It's not only King County that has a problem adding voters and adding ballots and coming up with the same numbers. Snohomish County wins 2nd Prize in today's Horse's Math vote counting contest.
Snohomish County's official "certified" manual recount report was:
352,238 registered voters
and
297,187 ballots cast
of which there were:
96,231 Poll Ballots Cast
200,956 Absentee Ballots Cast.
The file they gave me today contains:
360,187 voters, for whom the status codes and frequencies for their Nov. 2 votes are as follows:
| (null) | 3,649 |
| A | 105 |
| A(NP) | 193,237 |
| N | 39,524 |
| N(NP) | 21,330 |
| V | 99,760 |
| V(NP) | 2,582 |
Similarly, just looking at one precinct that came up at the top of the list, we have Precinct #101209, "Arlington 9", with the following numbers of registered voters
| (null) | 14 |
| A | 0 |
| A(NP) | 338 |
| N | 134 |
| N(NP) | 62 |
| V | 209 |
| V(NP) | 3 |
| Total | 760 |
I gather that one of the problems here might be that they gave me a voter file that includes changes made to the database since the election, reflecting attrition, new voters and internal migration between precincts. That would be unfortunate, as I anticipated this problem and specifically asked that the data contain voters' precinct assignments as of the day of the election.
---
I also sorted the Snohomish voters by date of registration. Among the weirder things are:
10 people registered on January 1, 1900 (beating King County's record of 2 people registered in 1904!)
16 people registered in the two day period of July 13-14, 1919
and
5 other people registered on various dates prior to 1910.
Sorry, Gunnie Foerster, you might not the oldest person in Washington State after all.
Then there are the troubling registration dates on the other end of the calendar. Of the people who voted, the database shows that 44 were registered on election day, 1 on Nov. 22 and 1 on Dec. 7. Perhaps that's why they kept finding new ballots. They must have kept accepting ballots from new voters right through both recounts!
Once again we're reminded of Dino Rossi's timeless words that this election is a "total mess".
I've asked the Snoho Auditor's Office for clarification, but the entire election staff is apparently on vacation until Monday. [How can you tell? -- Ed.] I'll keep you posted.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 30, 2004
12:11 AM | Email This
There is no worry. Paul Berendt will come to your rescue and weep before the judge to make sure you don't go jail for tampering with the election.
If you see a poll voter registered after Sun 10/03/2004, that would raise another red flag, since after that date, you can still register in person at the auditor's office, but can only vote by absentee.
Similar queries should be run on the King County actual voter database.
Ultimately, you would need to get the original source documents (polling place books and lists, absentee and provisional envelopes), but copying for those would literally cost a fortune.
There does need to be some explanation for these codes.
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 30, 2004 12:34 AMBTW 770 is also an excellent resource for a.m. (6-9)updates... if you like to surf.
Posted by: Carl on December 30, 2004 08:35 AMA question to all; The basis of a overturning this result rests squarely on the Republicans proving fraud or malfesance (ie proving intent to manipulate the result). Can anyone say that there is substantive proof at this time ? and if not, will there be proof in by January 12th ?
The bar is raised to a high level here. By my reading - 3539 more votes than voters in King County does not rise to the level of malfesance because this could not be proven as intent to manipulate the result, but it is likely the result of other malfesances - if they can be shown. The military vote issue may rise to that level to convince a court, if there are more than 129 documented instances throughout the state. Bottom line: This is what a court will be looking for and nothing short of it.
Face it; A revote will be a hard sell to a Democrat controlled legislature, unless the Republicans are willing to put up the $4.3 M cost for the revote, then perhaps that might fly.
Posted by: KS on December 30, 2004 11:20 AMDec. 30, 2004 - Preliminary list of registered voters not finalized
Yesterday, in response to several public records requests, King County Elections produced a preliminary list of registered voters who participated in the Nov. 2, 2004 General Election. The data file has been provided to several parties and individuals who had requested it.
The Elections Office notified those receiving the list that it has not been completely reconciled with data from the 2004 General Election. Data regarding voters who cast federal write-in ballots and participants in the state’s Address Confidentiality Program have not been reconciled and are included in the list. Likewise, reconciliation of poll books and absentee ballot data must be carefully compared to ensure all voters participating in the election are credited with voting.
“We want to emphasize the same disclaimer provided to those who received the data yesterday -- this list is preliminary,” said Dean Logan, director of Records, Elections and Licensing Services. “Receiving the data this week was vital to groups and organizations planning ballot measures in the upcoming February 8 Special Election and we’re obligated to be responsive to their needs. We have been clear that further reconciliation is taking place.”
Historically, staff reconciles this list after the election is certified in November; however, due to the machine and manual recounts, full reconciliation was delayed. This work is continuing and officials expect to have an updated list available by the end of next week.
Ballots cast in the November 2 election have been secured in sealed containers since certification of the election on November 17. The ballot containers were unsealed during both the mandatory machine recount and the requested manual recount of the Governor’s race. In all cases, the ballots were unsealed and then resealed in the presence of political party observers.
Posted by: Regret on December 30, 2004 01:30 PMI have no idea why there would be such a large discrepancy between total number in the database vs. total number of "registered voters" in the certified manual recount.
On the other hand, could the lower certified numbers for Polling Place ballots and Absentee ballots simply reflect ballots not mailed in, ballots not received by the deadline, and/or ballots rejected for various reasons?
Posted by: Michael on December 30, 2004 02:17 PM