City council had better gear up for a little chat about district elections! According to City Clerk Monica Simmons, the charter amendment to switch Seattle City Council elections to a seven-district system (there would then be two at-large seats) officially has enough signatures to qualify for the fall ballot.

King County Elections has been checking the 45,000 signatures that the campaign turned in this June to see that there were sufficient valid signatures by registered voters. "We heard this morning that yes, in fact, there was sufficiency," says Simmons by phone. Now the city attorney's office will draft a resolution and submit it to the council, who will then be able to vote to send it to the ballot.

But the county needs to get this decision from the city by August 6, so pretty soon, the council gets to have a fun chat about something they really don't want to talk about—they punted on the issue when they passed a public campaign finance bill recently, and given the way the map has been drawn, there's no way the sitting council members could all make it back to the council in this districted system unless they move (or buy a lovely summer cottage in another district). Awwwwwkward!

I have a call out to Council President Sally Clark to see when the council will consider this (it'll have to be the next couple weeks) and how she expects that discussion to go. I'll update when I hear back. Fun times!