As I noted yesterday in response to Dean Logan's surreal non-explanation of the 573 magical mystery ballots:
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.As of today we have 150 more magical mystery ballots.
Logan's explanation: Logan called an emergency meeting with his staff last night after The Seattle Times asked election workers to check computer files on five absentee voters who were not on the original list of 573 rejected ballots.Like I said,Records indicated there was no signature on file for those voters and their votes had not been counted.
Logan said at the time that he thought the computer records were in error and that a search for the ballot envelopes would show the votes had been counted. But when election officials looked for the envelopes last night, Logan said, "They were not where they were expected to be."
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 reportingAt least we know what happened to the letters A and B.
Meanwhile, canvassing board member Dan Satterberg e-mails to explain the astonishing 'Christine Rossi' incident:
The oval for Gregoire was filled in and the write-in line had the name "Christine Rossi" written in. The Canvassing Board voted 2 to 1 to count it as a vote for Gregoire. I dissented because of our past practice of declaring an "overvote" when the voter both fills in an oval for a declared candidate then writes a different name in the write-in line. Had the name on the write-in line been the same as the candidate next to the oval, our past practice would have dictated that it be counted as a valid vote for that candidate.Unbelievable.
UPDATE: John Carlson just announced that KVI Radio is holding a Ukraine-themed rally on Tuesday at 4pm outside the state capitol in Olympia. A Ukrainian exchange student will address the crowd. Be there and wear orange!
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 17, 2004 02:23 PM | Email ThisTo me, it sounds like the canvassing board got it right, the voter intent on this one sounds fine to me. And yes, if they would have filled in Rossi, I would say count that one too.
Posted by: DustinJames on December 17, 2004 02:43 PMFor those that want to see her, she's the middle row, far right, blonde hair:
http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/xml/services/lawjust/2003%20Group%20Judge%20Photo.jpg
I think the central issues before the court are:
a) Isn't this exactly the same thing that the Supreme Court said you can't do on Tuesday. Reconsidering ballots that had been previously rejected. Republican counsel clearly demonstrated that King County as other counties made these rejections on levels below that of the canvassing boards. Why allow higher levels to consider these ballots again?
b) More importantly, and this is partly my own interpretation of what was said. Why allow mining of rejected ballots when the mining target is known? Things are different now than they were when these ballots were rejected at some point before the finish of the initial count. Now, the Dems know the stakes are high. If they are allowed to mine previously rejected ballots to attempt to hit a vote total for Greogire, then the the Repubs should be allowed to do the same under equal protection for Rossi.
I've got big problems with the partisan control of elections in any county, but especially in King County. Why are these decisions made in a partisan way. As shown by the Dan Satterberg email, it is unreal that the ballot in question not be simply thrown out as an overvote. It's the only fair thing to do with such an ambiguous ballot. The fact that a partisan team gets to make a 2-1 ruling for this ballot to go Gregoire is unnaceptable.
We desperately need more objectivity in the counting. And before you Dems go wild, I would feel exactly the same way if the oval was filled in for Rossi and the write-in name had been Dino Gregoire.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 17, 2004 02:58 PMThe Supreme Court decision says that the parties can’t forcibly demand the canvassing boards to recanvass. It did not address, to most legal experts and lawyers, whether counties could recanvass if they believe a gross error has occurred.
The Republican Secretary of the State and the Democratic party believes they can, the Republican party believes they can not, hence the lawsuit.
Posted by: DustinJames on December 17, 2004 03:02 PMIn any case, I can't believe I've been so naive as to think (and hope) that Rossi would actually be our next Governor. I run my own conservative blog, and have been busy with updates, news, my own spreadsheets, etc...and while I always suspected that Gregoire's people would do whatever necessary to help her win, I never imagined the full extent they would go to.
We've had how many suspicious shenanigans going on in King County? And I think they've "found" more votes now a total of 8 times? 9? I've stopped counting. And EVERY SINGLE highly questionable incident has benefitted ONE candidate: Christine Gregoire. Every one!
Can you imagine the sheer outrage there would be if it were reversed, and Rossi pushed to the 3rd count, and repeatedly "found" votes and changed rules in, say, Spokane county, constantly improving his position?
But since it's benefitting a Democrat, all we hear from the mainstream media is how important it is to "count every vote" (legal or not), and so on, ad infinitum.
I've come up with a new slogan for the King County Democrats and their ilk: "Vote all you want, we'll vote more!!"
Posted by: Scott on December 17, 2004 03:03 PMI can name three possibilities off the top:
1) The voter confused the names Christine
Gegroire and Dino Rossi when he reaffirmed his
vote for Christine Gegroire;
2) The voter confused the names Christine
Gegroire and Dino Rossi when he changed his vote
to Dino Rossi;
3) The voter thought Christine Gregroire was the
Republican candidate. In that case, it is unclear
whether he would have voted for the Republican,
or for Christine Gregroire, the Democrat.
The fact that the board deduced a clear intent
of the voter indicates gross negligence in
doing their duty of recounting the ballots.
The GOP should sue immediately.
The technical argument may very well be the fact
that these ballots were recanvassed during the
machine recount, and rejected! The reopening of
rejected ballots is, apperently, denied by law.
This isn't difficult to do and there is nothing like hard data to silence critics on all sides.
Posted by: Mike on December 17, 2004 04:55 PMThis is not Ukraine, but as you continue to posture, Sound Politics loses its credibility (which it probably had). Right-wing wacko is a more apt characterization for y'all.
Speakout@foxnews.com
Time to get this story 'frontburner' - in order to put pressure where pressure belongs - the network satellite trucks have been wasting time in San Mateo for months...
Posted by: P. Scott on December 17, 2004 06:31 PM