In a Vancouver mayor's race dominated for months by a proposed $4.2 billion Columbia River Crossing project, taxes and accusations of mayoral accessibility, the last week saw the homestretch of the contest consumed by yet another issue.
Canvassers.
Yes, those hardy campaigners, undeterred by the onset of autumn rains and late October/early November chill, have become fodder in recent days for some of the bitterest accusations yet between Councilmember Tim Leavitt and Mayor Royce Pollard.
According to the Leavitt campaign, the issue started last week with three separate incidents regarding a canvasser allegedly harassing voters at their homes, and in one case, offering to mail-in a ballot for a city resident.
Based on numbers released by both sides, Leavitt currently has about 40 volunteers working for their campaign; Pollard has 15 to 20 people knocking on doors and making phone calls, not including Vancouver firefighters endorsing the mayor this year.
Leavitt campaign manager Temple Lentz declined to accuse the Pollard campaign of any direct complicity in last week's alleged incidents. However, a recent blog entry on the Leavitt campaign's website accused Pollard of sending "unidentified canvassers door-to-door in my name in order to lie about my platform."
"We're not sure how we became part of the story other than by accusations by Leavitt and his campaign manager," said Pollard campaign manager Marsha Manning in a statement earlier this week. "Are we being asked to prove our innocence?"
In response to an inquiry by the Leavitt campaign and after consulting with Washington state assistant director of elections Katie Blinn, Clark County Elections supervisor Tim Likness said no law barred affiliated or unaffiliated campaign volunteers from offering to mail-in a ballot on behalf of a voter. "The common sense thing to do would be to give a ballot only to someone you know and trust," Likness said.
Despite the heat generated by both campaigns on canvassing and other issues, only 17.4 percent of mailed ballots in Clark County had been turned in by press time, eight days before Tuesday's deadline – a figure Likness said was on par with his projection of a final turnout of about 45 percent.
Using a state-run "matchback" system allowing users to view locations of households with mailed-in ballots, both campaigns say that they will continue to send out volunteers to get out the vote in the election's homestretch.
"[We] represent ourselves as Pollard volunteers and wear Pollard t-shirts or buttons and hand out Pollard literature," Manning said. "We did not train our people to assist with ballots and we have a rule that we do not enter someone's house with or without an invitation."
Lentz fired back, accusing Pollard's camp of running a negative campaign "from the very beginning."
"Even if there are volunteers who are not officially part of the camp doing this," Lentz said. "He should show the leadership to denounce what's going on."
Though Likness could not recall similar allegations to those circulating this week during his tenure on the Board of Elections, he said he was not surprised by the bitter tone of this year's mayoral race.
"Everyone is trying to get an edge somehow," he said. "It's not that unusual in a hotly-contested campaign that you get people pushing the envelope."
VBJ editorial intern Mat Boes contributed reporting.
