Tim Burgess, Bruce Harrell and Pamela Banks: Sleight of Hand in the 37th?
From Seattlish:
Bruce Harrell
Bruce Harrell’s campaign may be in some hot water following allegations that they essentially bought the 37th District Dems endorsements for both him and Pamela Banks.
An SEEC complaint alleges that, before the deadline to become a voting member of the organization in time for endorsements, 15 new memberships were paid for in one batch, with sequential money orders purchased at the same location.
It gets sketchier: These new memberships came on the heels of the Harrell campaign calling and asking if it would be OK for them to pay for new memberships (they were told it was not).
Pamela Banks
After this group of new members showed up and voted, Harrell and Banks — both of whom didn’t get enough votes in the primary endorsements to actually gain the 37th Dems’ endorsement — were both endorsed publicly. But some weren’t convinced they were acting independently.
Just after the vote, it was determined that at least five of the new members shouldn’t have been permitted to vote at all, because, per the 37th Dems themselves, they didn’t even live in the 37th LD. And although there’s no way of knowing exactly who voted for whom, what was clear was that Harrell passed the 60% voting margin required (Morales received 30 votes, Harrell received 72, per the 37th’s Tweeting of the votes), and Banks received the exact number of necessary votes. A motion to recount was filed, but it did not stand.
Tim Burgess
A few days ago, Erica C. Barnett reported that the endorsement for Banks was possibly being challenged due to the issue of residency by some of the voting members. The basis of the challenge is that, without those votes, Banks may not have received the endorsement; in the past, the 37th haven’t shown a ton of support for status-quo candidates like Tim Burgess, Bruce Harrell, or, now, Pamela Banks.
(Banks is the only Democrat in the D3 race, so she’s the only candidate eligible for endorsement; this doesn’t mean they had to endorse Banks. The 43rd chose to vote “no endorsement,” effectively endorsing retaining Sawant. A not-small number of the 37th wanted to vote for a no-endorsement, but were reportedly “shouted down” when given their chance to speak.)
However, in part because of these new members, the 37th did endorse both Banks and Tim Burgess, Bruce Harrell and Pamela Banks: Sleight of Hand in the 37th? | Seattle Education:
