"Whitman County certifies election results"

Well, the election's offically over (thank God). From yesterday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Whitman County certified its election results Tuesday, three weeks after the first ballots were counted.

Although there were no major surprises, a few races tightened, but not enough to change the outcome.

In the county’s contested races, Republican Michael Largent won the county commissioner District 3 race with 7,012 votes (57.94 percent). Democrat Nathan Weller received 5,050 votes (41.73 percent).

Republican Eunice L. Coker was re-elected as county auditor, receiving 7,844 votes (62.83 percent).

Democratic challenger Nathan Horter drew 4,618 votes (36.99 percent).

Republican Steve Hailey won the state representative District 9, Position 1 race with 7,131 votes (57.22 percent). Democrat Caitlin Ross received 5,312 votes (42.63 percent).

Pullman’s Proposition 1, which will fund improvements to city parks, paths and playfields, passed with 72.34 percent of the votes.

Election Supervisor Debbie Hooper said the general election ran much better than the primary election in September.

County officials met Tuesday as the canvass board to consider questionable ballots.

The board accepted eight of the 117 ballots that were examined.

The ballots that were not tabulated were either postmarked too late, were from the primary election, were not signed, or the signature didn’t match and the voter did not submit the signature verification card.

The county had a 49 percent voter turnout, with 13,214 voters casting a ballots.

A few races tightened? Nathan Weller gained 0.14% from the last count and Nathan Horter gained 0.09%

Speaking of the Two Nathans, I love to break down numbers. So follow along with me here for a moment.

According to the latest figures from the Public Disclosure Commission, Democratic County Auditor candidate Nathan Horter raised $4,734.46 and spent $4,637.90. Democratic County Commissioner Nathan Weller raised $1,540.75 and spent $1,040.53.

So that means that Horter spent 350% more money and received 4.74% less votes than Weller. Or to put it another way, Horter spent around a dollar per vote, whereas Weller spent around 20 cents per vote. Nathan Weller is to be congratulated for running a hard-fought, clean campaign that focused on the issues with virtually no support from his party, as shown by his very efficient vote returns.

In the meantime, Eunice Coker spent half as much money as Horter and received the most votes of any candidate in a local contested race.

Whitman County voters overwhelmingly rejected the kind of slimeball politics practiced by the Whitman County Democrats in the County Auditor's race.