Citizens for Accountable Elections filed an initiative petition with King County last week that proposes to create an elected Director of Elections.

The group's spokesperson, former legislator Toby Nixon, declared, "Every county in Washington has an elected person that oversees all aspects of the voting experience, except King County. We'd like to change that."

The group is now is waiting for King County to give it the go-ahead to collect the requisite 55,000 signatures to qualify for this November's general election ballot. King County Charter regulations give the petitioners just 90 days to collect these signatures.

King County Elections has been plagued with trouble since the early 2002 election when absentee ballots were not mailed on time. Fallout from the 2004 governor's race is still being investigated.

The 2005 bi-partisan King County Independent Task Force on Elections recommended that voters elect the head of elections as one of the remedies to re-build the lost trust of voters.

For more information, go to www.accountableelections.org.