cloud's third consecutive campaign for the seat Dicks has held since 1977. Our sister paper, The Peninsula Gateway, had this piece in July about what motivates Cloud to keep running.

Cloud and two other candidates who were ousted in the primary have been frustrated by the veteran congressman's refusal to meet in candidate forums until after the primary. And even then, he waited until just a couple of days before ballots were mailed before meeting Cloud in a pair of forums last week. Here is an excerpt from the Port Townsend Leader's story from one of those events:

"We have the authority to decide where spending shall occur," said Dicks, who has been in Congress for 32 years, about earmarks. "Every one of those items that I mentioned were requested in Port Townsend and Jefferson County," Dicks said of funding he helped win.

"Earmarks are a cancer," said Cloud, who was critical of Republicans and Democrats who have engaged in it. He called the practice "corrupt."

"I'm a real Republican," said Cloud, naming Milton Friedman, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan as examples of what that means. "Chamber of commerce Republicans have ruined my party," said Cloud.

Cloud said he has opposed President Bush, except for his tax cuts. "He doesn't know any more about economics than my opponent."

"I would remind my opponent he is yet to fill out his application to run for Congress with the Federal Election Commission," said Dicks. Cloud said that comment was "foolish," and that his application was enroute.

"The system rewards seniority, not competence," said Cloud. He accused Dicks and other of voting to "prop up the housing and stock markets for another two weeks to get re-elected." He asserted that anyone in the room could do a better job in Congress than Dicks.

"I agree with the need for change in Congress," said Dicks, saying the change would come with a President Obama. "Give us a chance," he said, if Democrats can win a bigger majority in Congress. "We'll do our best."

"You have a big stake in my seniority," said Dicks. He noted that his position on key Congressional committees enables him to look out for the Olympic National Park, climate change, and other issues of importance to his constituents.

You can read the Leader's full story here.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign introduced an online tax calculator yesterday that purportedly shows how much a taxpayer will save under Obama's tax plan versus rival presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's tax plan.

It asks for your annual income (within a range), whether you file jointly or single, how many dependents you have, and how much you owe on a mortgage (if you don't itemize), and a couple other questions.

Then you click a button and within seconds you see the results.

Kind of like one of those car insurance Web sites that shows the rates for all its competitors.

You can try it out here.

Obama claims that 95 percent of working families will see a tax reduction under his plan. Anyone save more under the McCain plan according to the calculator?

What struck me was the heavy ballots for Pierce County. The conventional ballot and the Ranked Choice Voting ballot for county executive, council and other county races.

I used to be a go-to-the-polls voter, until one year when I had to work past 8 p.m. and didn't have a chance to vote. So, I signed up for vote-by-mail.

Auditor Pat McCarthy used to send out a "I voted today" sticker, so I could wear it to the office and annoy traditional voters like Peter Callaghan.

On the other hand, at least this time I didn't have to put a stamp on my ballot because the county paid postage. And it was heavy, too. Definitely a 2-stamp ballot, at least.

We've added 28,100 jobs since September 2007.

OLYMPIA – The unemployment rate in Washington took a dip in September to 5.8 percent, down from 6 percent in August. Some 186,810 people (not seasonally adjusted) were unemployed and seeking work in Washington last month.

Year over year, Washington added 28,100 nonfarm jobs from September 2007 to September 2008, a growth rate of 1 percent. By comparison, jobs nationwide shrank by 0.7 percent in the same time period.

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