Sound Politics: Sexless Voters?

December 26, 2004

Sexless Voters?

State law requires that every county maintain certain information on every voter:

The computer file must include, but not be limited to, each voter's last name, first name, middle initial, date of birth, residence address, gender, date of registration, applicable taxing district and precinct codes, and the last date on which the individual voted.

Of the 1.2+ million entries in the county's Nov 1 voter database, I find 657,126 females, 606,284 males and 2,584 who have no gender.

A plausible argument can be made that a disproportionate number of these sexless voters, assuming they are even real people, would have voted for Gregoire. Why? Because of the all important issue of "no sex" marriage. Dino Rossi didn't make marriage an issue in this campaign, but as a state senator he voted to uphold traditional marriage. Ruth Bennett, on the other hand, campaigned on a platform of same sex marriage, but never took a stand on no sex marriage. Many of the unsexed would presumably be offended by Bennett's snub, leaving Gregoire as their most likely candidate.

But all kidding aside, if King County can't fulfill its statutory duty to figure out whether 2,584 of its voters are boys or girls, why should we trust the county to figure out whether these people are United States citizens and otherwise eligible to vote, let alone tabulate how the eligible among them did vote?

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 26, 2004 04:58 PM | Email This

Comments

1. //Ruth Bennett, on the other hand, campaigned on a platform of same sex marriage, but never took a stand on no sex marriage. Many of the unsexed would presumably be offended by Bennett's snub, leaving Gregoire as their most likely candidate.//
Just thinking about Gregoire puts me in a "no sex" frame of mind. And that doesn't include any thoughts about her being a governor for four years...

Posted by: balanced but fair on December 26, 2004 06:08 PM

2. Yes Gregoire the Viagra antidote.

Posted by: Sabrina on December 26, 2004 06:10 PM

3. My guess is that 2,584 gender-neutral votes were cast by Gary Locke.

Posted by: FedUpWithThis on December 26, 2004 06:23 PM

4. It just goes to show how incompetent the record keeping systems in King County Elections are. If they can lose the gender of 2,584 registered voters, and even have 258 voters voting in future elections (probably less, since some have vote in more than one future election, and at least one has voted twice in the same future election), they must make lots of other mistakes as well.

Hopefully, the GOP will insist on King County Elections producing the lists of everyone who voted in the November 2004 general election. If these are compared with the precinct-by-precinct totals of ballots counted, I am willing to bet there are at least 131 total discrepanices -- more ballots counted than people voting, or vice versa.

If that is the case, the Governor's election will have to be nullified.

Posted by: Richard Pope on December 26, 2004 06:39 PM

5. I notice Race was not in the code. Here in TN the election commissions keep track of Race and Sex, but leaving the line blank does not disquafy the voter from registering. In TN the form only has Black, White and Other. If you leave it blank they classify you as a "other". Over 10% of new registrants are "Other". Even in all black precincts the others are creeping up to 10%.

One question. If left blank, in Washington, does not declaring a sex disqualify you from voting?

I rather this these blank spaces are just a sign of the general slopiness of society. Some people do not dot "i"'s and cross "T"'s anymore.
Look at Washington. Folks can mail absentee up to closing of the polls on election day. Thats lazy and rude. Common sense says you should have a cutoff several days before any day. Plus if you do not follow all the rolls, and are a democrat, the King county democratic party will race all over the county to get to sign your absentee ballot up to ten days after the election. Election day is the day of voting. Right?

Posted by: Ralph on December 26, 2004 06:43 PM

6. Ralph is right. In this 2004 election, an elderly relative of a friend of mine forgot to sign his absentee ballot and TWICE democrats called, trying to get him to sign it. When a democrat family member intercepted the 2nd call and told them said relative was a republican, magically they stopped calling. These Ds are agressive and predatory.

Posted by: Michele on December 26, 2004 07:17 PM

7. I grew up in New Orleans, and first registered to vote there. I was active in politics back then, and found it interesting that they kept track of both race and gender (in addition to party affiliation). I found it interesting that a number of precincts in my neighborhood were listed as only white voters, when I personally knew people who were Asian or Native American that lived in them. I also found it interesting that every single voter in New Orleans was included in either the "white" or "black" category, and there were no other categories at all.

So I went down to the Registrar of Voters office, and asked them that question. I ended up speaking to the Registrar himself, an older gentleman who had been dean of one of the local law schools, before being appointed Registrar. Anyway, he told me that they only classified voters as "white" or "black", and if someone was anything other than "black", then they were classified as "white".

Apparently, Louisiana has become a little bit more progressive in the last quarter century. In addition to the prior categories of "white" and "black", you can now register as "other".

I think being required to declare your race, and then having it a matter of public record is extremely offensive and demeaning, regardless of what official choices you are given to choose from.

Posted by: Richard Pope on December 26, 2004 07:56 PM

8. I think the King County, and all other Wa counties, voter registration rolls have many mistakes.

The quality of all these rolls should improve, no doubt about that. If this election causes renewed interest in going through rolls with a fine-toothed comb to reduce the error rate, that is a good outcome.

Is there any evidence that King County has more the the nationwide average of mistakes in the rolls? Assuming not, I don't see how existence of mistakes would be a reason to throw out the election. Unless we want to throw out all elections that are "close", where close is defined as within the margin of error of voting machines & procedures, mistakes in the voter rolls, etc.

Posted by: Peter Carlin on December 26, 2004 09:03 PM

9. I've been wishing they'd clean up those voter rolls for years.

And why is it that my mutual fund company can serve me well with thousands of intricate and exactingly done transactions of various kinds (mine and theirs plus all the various 'housekeeping chores' involved with being a company like that--complying with the laws etc) over 20 years with just 3 mistakes in all that time, which were very easily corrected? Isn't an election at least as sacred? Why isn't there a requirement the registration bases and voting be as exacting and precise as that? In fact, it is very much the opposite.

Posted by: Michele on December 26, 2004 11:12 PM

10. Or credit card companies? Could it be that they, along with the mutual fund groups, BENEFIT by having clean records while there are those who would benefit FROM record chaos (read: voter chaos)... oh, maybe like LIBERAL stronghold King County?

Posted by: Cheryl on December 27, 2004 12:04 AM