PIERCE COUNTY — Anxious voters are calling the Pierce County Auditor’s Office because Pierce Transit Proposition 1 does not appear on their ballots.
“Some voters think they have been issued the wrong ballot, but they have forgotten that Pierce Transit’s boundary changed substantially earlier this year,” said Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson. “Some people who voted on a Pierce Transit measure in 2011 are no longer eligible to vote on the matter in 2012.”
In May, the communities of Bonney Lake, Buckley, DuPont, Orting, Sumner and large portions of unincorporated Pierce County were removed from the Pierce Transit taxing district/service area. As a result, there are 105,450 fewer voters in the Pierce Transit district this election. And that’s generating a lot of phone calls to the Auditor’s Office.
The boundary change occurred after a Public Transportation Improvement Conference (PTIC) as outlined by RCW 36.57A.020 approved the removal of the jurisdictions mention above. The PTIC membership was comprised of one elected official from each jurisdiction within Pierce County and the Pierce County Council. There were three public meetings and one public hearing by the PTIC from December 2011 to March 2012. The boundary changes became official on May 8, 2012
A map of the new Pierce Transit boundary is available here.
Pierce Prairie Post 
Why would Pierce Transit put proposition 1 back on the ballot just 20 months after it was defeated by 8.5%? They rigged the system between elections, that’s why.
The boundaries were drawn by Pierce Transit and geared towards winning this election and nothing else.
They try to blame it on the PTIC but what they don’t tell you is that 5 of the 10 Pierce Transit Commissioners were also members of the conference, Commissioner Derek Young chaired the conference and the conference assistant was 2011 Save our Buses campaign manager Justin Leighton. It hardly looks independent when you peel the cover back.
What happened in Gig harbor was a travesty of democracy. Pierce Transit’s footprint remains almost exactly the same as before yet they cut most of the voters out leaving only the HWY 16 corridor, where the businesses are. Businesses can’t vote, so citizens are essentially left with taxation without representation.
If Proposition 1 passes, everyone in Gig Harbor will have to pay the tax because the shopping centers are all within the district.
They did the same thing at the end of meridian cutting out voters in South Hill, Spanaway and Graham.
Of the 106 precincts that were cut out of the district, none of them voted to approve prop 1 in 2011. They wanted a more responsible Pierce Transit, what they got was cut out of the process.