Don’t Expect Quick Outcome in Burner/Reichert Congressional Race

Democrat Darcy Burner and Republican Dave Reichert remain locked in a virtual deadheat in their Congressional race in WA- 8. It will probably be several weeks before things are clear as to who really wins. What has been decided is that whoever wins is going back to a Democratically controlled House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

The numbers as reported by CNN as of 3:30 Wed. afternoon show Reichert with a lead of 2623 votes.

Dave Reichert (R) 61,9212…51%
Darcy Burner (D) 59,298…….49%

The reason for the uncertainty is that as of Wednesday afternoon – probably as many as half of the final ballots have not been counted. An estimated 80,000 ballots or so in hand in King County that cover the 8th C.D. have still not been counted. Over the next 3 days these will enter the vote total. Probably 8 to 10 thousand more absentees will arrive at King County elections for the 8th C.D. , from ballots postmarked but not yet received at King County Elections.

Expect that the race will tighten. Burner did better than Reichert in King County. He did better than she did in Pierce. Most of the Pierce Co. ballots in the 8th CD have been counted. The estimate of Pierce County ballots that cover the 8th CD ranges from 12 to 18 thousand.

Besides the uncounted ballots in hand and the ones that arrive in the mail over the next week or so, there are also a large number of provisional ballots that have to be individually looked at by canvassing boards and decisions made to count them or not based on their validity. There are a record number of these this year. There may be as many as 10,000.

So don’t expect to see any concessions by anyone soon despite how the numbers may move over the next week. There is no requirement for anyone to concede as the election is decided by the final vote count. Obviously whoever is ahead will urge their opponent to concede. However only a fool would declare that this election is over right now.