The resignation of elections director Dean Logan means King County may not be able to make its 2007 deadline for countywide mail-in voting. But County Executive Ron Sims has not yet given up trying to implement the plan in time for next year's primary election, Sims spokesman Sandeep Kaushik said this morning.

Kaushik said Sims expects a difficult time finding a replacement for Logan "because of what Ron has described as this toxic political environment surrounding King County Elections. ... King County elections has essentially turned into a partisan issue in a way that really undermines our ability to restore public trust and confidence in the election system."

At horsesass, David Goldstein says Logan has "been incessantly vilified by the GOP and their surrogates."

"A colorless bureaucrat in the best sense of the word, Logan has simply had enough of the abuse."

And when Goldstein says surrogates, he includes blogger Stefan Sharkansky, who has written more about Logan than anyone, and none of it nice. He's restrained so far this morning at Sound Politics.

Republicans have definitely made Logan a target. In the 2005 trial on the governor's election, the GOP legal strategy hinged on trying to show corruption in the elections division to steal the election from Dino Rossi. They showed some bumbling to be sure. But Chelan County Superior Court Judge John. Bridges found no corruption.

More recently there has been growing discontent from the left about King County elections and the plan by Sims and Logan to convert to countywide vote-by-mail. As one commenter put it on the liberal washblog site:

"On this issue, there are no Democrats and Republicans and there are no liberals and conservatives. There are only those who value the convenience of elections officials uber alles and those who have a fecking clue what is at stake when we don't have election transparency with checks and balances and public oversight at every step. "

Not all on the left have been open to criticism of the Democrats who run county elections. Washblog's resident vote-by-mail critic has been called on the site the "Right's Useful Idiot," a "paranoid weirdo," a "LaRouchian," and a "flat-earther."

Logan is taking a job in Los Angeles as deputy elections registrar. His new boss is Conny McCormack, who has been a long-time fan of Logan's, dating back to the height of the 2004 election controversy:

When Logan's most acerbic critics likened King County's election conduct to abuses in Ukraine and Chicago, auditors from other counties offered support. Los Angeles County Auditor Conny McCormack conducted media interviews and offered to fly to Seattle.

UPDATE: Here's Logan's statement:

UPDATE: Sims just released a statement expressing his sadness at losing Logan to L.A. Sims has some tough words for what he said was A "barrage of harsh personal attacks" on Logan "by some partisan extremists and elected officials," some of whom he refers to as "unscrupulous people" and "unhinged partisan critics."