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Monday, October 21, 2019

Six recent UGA Precincts: Deserving of more attention?

Before I start the matchback report sequence for GE 2019, I thought I would take a look at some sparse  UGA regions recently turned Bellingham precincts.  Inside the red circles are six recent  (previous UGA now Bellingham) precincts. They are not well populated. Unlike the other higher numbered Bellingham precinct series (250s, 260s), they are not located in south Bellingham. Instead they are located in northwest (268, 273) and northeast (269, 270, 271, 272) Bellingham and are somewhat  atypically split between  County Council, Legislative and Congressional districts .  With the possible exception of Precinct 270 (Gundie's Auto Recycling), these districts will probably see increasing voter growth.  Please see more data and analysis below the break. Click to enlarge the Google Earth Pro screenshot below.




The latest shape file evenly splits these six precincts with two each for three COB Wards: 1, 2, 4.  Only one (precinct 269) is located one of  the larger Bellingham County Council Districts (e.g. 1 or 2).  Two of these six precincts (270 and 271) are in the 40th LD.  However, almost the entirety of precinct 270 is currently Gundie's Auto Recycling. There are currently no registered active voters in Precinct 270

   PrecinctNa COB_Ward County_Cou  Legislativ Congressio
1:        268        1          4         42          1
2:        269        2          2         42          1
3:        270        4          3         40          2
4:        271        4          3         40          1
5:        272        2          3         42          1
6:        273        1          4         42          1

Active voters for the other five precinct are scant.  With the exception of 271, a Google Earth Pro inspection of all these other precincts looks like they have room for (more) subdivisions and new roads. These are the currently registered active voters as of October 1, 2019:

   PrecinctCode   N
1:          268  59
2:          269 152
3:          271 179
4:          272   2
5:          273  78

These voting histories are a bit scant  and somewhat expected. These are the last year voted (LYV) for the last four years only for these precincts:

    LYV 268 269 271 272 273
1: 2019  15  44  62   0  14
2: 2018  23  61  65   2  38
3: 2017   0   2   4   0   0
4: 2016   7  24  15   0   7

One interesting aspect of many northeast Bellingham precincts is their inclusion in the 40th LD. We often think of the 40th LD as the nicely wrapped liberal sum of south Bellingham, northern Skagit and the San Juan Islands. Yet, the 40th (red line in screenshot below) picks ups the Roosevelt and (south) Alabama Hill neighborhoods before stretching north along the Briton Road corridor from Silver Lake to Mt. Baker Highway. There, it finds the  housing subdivisions in precincts 271 and nearby 159 before encircling Toad Lake developments and curling its way east of Lake Whatcom along high power lines to pick up Highway 9 in Acme on its way back to Skagit County (not shown here).  Both the now voter empty 270 and also 271 are in the 40th.  Click to enlarge the screenshot:



I will  guess that the developed subdivisions now in precincts 269, 271 (and nearby 159) may not be getting enough political party attention; backed up and 'hidden away' as they are by urban growth areas off Mt. Baker highway.  There is not enough previous and extant voting history for me to rank these six precincts as definitively blue, red, or purple.  My guess is more voter registration is needed in these areas:

  • 269:  Trickle Creek Blvd, Redondo Way, Skylark Loop
  • 271:  Ruston Way, Keystone Way, Aurora Loop, Wayside Ct.
  • 159:  Britton Loop Rd, Ava Ln, Alyssa Ct. (near Toad Lake)

I can't imagine that the current occupants of these precincts and streets would do anything but thank me for a such a recommendation for more involvement by political parties!

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