December 23, 2004
Count every vote (they feel like counting)
Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane speaking on the John Carlson Show moments ago (I paraphrase):
The King Ukraine County canvassing board voted not to count a batch of 96 ballots whose voters complained were improperly rejected by election workers. The canvassing board's reason was that it was "too late". But they also voted that it wasn't too late to recanvass the 723 magical mystery ballots that were rejected earlier, nor did they deem it too late to count 2 of the magical mystery ballots that were found in the bottom of a ballot box samovar. These 96 are not the military ballots, there is a separate and ongoing effort to get those counted.
Lane also alerted us that Gregoire is giving a press conference at 6:30pm in Olympia, presumably to declare "victory". There will be Republican rally outside the state capitol at 5:30pm to protest the Democrats' selective interpretation of "count every vote" and Gregoire's premature declaration.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 23, 2004
03:31 PM | Email This
1. More arrows in the quiver of GOP lawyers...
2. This thread is less crowded, so I will post the idea here. Shark should take the list of King County voters he has (which is a computer file) and sort out the names by zip code of their mailing addresses. This will easily identify the military absentee voters -- at least those who are ongoing absentee voters. Military bases have distinct zip codes. Also, most out-of-state US addresses that are not military bases will also be military people, since other folks living out of state in the US should be registered where they live, and not here. APO and FPO zip codes are used for people on ships and stationed abroad. These people can thus be identified and contacted to see if they got their ballots on time and if they were counted. Special absentee ballot requests (one-time only) are also often made by military people, and these should be public record also (a separate record from the registration data file). This process can also be done for other counties, such as Pierce, Snohomish, Thurston, Island, Kitsap, and Spokane, which have a lot of military voters.
3. Oh the joy of having Republicans turned into "raving left wing lunatics".
Hey, didja hear? Gregoire has a mandate now and all you right wing complainers have to shutup! Send obstructionists to Gitmo.
USA! USA!
4. Stefan, what was not clear during your time with Travis this afternoon was the circumstances surrounding these votes. Once Travis realized that these votes were not the military ballots, the wheels just seemed to come off. May I ask you the pertinent questions that he did not? To wit:
1. I saw on TV, Mary Lane delivering something to Dean Logan. Were those affadavits or the actual ballots?
2. What were the circumstances surrounding these ballots? Were they absentees that were postmarked late? Were they absentees that did not arrive prior to Nov. 17th? In other words, what does "too late" mean?
3. Do we have any idea of the security of the ballots? Has King Co. had them the whole time?
With the information (or lack thereof) that I now have, I can come to no conclusion as to whether an injustice has been committed.
Thanks
5. I'll put it here, too. And to think that lost in all this is the fact that Attorney General Gregoire's office in '96 told then-sec. of state Ralph Munro that, NO, YOU MAY NOT ADD NEW VOTES INTO A RECOUNT.
Breathtaking.
6. One must shrug their shoulders at the "election progress" in Washington state!!!! Let the people's voices (Democrats) be heard even if means going against the rule of law. Boy, I am sure glad that the canvassing board in King County took that mind-reading course in order to interpet the voter's will!!! I hope "Recount Gregoire" enjoys her "victory".
7. We need to get the initiative process going. We should call for an initiative that restricts all of the counties from making public the results of their counting until all counties have submitted their results to the secretary of state and certified them. Then all of the results can be released. If a recount is called for the same rules should apply during the recount.
That way nobody will have the statistical data needed to miraculously "find" the extra ballots needed to sway the election one way or another. While what happened in King County "might" have been legitimate, this would prevent the appearance of fraud and corruption even if it didn't prevent the actuality.
I would have had much more confidence in the original count if rules like this had been in place. Then we wouldn't hear about a large, heavily partisan county "finding" 10,000 votes when their favored candidate was behind by 3,000 votes in the initial count. Then we wouldn't hear about several hundred more votes being found when their candidate was behind by 262 votes, or 795 votes being discovered when their candidate was behind by 106 votes.
Everything else should stay in place. But there should be mandatory jail time for anyone who discloses the results of any county's results in a statewide election until all counties have been certified.
Maybe then we could trust the process in King County. We certainly haven't been able to trust it for the last 10 years, despite all of the so-called reform.
8. Here's a better law: King County may never, ever again, report last, because they have proved that they can't be trusted.
9. I need to inform you that the name of the county is KING. Childish behavior is not getting you anywhere.
Get over it. and move on.
10. So many mommies, so few children...has no one explained that unsolicited advice is worth what it cost?
11. Hey Magnum,
The rest of America understands that you do not like light shining on the "Kuchma Ukraine style" fraud machine in King County. Tough! You have earned America's contempt. O-o-o-p-s! I forgot, this is just standard DemocRat procedure.
12. This comment about a Russian Orthodox priest on a Ukranian blog is a perfect description of the (non-bearded, but Godless) Washington state Demoncratic pogrom leader, Paul Berendt. Berendt believes in Dean Logan, Ron Sims and the Gre-gore clone.
Another clergyman, Father Adam, says prayers should be said for both men. "The church prays for Yanukovich so you have to pray for God to bless him. He is a believer. For Yushchenko, you pray to bring him back into the circle of believers."
Can you imagine? This bearded hypocrite actually imagines that he can push Yushchenko outside the circle of the Saved simply because he doesn't like his politics? And Yanukovych is a believer? A believer in what, pray tell -- graft, robbery, poisoning, fraud, false arrest, lying and abuse of power?
13. Leaddog2,
Thanks for your comments.
So... if the Ukraine is getting a re-vote, then I believe we should have a re-vote for President of the United States.
14. I knew from the start when new or missing votes kept reappearing during the Machine recount. The trend continued in the Manual recount. King County is very suspiciously find Hundred plus extra votes when 75% of the votes had been Manually counted and Rossi had a net gain of 15 votes. Lets change the rules and get a bigger pot to choose from. WHy is it that King county is the only county I know of that enhanced the ballots. SHould not the ballots have been left untouched? The use of whiteout on ballots damages ballots. How many Rossi votes where removed because of it? We can never know the real answer for this election because of the enhancements made by election department officials.
THe questions need to be asked are the following:
1. WHo gave the permission to use white out on the ballots? Is this considered tampering with the election if so Should they face criminal action.
2. Have felons been voting in King county or any county for that manner? If so should not the person certifying his ability to vote (Which is against the Law) be held on Vote Fraud charges.
3. VOter verification must be uniformily be used. The same rules must apply to all voters. Cant have one set of rules for East side King County and another set of rules for Seattle voters. If different criteria is used should those people using these different sets of rules face voter fraud charges.
4. Next election scrap all absentee ballots and require identification during the next 4 election cycles. Or if you want to vote absentee must go to local Voting registration site and provide identification and several sample signatures to use for verification of signatures.
5. Voter Rolls should be purged and verification of all voters must take place. A statewide verification of nobody voting in two counties or even two separate election districts. The question about a person voting who did not live in king county yet voted in king county and has not voted in a number of years tells me that something is not right. Either someone is voting for a person (Voter fraud multiple votes from the same person using other peoples identies).
6. No deadline on Military personal votes. If a recount is taking place and the ballot shows up on the last day of a manual recount (Not likely the Post office would not be that slow) their vote must be counted. In the same way those who are in the military must have there ballots prior to the election. Ballots arriving after the election was performed should have stiff penalties put on the offending county. King county ballots not arriving to non military means that many of the military will not get the ballots on time. It can take up to a month for a letter to get any military person. Sending out absentee ballots must be sent out as early as possible. Even if who is on the ballot is being contested the military absentee ballots must be sent out at least 6 weeks prior to the election.
WHat other improvements can you think of.
15. Best idea EVER, split King County into thirds. That would surely lessen Sims power.
Tim Eyman get busy.