I have opted not to do a recount on SeaTac Prop #1 (Voter election of mayor.)

While I know this proposition would have benefited our City, a respectable winning margin would have been preferable versus fighting to the last vote and still being unsuccessful.

Ballot-issue recount costs that come within the same margins as candidates should have the same treatment.

The entire SeaTac Prop #1 campaign could be run again for the previous excessive/estimated cost of the manual recount ($20,000) and the machine recount ($5,000) would most likely produce the same results ignoring human error and be worthless.

I have copied the King County Council on this e-mail basically to inform them how ridiculous the unequal treatment is where a ballot issue can have greater and far reaching effects more than a single candidate in local issues. Prop #1 had a .20 difference (9 votes).

The signatures challenges wound up being "hanging chads" with citizens not understanding the instructions or magnitude of their single vote. People's signatures change over time and using only the original registration signature (which may be 20 years old) as the single metric for comparison is neither logical nor fair.

The earlier you voted the more likely your signature would be challenged because of manpower required to process comparisons during slow returns versus massive returns in the closing days of the election.

This has deteriorated my faith in our government system/s even further and I begin to understand why we get these low turnouts. No one feels they can make a difference.

I still do and with the help of others must convince citizens they still can. We will crumble under our own weight if we cannot.

I had to cancel my vacation to deal with these issues (have not had one in 10 years). I had hoped that voters would see the irony in that we had to vote to get the right to vote which was what SeaTac Prop #1 was all about not to mention citizens have no political presence in the executive branch of government in a Council-Manager form.

There must be a better way and I would hope that all "voted" issues will be treated the same in the future.

Earl Gipson
SeaTac