King County Elections today counted an additional 26,683 absentee ballots. No poll votes were counted.

Election result summary:

* 212,397absentee ballots tabulated to date

* 153,350 poll votes cast (which does not include provisional or challenged ballots)

The next posting of results will be November 11 at approximately 4:30 p.m.

The opponents of the gas tax increase have thrown in the towel.

"We're very disappointed and wish the outcome had been different," Initiative 912 organizer Brett Bader told The Associated Press. "We said in the final weeks of the campaign that it would be close, and it was. We had a map and a plan to get across the finish line and we made our goals in every county but two, King and Snohomish. It's tough. You don't win statewide with those kind of numbers."

The initiative would have rolled back a $5.5 billion tax increase funded by a 9.5-cent-a-gallon increase in the levy on gasoline.

Initiative 912 continues to get pounded in King County, the state's largest and most urban. The initiative would have repealed the recent 9.5-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase.

King County updated election results this evening, and the trend is still not good for I-912. Sixty-four percent of the votes counted today were against the initiative. That's almost identical to the Election Night trend, which saw 65 percent of the tally going against the measure.

Statewide, I-912 is being defeated 53 percent to 47 percent. It trails by more than 76,000 votes. More results will be released tomorrow.

A happy Ron Sims said today that Tuesday's election showed voters want a government that spends tax dollars wisely, protects the environment and promotes a balanced transportation plan.

The King County Executive easily defeated his GOP opponent David Irons to win a third term, though the campaign this time was more heated then Sims' 2000 contest. At a news conference, the Democrat Sims said Irons "ran a rather vigorous campaign" and that was good because the two candidates were able to differentiate their views.

Sims said he doesn't support the tunnel option for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which is the most expensive of the plans being considered.

"You have to live within your means," he said. "Unless they find $1 billion for a tunnel, I can't support a tunnel."

And he said he expects the County Council will function much more smoothly than it has over the past 18 months, when members were jockeying for position to save their jobs.

"I think we're going to be moving into a much saner period, a politically saner period," he said. "As a matter of fact, I'm sure we'll be moving into a much saner period."

-Gregory Roberts

King County Elections will dump more results about 4:30.

Should the Seattle monorail property be managed by the city?

The idea was floated this morning by longtime monorail campaigner Peter Sherwin. His thinking: City taxpayers paid more than $72 million for the land along the 14-mile corridor from Crown Hill to West Seattle and might want to use it for another transit system, parks or other things. Sherwin is floating the idea with City Hall.

Monorail board member Cleve Stockmeyer, meanwhile, is asking the city to decide how to provide transit service to the corridor, in time to reserve the land before the Seattle Monorail Project sells it. Stockmeyer lost his re-election bid but said the city and other monorail opponents have said they favor transit and "I want to hold them to their word."

Stockmeyer thinks rapid-transit is still a possibility along the route. Not interim monorail director John Haley, who said voters effectively killed it Tuesday night when the failed to approve a plan to build a shortened monorail line from West Seattle to Interbay. "I think it's dead," he said.

He is also ready to return to his regular job at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in San Francisco and will recommend to the monorail board tonight that he leave the monorail agency. When?

"What time do you have?"

- Larry Lange

The latest election tabulations from early Wednesday have erased virtually any chance of passage of Initiative 912, to repeal the state's 9.5-cent gas tax increase. The margin of rejection now has widened to more than 63,000 votes, 47.1 percent yes to 52.9 percent no.

-Neil Modie

King County will release updated results at 4:30 p.m. today.

Of the 301,514 ballots counted on Election Day, 149,601 were absentee ballots.

Amidst a throbbing techno beat, the crowd that migrated to Belltown's trendy Apartment Bistro from the Westin's "No on Monorail Prop 1" campaign kept the mood exuberant, whooping loudly every time returns came on the sleek flat-screen TV above the bar and booing vociferously when their opponents came on-screen.

Anne Traver, life partner of the diehard Henry Aronson, gave him and Crista Camenzind identical stuffed Rottweilers with "Seattle's Best Watchdog" stamped on the makeshift collars. "A Rot is a dog that doesn't let go," she said.

Aronson expressed relief. "This project stood in the way of making real transportation gains. The monorail supporters attempted to characterize their opponents as being against transit -- 'Transit Over Roads.' Nothing could be further from true and the voters figured that out."

He said he'd never seen a project be so divisive as this and hoped monorail supporters would join them in effective and integrated mass transit that works.

Of course, he said this only after he flipped his middle finger at the TV screen when his opponents were on air.

-Athima Chansanchai

The Washington State Medical Association conceded defeat on I-330 shortly after 11 p.m.

-Angela Galloway