I’m fairly confident that Referendum 71 will be approved. It was leading by 51% this morning and by 51.8% this evening, and leading 2:1 in King County, the most populous, most liberal county in Washington state.

Ballots merely have to be postmarked by Election Day to be valid, and hundreds of thousands of them have not yet been received by the vote counters.

I attended the Election Night party last night and helped the tech team with some behind-the-scenes arrange­ments. In the photo, Joe Mirabella (lead blogger) and Josh Cohen (tech lead) are being thanked by Anne Levinson (campaign chair) and Josh Friedes (campaign manager).

The mood was cautiously optimistic about Referendum 71 passing, tempered by some dis­ap­point­ment that Maine’s gay marriage law was sure to be repealed.

Tim Eyman’s Measure 1033 also went down to defeat, which also made me happy. Anything sponsored by Eyman is ipso facto bad.