According to Lynden Tribune:Elections are over for State Representative in 42nd district Races

Headlines Backed up with misstatement of facts on the Two Representative Races in the 42nd Legislative District in North Whatcom County bring swift responses from the candidates not even mentioned in the headline.

Bill Helm, editor of the Lynden Tribune,wrote a page one article in the Lynden Tribune calling the races in the 42nd over and the Democrats elected.

The paragraph that is most astounding is “As each of these two races had only two candidates, these two elections act as general elections. The only way these two races could have gone to general election is had no candidate received at least 50% of the participating vote. ” This is a total misunderstanding of state law concerning Primary elections in Partisan Races in the State of Washington. Washington State has been, “a top two move forward to the general elections” state for over 20 years.

We asked the elections department for clarification of the Tribune paragraphs above. County Auditor Stacy Henthorn stated: “How Primaries work is that Multiple Candidates can file for office and the top two will move on to the General Election in November.”

The writer/editor of the article may be confused with the rules in some Judges races.

What is most concerning is that voters in one party’s stronghold (Lynden City) will see this headline; and this article’s quote; and that they will believe they will not have to vote in these races in November.

By the way the Republican candidates in November are Justin Pike and Misty Flowers both currently in busy campaign mode as of the printing of this story. I will mention their names and pictures here to provide some small balance to the widespread printed edition of the Lynden papers.

The Republican candidates hope all voters take the time to realize as early as possible who is in the race this November and participate in the election process.