Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer makes the astonishing discovery that
according to filings with the high court, at least five other counties added ballots to recounts that weren't included in their original gubernatorial talliesI'm shocked! shocked! Oh, wait, no I'm not. All it takes is a quick peek at the Secretary of State's recount status pages here, here and here.
In the first count, a total of 2,883,499 ballots were counted. In the machine recount a total of 2,883,341 ballots were counted. If you carry King County's machine recount numbers forward into the manual recount, you get 2,884,158 in the latest count. Counties add and subtract ballots from their totals as they "correct" mistakes and presumably make a few new ones. The difference between the ballots counted in the manual recount and in the first recount is 659. More than half of these are attributable to the unexplained 336 magical mystery ballots that appeared in King County that I discussed back in November, and which, as far as I can tell, have never been mentioned in any newspaper.
GOP chairman Chris Vance argues that only two of these added ballots were due to reconsideraton of previously rejected ballots and therefore the vast majority of the additions are not in the same class as the latest batch of King Ukraine County magical mystery ballots. Secretary of State Sam Reed appears to reject that legal argument and believes that
if the court now rules that King County can't correct errors during a recount, other counties will have to comb through results in both the completed machine recount and the hand recount to pick out any votes that they had added when correcting errorsI don't have a problem with excluding King County's 336 magical machine recount ballots or the 323 others that somehow materialized elsewhere in the state. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 21, 2004 11:59 AM | Email This
I admit that I am biased. However, that is due to personal involvement in sending 22 Demoncrats to prison for election fraud from prior elections.
I can also look at the past century in state after state after state. The King County manipulations are VERY COMMON in Demoncratic controlled areas. How sad!
Posted by: leaddog2 on December 21, 2004 12:51 PMI want an honest count. Two counts. Three counts. Conservatives as a general rule do not want to win elections through questionable (if not outright illegal) means, unlike some on the other side of the aisle who by and large seem to believe that the ends justify the means.
These ballots are highly questionable at best and should not be counted. Period. And ditto the magical mystery ballots from Rossi counties.
Posted by: Scott on December 21, 2004 12:56 PMShark, talk to Vance. I think you guys can contest the election if it doesn't come out your way..
I'm all for it if it means that elections are cleaner as a result.
As Jeremy noted in other comments there's no way to recall some of the other 323. They were mixed in.
Posted by: John on December 21, 2004 01:10 PMhttp://www.soundpolitics.com/archives/003145.html#003145
For example, 147 new polling place ballots appeared in certain precincts and 114 old polling place ballots disappeared in other precincts, for a net gain of 33 polling place ballots.
Also, at least 813 new absentee ballots appeared in certain precincts and at least 615 old absentee ballots disappeared in other precincts, for a net gain of 198 absentee ballots. (The Shark said that 698 old absentee ballots had disappeared, but the math on that would not be right. So I used 813-198 to get 615.)
The Shark also said there was a net gain of 105 provisional ballots in the machine recount, although the Shark did not say whether old provisional ballots had disappeared, or whether the 105 gain was due solely to new provisional ballots appearing.
So we had at least 1065 new ballots appear in the King County machine recount, and at least 729 old ballots disappear in the same recount. If I could write computer programs, I am sure I would have the right figures. Hopefully, the Shark can provide more details.
In any event, either the 1065+ magically appearing ballots or the 729+ magically disappearing ballots contain far more votes than the current margin in the Governor' s race. Moreover, unlike the 723 allegedly "no signature on file" ballots, King County has provided absolutely no explanation as to why 1065 or more old ballots disappeared or why 729 or more new ballots appeared.
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 21, 2004 01:43 PMMaybe we should deport you to Ukraine. The outcome of that election is far from over.
Posted by: Jenny on December 21, 2004 10:02 PM