So Katie Wilson will be Seattle’s next mayor. It’s interesting because she was down around 8% points against incumbent Bruce Harrell. Somehow, she won the election by mail-in voting 8 days after the election. How does this happen? Shouldn’t a winner be announced on the day of the election, not 8 days later? So, I investigated how voting works in Seattle.
Washington State is an all-vote-by-mail state. You do not need to request an absentee ballot because every active registered voter receives a ballot. In fact, they can mail the ballot from anywhere in the world. Mail-in ballots are prepaid postage, so you don’t even need a stamp. They must be postmarked by election day and can even be dropped off at a ballot box.
Washington State claims to verify each mail-in ballot, but it verifies the ballot’s signature against your driver’s license. Sounds like they are verifying you are a U.S citizen; however, you do not have to be an American citizen to get a standard driver’s license in Washington state. As long as you live in Washington state, regardless of your immigration status, you can get a driver’s license. You don’t even need a Social Security number to get a license. You can even show a foreign passport to prove your identity.
Now, the big question is: if someone with a standard Washington driver’s license who is not a U.S. citizen registers to vote, do they get a ballot?
The government claims it verifies that voters are U.S. citizens by requiring applicants to sign an attestation of U.S. citizenship under penalty of perjury, which is cross-referenced against the licensing database and the Social Security Administration.
In fact, when someone registers to vote, they do not need proof of citizenship unless verification issues arise. How do they find issues if anyone with a standard driver’s license tries to register to vote? They would come up in the system with a valid driver’s license and therefore be mailed a ballot.
So, if most voting in Washington state is done by mail, the vote counts as long as it’s postmarked on election day. They claim it was the mail-in ballots counted after the election that put Katie Wilson over the top to win the election.
Her Platform
She wants to build a lot of cheap housing, control what landlords can charge for rent, and who can buy rental properties. She will Trump-proof Seattle by protecting the illegal immigrants from ICE and defending the LGBTQ communities.
She wants to reduce the cost or make bus rides free for anyone who can’t afford it. She is also thinking about adding a congestion toll to raise revenue and expand the transit system. She also wants to negotiate a police contract that makes the police accountable for oversights. Not sure who will want to become a police officer in Settle if you are under a consent microscope. She would also like universal childcare and fair pay.
To do this, her platform indicates the city will raise new progressive revenue. This means more taxes.
To do this, Seattle will pass a local capital gains tax on top of other taxes for the wealthy to pay. She will also increase the JumpStart tax, which applies to companies with payrolls over $8.5 million.
Since JumpStart was introduced, Seattle will face a $247 million budget shortfall over the next two years. In fact, Amazon moved 25,000 jobs, Meta cut 3,600 jobs, and many other companies froze hiring or have moved out of Seattle.
Next, she wants to increase property taxes on the rich, too. It would only exempt the first $250,000 in assessed value from property taxes. She will also lift the 1% tax cap to raise property taxes further, and tax stocks and bonds. Or just have a Land Value Tax instead of property taxes.
She wants to add a vacancy tax so that property owners will rent out their property for residential or commercial use. She wants to add an excise tax to all professional services so that all services are subject to tax. I guess the people who voted for her will have to pay these taxes, too. This would include medical bills, legal or accounting services, education and training services, and many more.
She will add a local estate tax on top of the state estate tax and finally add a digital advertising tax levied on social media companies. It’s one tax after another. At what point do people say, ‘Enough, and leave Seattle’?
There is no way she will get the funding needed to implement her wish list. There are so many other states out there advertising that companies should move there for lower taxes. When the rich move, who will be left to pay for everything?
For those voters who voted for her, I’m glad she got elected. Just remember, if things don’t go the way you thought, it was your vote that helped her get into office.
There is no such thing as free, and someone must pay for it. At some point, people will stop paying for it and move out or stop working and join you for all the free stuff.