Early election results in Island County

Published 6:00 pm Wednesday, November 8, 2000

“Island County Commissioner Mac McDowell, a Republican, apparently held off a strong challenge from Democrat Lynne Wilcox in Tuesday’s election.The final count was 8,429 votes for McDowell and 7,651 for Wilcox. All polling place votes were counted by 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, although Auditor Suzanne Sinclair said about 8,000 more absentees are still to be counted. Wilcox had a slight lead over McDowell until the final precincts from Oak Harbor were tallied.In the other commissioner race, Langley Republican Mike Shelton earned a third term by beating Democrat Bill Rowlands. Shelton received 10,550 votes to 6,080 for Shelton.One thing was certain early Wednesday — if anyone was awake in Clinton, they were celebrating a bond issue to build a new water tank for the community. That proposal passed with 213 yes votes to 74 no votes.In the 10th Legislative District, incumbent Rep. Dave Anderson, D-Clinton, appeared to be in trouble. District-wide as of 1 a.m. he had 7,955 votes to 8,365 for challenger Barry Sehlin, R-Oak Harbor.For the other House position, incumbent Kelly Barlean, R-Langley, has 8,347 votes to 6,549 for Democrat John McCoy of Marysville. Again, that was without the Oak Harbor precincts.State Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen was ahead of Republican Norma Smith at 1 a.m., leading 6,766 to 5,716 in Island County, and 9,075 to 7,526 district-wide.Island County voters followed the statewide trend on initiatives, voting for 713 to ban certain types of animal traps; for I-722, which limits property taxes and rolls back some taxes; for I-728, to lower class sizes in schools; against I-729, the charter school proposal; and against I-745, which would have required spending 90 percent of transportation dollars on roads. The I-745 results came as a relief to Island Transit, which would have lost most of its operating budget had the measure passed. “