After record-low voter turnout last November, today King County Elections announced it’s partnering with the Seattle Seahawks to include choosing the football team’s next head coach on the February Special Election ballot.
“It turns out people don’t like being literally dragged into voting, so we’re changing our strategy this year by adding a way more fun opportunity to vote for who maybe leads the Seattle Seahawks to their next Super Bowl,” said King County Elections Director Julie Wise. “Honestly, we totally get why almost no one filled out local election ballots mailed straight to their homes last fall—like, why would anyone care that the city they live in every day is run well and not by a bunch of bought-and-paid-for Republicans in disguise? Boring! Look, if blocking big local corporations like Amazon and Microsoft from having their way on every issue is gonna involve taking even five minutes to copy off the The Stranger’s Cheat Sheet and putting the ballot in the mail, it’s obviously not worth it. That’s five minutes of the eight hours you need to scroll social media every day that you’re never going to get back.”
Seahawks General Manager John Scheider said the partnership is coming at the perfect time.
“Look, researching and making decisions about leaders who are not only going to almost immediately impact your wallet but the course of history itself just sucks, and honestly I don’t want to do it either,” said Schneider. “Interviewing all these people trying to fill Pete Carroll’s shoes has been too much, so you better vote, King County! If Bill Belichick ends up the next Seahawks coach, that’s gonna be your fault, not mine.”
At press time, polling was showing that the leader in the race for Seahawks Coach so far is Goodspaceguy.
Residents can check and update their voter registration status on www.kingcounty.gov. Voters must be registered by February 5 to vote in the February Special Election. Wise said if the Seahawks ballot initiative proves to be a success, future ballots may allow voters to select candidates for other positions of even greater influence in the region such as whoever chooses who local sports team’s mascots.
