CORRECTED: More detail on that Thurston County bar poll

• Published August 01, 2008

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Today’s item on the Thurston County Bar Association’s “preference poll” on judicial candidates left out quite a bit — for space reasons. So I’m including a fuller version of the results here.

First, a reminder: The poll release comes ahead of a Superior Court candidate forum planned Monday at 5:30 p.m. at The Olympia Center.

Now back to the poll. As mentioned in the news story, Carol Murphy outpolled Charles Williams 106-54 for one Superior Court seat, while Judge Gary Tabor outpolled Ed Holm, the county prosecutor, 125-34.

And for District Court, Sam Meyer led a field of 12 candidates with 74 of about 160 ballots cast. The others in order of finish were: Jamie Moore, an administrative law judge for the state Department of Revenue, with 17; Greg Rosen, an assistant attorney general in the criminal-justice division, with 15; deputy county prosecutor Jodilyn Erikson-Muldrew, 14; and private attorney Ken Valz, 14; Phil Kratz, 10; Sans Gilmore, 5; Lynn Hayes, 5; Bill Gilbert, 4; Laura Murphy, 3; Jim Foley, 1, and William Bayness, 0.

Click here for the PDF file from bar president Erik Price that lists the official results. A total of 298 ballots were sent out.

Past winners of the bar poll lost in the real election that followed. “I think people need to draw their own conclusions from it,’’ Price said. “Historically, winning the poll doesn’t necessarily predict the winner of the race.’’

The Superior Court races will be decided in the Aug. 19 primary, and the District Court candidates will appear only on the Nov. 4 ballot in a winner-take-all vote. The county voters pamphlet has detail on the Superior Court candidates.

Click here to see a short description of the District Court candidates we published last month. Here’s a short addition on William Bayness that the online staff was unable to post in that roundup, because of his late response:

William Bayness of Tenino — The Thurston County native and graduate of the University of Puget Sound law school has practiced law 23 years. He said he served six years in the Navy, has worked for the county prosecutor’s office, the state Department of Labor and Industries, and the city of Yelm, as well as in-house counsel for a seafood company. Like others, he cited his judge pro-tem work for the city of Rainier.

FOOTNOTE: It looks like some of the less-well-known candidates are making appearances at a lot of community events to make themselves known. Laura Murphy, for instance, showed up at a recent parade in Tenino and this week had a booth this week at the Thurston County Fair. Murphy planned to be there over the weekend.

It might not seem so judicial to stand amid the squeaking pigs and gawkers at the 4-H exhibits, but then again, it's smart to go where the people are.

CORRECTED on Aug. 4: Reflects Jamie Moore's affiliation with the Department of Revenue.