Auditor Charles Ross Explain Helps Make Sense Of The Election Certification

Yakima is getting close to putting the final ribbon on the 2021 General Election results.  How did your candidates do?  Did you pick the winners?  Maybe a better question is did you even participate in the voting and if you didn't why the heck not?  Apparently, the 18% of ballots in the pipeline by election day were bolstered by about that same number of votes over the next few days for a total turnout of around 32%.  That's pretty pathetic or is it apathetic or is it both?

Turnout Is Weak!

Depending on the race the totals were much less than that. In Yakima's Federal Court Mandated Minority-Majority District #2 Danny Herrera, a self-described political "Seattle-type" progressive liberal will win a seat on the Yakima City Council with about 348 votes.  His openly conservative opponent will finish with 219 votes for a district total of 567 votes.  That amounts to about a 14% turnout!  Again, so much for Judge Rice and the ACLU's promise of improved Hispanic voter turnout.

Historical Perspective

In the 2017 General Election, the District Two winner was the now-often-absent Jason White, an uber-conservative who received 573 votes out of 807 total votes cast.  That's more votes for Mr. White alone than for the two current candidates combined.  White, a white guy, ran as a conservative then and got 573 votes in the minority-majority district that had previously voted in former short-term liberal Mayor Avina Gutierrez.  This time Edgar Hernandez, a Hispanic conservative man, received only 219 votes in the Hispanic district.  Where were the other 254 voters who voted for White?  Did they have conservative candidate buyers remorse?  I guess we may never know but on paper at least, with participation levels so low, it should have been relatively easy for Hernandez to follow in White's footsteps and retrace his path to victory.  Ah elections, with the shoulda, coulda, woulda post-vote analysis.

Recount?

What we do know is that the County Commissioner race in District #3 and the District #3 School Board Race in Toppenish are the only two races likely close enough to warrant a recount. Just two votes separate the candidates in Toppenish.

Yakima County Auditor Charles Ross joined the KIT Morning News radio show this morning to explain the certification and recount process.  Thanks Charles!.