Recall effort against Seattle socialist appears to fail

SEATTLE (AP) — A controversial socialist City Councilmember in Seattle appears to have survived a recall vote by a narrow margin. She had faced calls for her ouster due to her aggressive tactics while calling for higher taxes on hometown tech giant Amazon and pushing to cut the police budget. The latest ballot count Thursday showed 50.3% opposing the recall of Kshama Sawant, a 48-year-old economics professor and the longest-tenured councilmember in the liberal city. The exact margin was 232 votes out of more than 40,000 cast. Elections officials say there are 591 ballots that have been challenged due to questions about voter signatures. Those challenges could be resolved and some of those ballots added to the count before the election is certified Dec. 17.