Photoessay #2082 - Washington State

Referendum 74 (upholding gay marriage) is still 'on its way' to approval in Washington State.  As of Wednesday evening, it was ahead 52% to 48%.  As a vote-by-mail state, it takes awhile for all of the ballots to be counted.  This was the most important ballot issue for me.  The supporters have declared victory but it's still a little up in the air.

As the parent of four kids, of course, I want to vote by mail.  They're grown now but when they were small, I always voted absentee (by mail).  Ever take four small children into a polling place?  Even if I managed to actually vote, I really didn't know who I voted for.  Just impossible.  One's wandering off dreamily, one's blasting all over the place making maximum noise, one's intent on creating chaos among his little sisters.

But check out how Washington is divided.  This map showed Referendum 74's passage as of Tuesday.  The western part of the state, the Puget Sound area contains the major population centers.  Seattle and King County.  Very blue.  We live in King County though not in the Seattle city limits.  The island and parts of the Olympic peninsula, blue.  The land east of the Cascade Mountains, rural, arid, agricultural, sparsely populated.  Very red.

So the results from the majority of the area of the state is often overrun by the voters in the urban Puget Sound area.

Map tells the whole story.  Washington is known as blue, neither presidential campaign spent much time or money here.  Governor and both senators, democratic.

I'm still a bit nervous about 74 but I believe the pro-forces who say they've crunched the numbers every which way and they believe the numbers will hold.

Map from the Seattle Times