In this AM's Fizz, using the devilishly confusing Prop 1A vs. Prop 1B vote as an example, I noted that Seattle voters are a smart crew. But are younger voters particularly smart?

While both measures had superficial appeal to liberal Seattle voters—a measure to fund preschool slots (1B) and a measure to raise childcare worker pay to $15 ASAP and standardize training (1A)—only one could pass.

And voters are overwhelmingly ( 68.37 to 31.63 ) going for Prop 1B, the option that was pushed by the city and "establishment" politicians such as Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess and Mayor Ed Murray vs. the one pushed by lefty unions.

Adding to the potential confusion, but similarly reflecting back even more Seattle voter smarts: The ballot gave the public the option to throw its hands up in frustration on a prerequisite question ("should either of these measures be enacted into law?") which could have doomed preschool funding if flummoxed voters went 50-plus-one on that question. The numbers there? 66.52 said let's do this.

PubliCola Picks (our ed board, which included Casey and me and a slew of SeattleMet editors as well) came out for Prop 1B explaining the complicated nuances that made Prop 1B, the funded one, the better choice. But man, given the knotty issues, and union sympathy in liberal Seattle, and the emotional battle cry from the unions (during our ed board interview an African American preschool teacher advocating for Prop 1A accused the Prop 1B side of drawing a "Mason Dixon Line" ... I kid you not), it seemed to me that people might fall for it. Prop 1A's $1.5 million campaign had damn good ads too.

While the earliest count was certainly big for Prop 1B—67.2 vs. 32.8 on election night—the later batches are kind of stunning.

But nope. Seattle voters realized that one measure actually funded seats for kids in preschool classrooms and one talked about paying teachers, but didn't come with a funding source nor, for that matter, a plan to get kids into preschool.     

And here's the reason for this Fizz follow-up. It turns out that the conventional wisdom about older voters being better informed is getting turned on its head by this vote (if, as is traditionally the case, younger voters are the ones who are voting later this year. To be clear, I haven't seen any exit polling and I'm going off conventional voting patterns.)

While the earliest count was certainly big for Prop 1B—67.2 vs. 32.8 on election night—the later batches are kind of stunning: Wednesday's vote went 70.7 percent for Prop 1B vs. 29.3 for 1A. And Thursday's vote went 72.1 for 1B vs. 27.9 for 1A. 

Another oddity is that later votes are supposed to be more liberal. And while Prop 1B, nudging Seattle toward universal pre-K, is certainly a liberal agenda item (the measure is a four-year, $60 million pilot program for accessible preschool in Seattle, free to families making less than 300 percent of the federal poverty line—$71,000 for a family of four—with a goal of serving 2,000 kids by 2018), increasing wages for low-wage workers, getting the union's back, and rejecting the compromise-y mayor, seems in sync with Seattle's ultra left moment too.

Apparently, Seattle itself, not just its savvy voters, is nuanced too.