The latest King County Elections results show the Snoqualmie Valley School Bond only adding three tenths of a percent to the yes totals. As of 3PM yesterday 8510 ballots were tallied and the yes total only gained a small fraction. Yesterday’s reported results show 58.82% YES and 41.18% NO. While this does show a strong majority approves, a 60% super majority is needed to pass school construction bonds.
As of last night 8,510 ballots out of 9,866 returned ballots were counted. The county expects more ballots to trickle in this week as well. Nearly 70% of the remaining 1,300 ballots need to be yes votes get this bond to the 60% super majority approval number. Unfortunately, it seems the odds are against this SVSD school bond.
Valley Voters for Education is urging registered voters to follow-up with King County Elections if there was an issue verifying your signature. The county will notify you if there was a signature issue. Is it up to you to follow-up with them to validate your ballot and have it counted. You can also track your ballot – to make sure it was received, signature verified and added to the results. That link is https://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/mailballottracking.aspx. It’s simple and a great tracking tool once that ballot is in the mailbox.
So, is it possible yet another Snoqualmie Valley School Bond gets “oh so close” to that magic 60% YES total? It seems that might be the case. Is it a sign of economic times, specific bond components, apathy? Who knows. When all is said and done, one thing is for sure. More people voted on this school bond than in recent years. As of last night over 45% of registered voters mailed in ballots – and more votes will surely be added. Unfortunately that may be the only silver lining here….
One thing is certain in our valley – more school space is needed in the future. People keep moving to this beautiful place. The school bond saga is not over. You can band-aid it with portables only for so long. The same statistics can be used and spun to support two opposing sides – and sometimes confuse voters. Maybe that’s what happened this g0-round. Who knows. The bigger issue is SVSD school bonds are not going away. A no vote – or even not voting – does not ensure that. Opposing sides agree more school building space is needed. Build it now or build it later – something needs to be built. It seems until that happens each year will only see a new school bond.
Until the next school bond special election Snoqualmie Valley…. more portables, more crowding, more busing.
