The Washington State Republican Party says that the Ukraine County Democrats are changing the rules:
This morning the King County Elections Department announced to ballot counters that it is changing the rules it had previously set on counting votes. King County’s established guidelines had said that if there were marks in the bubbles for both Rossi and Gregoire, the vote would be considered an “over vote” and would not be counted because the voter had voted for both candidates. Now, however, the Elections Department is going to send these ballots to the Democrat-dominated canvassing board for review.The WSRP release links to a graphic from the Ukraine County elections training manual that illustrates what an overvote is. Nevertheless, the plain standards in the manual are being thrown out the window in favor of the "human judgment" of Ukraine County's Democrat-dominated canvassing board. State GOP chairman Chris Vance wonders whether the Democrats might be changing the rules now because Rossi appeared to be gaining in the recount.
UPDATE: Ukraine County elections director Dean Logan just wrapped up an interview on the John Carlson show. He confirmed that the Ukraine Canvassing Board voted unanimously to change the rules as described above, so that every ballot with marks in more than one oval will be reviewed by the canvassing board to determine "voter intent". I'll give bonus points for the first person who can tell me the plural of "haruspex". And extra bonus points for the first person who can tell me how to say "haruspex" in Ukrainian!
Dean Logan also gave Carlson this explanation for the 573 magical mystery ballots. Please put down your beverage.
1) These are all validly registered voters.
2) For some reason, and Logan could not say what that reason is, these validly registered voters' signatures were not in the computer database where the signatures are supposed to be kept. But he believes their original signatures would be in the paper files.
3) About 100 of these voters were sent letters informing them that their signatures were not up-to-date in the database, asking them to update their signatures. However, there were not supposed to be any consequences for a voter who failed to update their signature. The letters were sent only to "expedite the process" and prevent the county workers from having to look for the voters' signatures in the paper files.
4) Even if such a voter failed to update their signature, they were sent a ballot anyway, without ever being told (until six weeks after the election, and only then by serendipity) that their ballot would not be accepted because the database did not contain their signature.
Got it?
It makes you wonder what other idiotic procedures they have in place, and what other errors they're making and not discovering, or discovering and not reporting.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 16, 2004 03:30 PM | Email ThisBut suing to prvent valid votes from being counted is beyond the pale. Any goodwill the Rs had is now lost -- they can join the Ds in the lawsuit-happy way to take voting out of the hands of the voters.
If Gregoire wins, it will be seen as illegitimate by many. Now, Rossi has put himself in the same boat.
Why can't these candidates and parties get it beyond "getting elected at all costs".
It's never been sadder to be a Washingtonian.
Posted by: tom on December 16, 2004 04:06 PMhttp://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-har1.htm
haruspices
Posted by: Todd on December 16, 2004 04:07 PMThe question IS what is a valid vote. If a vote is double marked (over voted), has an invalid signature, is turned in after the election etc. it's not valid.
The republicans are simpling saying "Stick to the rules, dont change them 1/2 way through"
I suspect that what has happend is that the Dem's have cherry picked previously rejected votes from heavily pro-Dem precincts and are dependending on statistics to carry the day.
It is a hail mary play that depends on changing the meaning of term "Valid Vote" after the fact, I hope the courts stick to their guns and stop these underhanded last minute shenanigans by Dem Operatives.
Hell, why not just re-open the polls and go at it again, then Kevin S. could vote a 3rd time!
Todd
Posted by: Todd on December 16, 2004 04:13 PMAll I did was answer the question as to the plural of haruspex.
I am in fact a Republican, so we are on the same side here and it would definitely be of benefit to Rossi were I to vote three times.
I think you have confused me with someone else, tom perhaps.
Please read more carefully.
Posted by: Kevin S on December 16, 2004 04:24 PM3 bonus points for Kevin!
All we need now is somebody to tell us how to say haruspex and haruspices in Ukrainian.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on December 16, 2004 04:26 PMLastly and then I'll shut up...I think the volunteers and election workers who are conducting this recount are doing the best they can do. I don't think any of them are intentionally being dishonest. They may make mistakes and if they do, hopefully the observers will catch those mistakes, but the constant disparagement of their integrity and honesty by posters is not warranted.
Posted by: Steve on December 16, 2004 04:26 PMThe problem here is that the anomalies are not happening state wide, they are all happening in King County. Since it is the biggest county in the state I'd expect it to have a larger share of problems than any other individual county. However, for it to have several times the number of weird situations and problems than the rest of the state combined sets off alarm bells for me.
Posted by: Ken B. on December 16, 2004 04:40 PMAs predicted, she will lead even without the additional votes; and in the process, the repugs look stupid trying to make actual people's vote invalid.
Go ahead, dig your grave.
The Republicans' lawsuit is overdue. It should have been filed yesterday. As we saw in Florida in 2000, when Democrats cheat (as they often do) the correct procedure is to go to court to stop their criminal behavior. (Do the names Carnahan and Torricelli ring any bells?)
The Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that the extra 573 "votes" are VOID. No recanvassing--period. There can be no recanvassing even to cure "discrepancies," of which there are none in this case anyway.
You're saddened? Just wait till the Supreme Court rules on this one.
The ballots for Ukraine county are the kind where you fill in little bubbles with a pen or dark pencil. These little bubbles are very similar to those you might see on an SAT score sheet.
The names of the candidates are marked clearly next to the bubbles. A small percentage of ballots had a small mark in one of the bubbles while another bubble was completely filled in. I saw this on many ballots with my own eyes.
All of these ballots were singled out for recanvassing and brought to a seperate area than the rest of the ballots counted in any given poll box.
I have a huge problem with this practice because this is where the bias of human intent creeps in to a manual recount. Machines would simply disregard these marks which are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence because they are always accompanied by a fully filled in oval, which a machine would easily recognize as the real intent of the voter. The issue is that once the ballot comes before a partisan, human, that person may decide in a much more subjective way than a machine would as to whether these ballots are valid or not, and for which candidate they will be counted.
What was very interesting to me is that the marks were always exactly the same. A small dot in one of the bubbles. Now granted, I only observed a small percentage of the total ballots, but to me it was suspicious that every single ballot that I saw being sent to canvassing for this reason, had the same mark.
Now it could have been that a voter puts his pen tip down on one bubble, then lifts it and changes his mind to fill in the bubble of another candidate. That seems pretty plausible. But then we get back to the issue of bias. In those cases, the ballots should simply be counted for the candidate that had the complete bubble filled in and not the small dot.
Now that these "overvotes" are going before Ukraine County Vote Factory, I mean Canvassing Board, it's anybody's guess what will happen.
I'd say that the from what I saw, the counters were generally very honest people, just doing a mundane job of counting. All of the distrust here should lie with the King County Elections board as is evidenced by much of what we saw over the past few days in their partisan rulings, changing of the counting rules, etc.
Something is really rotten up there in King County. If you have time, stop by and go in to the public viewing area of the counting room. Stand there for 20 minutes or so and you will see for yourself.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 16, 2004 05:21 PMThe truth is out there for those who want to find it.
The lefties don't want to admit that there are serious questions to be answered about the location of signatures for absentee ballots, changing the counting rules regarding overvotes, finding ballots in machines, etc.
I constantly hear/read the line "the Republicans would do the same if the shoe were on the other foot." But it's not on the other foot folks. Gregoire has lost two counts. The burden of proof is on Gregoire. Is it any wonder that they would change overvote rules mid-recount to try and create a circumstance for a Gregoire win?
Well said....and good food for thought.
Fed Up -- sorry to see you so one-sidedly bitter when both sides are doing the same kinds of things.
Posted by: tom on December 16, 2004 05:53 PMIt's true that there has been a lot of inflamed rhetoric. And it's true that by-in-large the individual contributor election workers are doing a good job with the manual counting process.
However, when mistakes are made, they need to be analyzed and corrected. There's been no explanation for where the signatures might have been, or why these issues were not addressed around the date of the election.
If Dean Logan is serious about the process, then he should be willing to correct mistakes in the most open and balanced way. He needs to come clean about why the signatures were not in the database to even begin to regain public credibility.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 16, 2004 06:13 PMAfter that, let's hope that sane people will pass legislation that eliminates hand recounts, where the opportunity for cheating goes way up.
Posted by: TheRevolutionWillBeBlogged on December 16, 2004 06:20 PMI've read a few of your comments on this website and I'm sure you have very few brain functions left, if you had many in the first place. Saying the Republicans look bad now? "Hello, Kettle? This is the Pot - You're black!"
Gregoire lost the election. In the recount King County 'found' ballots and 'enhanced' ballots while the other counties did not. Gregoire lost again. Now King County is finding, enhancing, and manufacturing even MORE ballots! No matter what happens, Gregoire is a loser, and so are you. If she does manage to steal this election and gain office she'll have even less legitimacy than Gary Locke, who is the most pathetic state official I've encountered from all the states in which I've lived.
And make no mistake about it - you're a dinosaur. Democrats are destined to go the way of the brontosaurus, lumbering straight into extinction. You may not realize it yet, since you're in the last bastion of the T-Rex after the comet has hit.
Bush beat Kerry's ass despite the best efforts of your ilk. Now Gallup reports that more people identify themselves as Republicans for the first time in generations. In four years we'll elect another Republican President, which will be 8 out of 11 in my lifetime!
You may as well enjoy it while it lasts. You think you're a Velociraptor...but we Republicans are mammals, we adapt, survive and conquer. Have fun in the tar pits!
Posted by: Larry on December 16, 2004 06:31 PMOther than crying fraud, there have been no evidence brought forward for such an outrageous claim. Pure PR.
It's the same claim the Democrats made in Florida in 2000.
Makes the Rs look really bad crying "fraud" in a crowded election. Just like the Ds looked in Florida in 2000.
Rossi and Gregoire should both gain backbones and call (jointly) for a run off. Wouldn't that be something? I know...I can dream....
Posted by: tom on December 16, 2004 06:36 PMHow will anyone ever investigate to see if there has been fraud - and there certainly MAY have been, right - unless somebody talks about it.
And that's EXACTLY what it is - SUSPECTED fraud. Is it or is it not? We don't know! If there were EVIDENCE of fraud, it wouldn't be SUSPECTED, now would it???? Not too hard to understand, when you think about it!
As for the suspected fraud, everyone remember that we elected a REPUBLICAN (read: competant) ATTORNEY GENERAL, Rob McKenna!! If there is any justice at all, his first task will be to investigate King County Elections Commission! In fact, why don't we all start writing letters and emails to the Attorney General, asking for just that?
I'm sure Rob will take more action in his first week than his predecessor, one ChrisTINE Gregoire, did her entire term.
To a very interested observer, without a dog in the hunt, it saddens me as an American, to see this election being stolen by whatever means possible by the Democratic Party.
Chuck
Atop a mountain in North Georgia
Local TV (KOMO, I think) recently did a poll, and Rossi would win by 10%. Ten percent of people who voted for Gregoire (5% of total) said that they would change her votes after the way she has acted (or not acted, and claimed she didn't know how her cohorts were acting).
Posted by: Larry on December 16, 2004 06:50 PMI think it's easier to just let the lefties hang themselves with their own rope. They are very good at it.
Larry, you are right too. Even if Gregoire manages to steal this one, this is a GIANT shot across the bow for the Democrats.
Their ideology is dying.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 16, 2004 09:50 PMMake up your mind!
Do you believe:
1. Are Democrats the stupid ones who just can't get their ballots right the first time?
OR...
2. "It's fair to assume that any newly discovered ballots would be distributed to the two candidates based on their share of the previous vote counts."
Posted by: Dude on December 16, 2004 09:54 PMThe 22 ballots "found in a pocket on a voting machine" are proof of a crime. Either fraud or two cases of perjury. (Or some combination perhaps.)
That's evidence, but everyone's assuming 'oh, just perjury, so sorry' and not treating it as if the only other option is even possible.
Posted by: Al on December 16, 2004 10:15 PMI hope you never sit on a jury that requires proof.
Posted by: tom on December 16, 2004 10:21 PMYou predict Rossi would win by a lot -- which would be great! There would be no more blaming the other side of 1) not counting all legitimate votes or 2) cheating and stealing.
It would mean Governor Rossi wouldn't fight with many people (agree or not agree, there are many people) who will aruge he won by purposefully not having legitimate votes counted.
Instead, all would agree who got the most votes and was the official, legitimate winner. Governor Rossi would have the legitimacy our elected officials need.
Perhaps you can help make this happen!
PS..on your "suspected fraud" comment -- your argument suggests that anybody can be correctly suspected of anything until proven otherwise (it may have happened). This is akin to asking the quesiton "when did you stop beating your wife?" -- that's SUSPECTED ABUSE. You can imagine the extremes here. I can SUSPECT you of anything that may have happened. Geez, anything MAY have happened.
Let's prevent such brash rhetoric from distorting the process further.
Posted by: tom on December 16, 2004 10:29 PMHey, Democrats! You belong in a museum!
Posted by: FedUpWithThis on December 16, 2004 11:10 PMNo way should Rossi cave in to this. The only way there should be a run-off is if Gregoire garners enough fraudulently counted votes to put her over the top because a manual recount is not as accurate as a machine count.
Posted by: KittyBurglar on December 17, 2004 12:50 AMAre the 'pubs skeered the judges will say no so they won't even push for it?
When's this supposed to be over?
Posted by: KittyBurglar on December 17, 2004 01:31 AMFirstly, people will always remember how she lost the first two counts, then won the third on the basis of mystery ballots and very helpful rule-changes from UDPP-dominated canvassing boards. Regardless of the spin, most people will believe she stole the election.
Secondly, if Christine Yanukovych brings the same level of incompetence to the governor's office as she did to the AG's office, her term will be a disaster.
A Pyrrhic victory by the UDPP now could give the Republicans dividends in 2006 and 2008.
Posted by: Matt J Kurlander on December 17, 2004 04:17 AMLet's hope the democrats agree and we move on to settling this without controversy.
Kudos to Ralph who is looking for a governor with legitimacy above politics as usual.
And boo to the democrats who say Ralph is calling for a new election because Rossi's lead is in question. Ralph got it right.
Posted by: tom on December 17, 2004 06:44 AMLove your blog. Ballot 81: "Christine Rossi" and she got the vote? Haruspex indeed. What do you think about a run off?
Bob, Silverdale
Posted by: Robert Otten on December 17, 2004 07:35 AMThe _entire_ point of having the poll workers swear to the emptiness of the machine is to prevent EXACTLY this problem.
In other words - if you DO NOT consider this a problem, then you can just skip asking the poll workers to sign off. They aren't going to be held to even one press conference, or even one question by the press - let alone criminal proceedings or a lawsuit.
You don't need a lot of evidence to incriminate someone of a rear-end collision for example - guilt is almost assumed baring exceedingly unusual circumstances.
Posted by: Al on December 17, 2004 11:01 AM