Lornet Turnbull and David Postman get the biggest scoop yet in King County's increasingly bizarre election story.
King County election workers were told as early as May that if an absentee ballot came in without a matching signature on file they were required to make a concerted effort to verify that the vote was valid.
Before a special election in May, King County election workers routinely violated state law by counting such ballots without making any attempt to verify the signatures.
But I am not sure Turnbull and Postman realize the implications of their scoop, because they turn immediately from their discovery to how it led to the 735 disputed ballots that King County "found" after the official count. And from that they go to a routine discussion of the re-recount of the governor's race.
It is natural for reporters to look forward, but, in doing so, Turnbull and Postman missed something big. If the King County elections office was routinely counting votes for which they had no signatures, they must have been, for years, counting illegal votes. The reporters do not say how long the office had been failing to check signatures, but I think it fair to guess, given the many problems at the office, that they have been violating state law for some time. If so, EVERY CLOSE ELECTION IN KING COUNTY AND WASHINGTON STATE IN RECENT YEARS IS SUSPECT. And maybe for many more years. We won't know how long King County has been violating state law until there is an investigation, preferably one with subpoena power. Elections won narrowly by Democrats are especially suspect, since King County is predominately Democratic.
Suspect elections would include the 2000 Gorton-Cantwell Senate race, the 2002 win for the Seattle monorail, and probably a number of state legislative races. (At the beginning of next year, I'll be looking for legislative races where the failure to check these signatures may have made a difference. If you have any tips for races to look at, let me know.)
We know from an earlier article in the Seattle Times, which I discussed here, that many absentee ballots do have invalid signatures. This year King County disqualified 2828 ballots for that very reason — and I hope you will understand if I say that I suspect that they could have disqualified many more.
So far, the reaction to this revelation of law breaking by election officials has been muted. I did not see a follow up story in the Seattle Times this morning, and neither the Times nor the Seattle PI has an editorial on this remarkable story. I haven't seen anyone call for the officials who were breaking the law to be prosecuted, dismissed, reprimanded, or even given a cold cup of coffee. As far as I know, King County executive Ron Sims has said nothing about this systematic violation of state law by his employees.
I plan to work to change that reaction, so this violation of state law by public employees gets the attention it deserves. I hope those of you who live in this state will join me in that effort. And I think we should consider fairly extreme measures; for example, if the law allows it, we should consider beginning a recall campaign for Ron Sims, if he does not make an effort to investigate and discipline those responsible. I doubt very much that such a recall would succeed, but I think it might get his attention.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
Posted by Jim Miller at December 21, 2004 07:59 AM | Email ThisLet's hold our Government accountable.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 21, 2004 08:35 AMClean up Cook County, and these little counties will clean up their act on their own.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega on December 21, 2004 09:00 AMAnother lie. The processes are laid out in the Revised Code of Washington which was enacted by the Legislature, not the state Constitution. And the "process" of recanvassing ballots that were not canvassed (ie, determined to be valid) prior to certification of the original election results is not legal; there is no provision for recanvassing during the recount.
As I said in my post under "Chernobyl", read the #^$#$^ statutes! I even posted a URL. Your ignorance is frightening.
Posted by: srogers on December 21, 2004 09:33 AMBut there is a limit to how many posts I can do. I concentrate on King County because I believe the problems are much greater here, and this is where I live. I don't know enough details about the Grant County voting to judge, but if matters are as you say, then I think that shows, at the very least, unforgiveable sloppiness.
And now I have to go wash some clothes, do my Christmas cards, et cetera, et cetera, so if you will excuse me for a bit, . .
Posted by: Jim Miller on December 21, 2004 09:49 AMIn case you hadn't noticed, this blog is called 'Sound Politics'.
If you would look at a map, you would notice that Grant County is land-locked in the middle of the state. King County, however, has its western border defined by Puget Sound.
The 'Sound' in 'Sound Politics' refers to 'Puget Sound'. Until Grant County somehow moves several hundred miles west, it will not be near Puget Sound, and therefore its political machinations may or may not be covered in this blog.
Get it? Pipe down and/or get your own blog. And you might try READING the state constitution so you don't end up misrepresenting what it contains.
Posted by: Larry on December 21, 2004 10:19 AMClaiming the "moral high ground" (your words) is a little game for college students and self-styled "journalists." You're so silly.
The Republicans have understood for more than 25 years now that Democrats do not belong to a political party. Democrats are members of a criminal enterprise. That's all the Democrat Party is--a Brikenstock-wearing, latte-sipping, law-breaking gang of radical, selfish pigs and thugs.
Now that the Democrats get caught, you don't like it. Boo freaking hoo.
Posted by: FedUpWithThis on December 21, 2004 10:21 AM
I believe Seattle has their own elections department for their own races. The Monorail was a Seattle only initiative, and wouldn't fall under the scope of the King County Elections...
Posted by: DustinJames on December 21, 2004 10:30 AMNow you want an investigation into all close elections in the past, on the theory that King County mismanagement produced an illegimate result.
If the result of such an inquiry is that Slade Gorton should have been in the Senate in 2000, what are you going to do? Cry in your beer? Recall Cantwell? Recant her votes in the Senate?
What is with the Republicans and their runoff talk? Is there something in state law that permits a runoff election, without some special action of the legislature? Would a runoff election approved by the legislature even be valid?
On the one hand, you seem to suggest that the law must be followed in all particulars - but when things don't go your way, you start talking about runoffs, and revisiting the results of every election past - and you have the gall to keep suggesting that Democrats are litigious!
Can you guys visit earth for a minute? The Supreme Court indicated that the recount statute requires ONLY a retabulation. That would seem to exclude these ballots. However, Reed, and everyone else in the elections business indicates that standard practice would be to include the ballots. Other counties, in this very recount, found ballots just as King County did, and included them. If the Supreme Court's decision is applied, then we need to revisit every close election, regardless of any unique misfeasance in King County, by your logic.
The elections system in the country is a haphazard patchwork of local practices. Washington seems far more together than Florida did four years ago. The minor issues that have come up in this recount are entirely to be anticipated.
When it appears that standard practice throughout the system varies from the recent Supreme Court decision, what should the court do? It is a difficult question, one that the Supreme Court is able to tackle, but whatever the answer, no one will be entirely happy.
I'm happy to live under the rule of law. If the Democrats lose the recount, under the standards the Supreme Court adopts, fine. If we need to tweak the system, fine - we should all be thankful that weaknesses have been exposed. I won't ask that prior elections be investigated. I won't say Dino is satan.
I can't for the life of me see why Republicans can't take the same attitude. Get a life. Everybody's doing their jobs - show some respect for the process.
Posted by: Christine G on December 21, 2004 10:31 AMChristine, everyone in the state has the right to know how long these shenanigans have been going on, whereever or whenever it happened. Period. We pay their salaries, we have the right to investigate.
But per your statement above, can you answer one question for me?
The King County Elections Commission collects all ballots cast in an election - poll votes, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots. Then KCEC validates some percentage, which are counted, and invalidates some other percentage, with are rejected.
Then KCEC tallies all votes that are valid and all votes that are rejected.
Here's my question: Why doesn't KCEC use proper inventory control and 'balance their books' by going back and making sure that the valid ballots plus the rejected ballots equal the number of ballots that they collected?
Corollary questions, if you feel up to it: Wouldn't this lack of inventory control result in the persons in control being fired in a private corporation? How can anyone be sure when ballots arrived or from where they arrived if standard inventory control practices are not followed? How can you claim that Ron Sims and Dean Logan and all the rest of KCEC are 'doing their jobs' when they don't account for all ballots cast?
I eagerly anticipate your reply.
Posted by: Larry on December 21, 2004 11:05 AMNo... I want an investigation into past elections to see if King County did indeed commit vote fraud. A list of names would be nice. Some firings would be nice. Jail doesn't seem out of the question.
I do _not_ care if the chicanery changed the result of the vote - it's chicanery. This is based not on a 'theory' that there was mismanagement - it's based off direct quotes.
And yes, other counties caught cooking the books also need investigating. (Although most of the 'new ballots' are enhanced ballots that the law-following counties didn't do on the _first_ recount.)
Posted by: Al on December 21, 2004 11:23 AMInitiative 120, was trailing as of Nov. 7, 1991 with 99% of the precincts reporting, 655,902 to 649,894. I'd like to see now, just exactly which county put it over the top?
Posted by: Julie on December 21, 2004 12:21 PMWhat the heck are you writing about????
Apparently I didn't make myself clear. Not only does KCEC not do inventory audits and balance their books - THEY DON'T EVEN TRY!!!
They don't count....period. They don't count incoming ballots....period. They have no idea!
Certainly if they counted 900,000 ballots there would be some (hopefully small, possibly acceptable) difference.
But can you at least admit that THEY SHOULD COUNT INCOMING BALLOTS? DID YOU KNOW THAT THEY DO NOT?
I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear enough for you. I did NOT 'postulate a standard that is impossible to achieve'. I did suggest that Ron Sims, Dean Logan, and all the rest should be fired for not trying - not doing any inventory audit, not counting incoming ballots, not attempting any reconciliation, making any baseline measurements and standards moot.
Get it now, Steve-O-Reno????
Posted by: Larry on December 21, 2004 12:46 PMI can't even get my BANK to check signatures on checks all the time. Most of them don't. Quite often they misplace and lose signature cards. And that's dealing with our $$$. Isn't it illegal to cash a check without a signature?
And an absentee ballot could be thrown out for signature "problems" as simple as a recently-married woman forgetting to sign her maiden name or the elections worker deciding that the signatures don't appear to match up.
I'm not arguing that we should disregard the rules, or even that we should be counting all of those ballots. I just don't understand this tendency of you, Stefan, and others on this blog to write about the illegality of these votes as if some sort of fraud has occurred, when there's absolutely no evidence as to WHY these votes are rejected except that someone has determined a problem with verifying the signatures.
It might be as simple as the old too-true joke about the man going in to the bank to cash a check after retirement and not being allowed because his signature doesn't match their records, and discovering that the bank has gotten used to his wife's forged signature of his name because she'd been cashing his checks all those years...
Posted by: Michael on December 21, 2004 12:53 PMI just don't understand this tendency of you, Stefan, and others on this blog to write about the illegality of these votes as if some sort of fraud has occurred, when there's absolutely no evidence as to WHY these votes are rejected except that someone has determined a problem with verifying the signatures.
There is a difference between illegal and fraudulent. Illegal means that the vote does not meet legal standards. Fraud means that it's deliberate. It's not necessary to prove fraud to say that a ballot cannot be legally counted.
Posted by: South County on December 21, 2004 01:43 PMAs South County said, most of us are not arguing that the 735 ballots in dispute were fraudulently cast. Perhaps none of them were. That isn't the point.
The point is that according to the election law, the ballots cannot now be counted, and the democrats and KC are acting unethically at best, and maliciously at worst (and hiding it with populist propaganda about counting every vote) by insisting that they can disregard or reinterpret the law and count them anyway.
The election law requires that the pool of valid ballots be determined (by the canvassing board, and by recanvassing if errors are detected) prior to the certification of the election returns. After that, the ballots are sealed.
The rationale for the law is to prevent the fraudulent addition of ballots. Nobody said there actually was fraud on the part of the voters who cast the 735 votes (although there might have been) - but you have to follow the rules in order to achieve a process where there is confidence that no fraud occurred.
To repeat - the law requires canvassing and recanvassing of ballots to occur prior to certifying the election results. The separate section of code which governs recounts does not include recanvassing of ballots.
The dems are arguing that the recanvassing paragraph in the part of the code that sets out the rules for the initial tabulation of votes also applies to the recount. I urge you to try reading the code with this interpretation - many provisions would then make no sense, for example the provision in the recount section that directs the elections office to open the sealed box containing the ballots that have been already been canvassed, and count them. The VOTES on these ballots for the contested race can be reconvassed (ie, the canvassing board can try to determine voter intent if the hand counters disagree), but there can be no recanvassing of ballots.
The dems argument is false and misleading, and it requires the court to ignore the clear intent of the rules in favor of not disenfranchising voters who did nothing wrong.
I think its a real shame that some of the voters who cast the 735 ballots will (I hope) be disenfranchised, but I think it is better to protect the process so that we have confidence in it, than to destroy it for the sake of these voters. They should blame KC for failing to properly canvass their votes, so they legally could have been included in the recount, and not blame not the republican party for doing everything possible to make sure that the election law is not violated.
Lets see what the supreme court says.
Posted by: srogers on December 21, 2004 02:44 PM1. As noted, an inventory after the fact is no more or less accurate than the original count. There is going to be a discrepancy. We are going to get different numbers every time, whether this occurs in private industry or in public service.
2. It isn't necessary 99% of the time. Generally speaking, one candidate or the other opens up a lead of at least a couple of percentage points. An inventory after the fact would likely differ from the original count, but not so much as to change the result.
You guys are surprised, after you hand that ballot to the blue haired woman who took twenty minutes to find you name on the rolls, and asked you to sign on line (squinting very hard) 21 - or 22 - no, it's 21...that there are errors creeping into the system?
Get a life, guys. People ARE doing their jobs. The process will take its course, and it has been relatively orderly.
Posted by: Christine G on December 21, 2004 03:49 PMNo wonder you righties are referred to as "wackos" so often.
Posted by: Christine G on December 21, 2004 03:51 PMThe ultimate solution in King County may be to have an elected auditor, like the other 38 counties, who is responsible to the people and not political bosses like Sims and Larry Phillips.
Posted by: Cindy on December 21, 2004 05:15 PMNot once have I ever 'bought' that tripe.
I always suspected that corruption lurked in the bowels of King county. If the elections departments would ever REALLY do their jobs scrubbing the voter roles, they would find non-citizens registered (disagree? Okay, then put up $20 on that and we both know we'll find some non-citizens casting ballots and I'll fatten my wallet on the deal). They would finally stop sending some people two ballots. They would stop allowing people to vote other people's absentee ballots (yes, that happens) without the real ballot's owner ever getting their hands on it. They would ACTUALLY GET military ballots to our finest on time instead of 'tsk tsking' the fact that they somehow often seem not to accomplish that little feat. They would discover that some on the voter rolls are registered more than once.
They would actually prosecute voter fraud (right now, they don't. Bill Huennekens so much as told me so--the fraud-committer just gets a 'stern letter. Big deal!) They would stop leting non-registered people vote (yes, state law allows it, according to our dear Bill H, and presumably the election workers find it and discard it. Or not -- wink wink.)
Not pretty, folks.
Posted by: Michele on December 22, 2004 12:28 AMSims is the latest exhibit of why Democrats should never be allowed to run anything -- they always make things worse.
Posted by: MES on December 22, 2004 08:07 PM