The AP's Rebecca Cook reports on Chris Vance' press conference earlier today
Hundreds of provisional ballots may have been counted on Election Day without being verified, state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said today.Yes it is, and fortunately for us the Washington Democrats have one of the ditiziest spokeswomen in the business:
...
Vance said the admission by King County election workers that provisional ballots had been counted without verification is "absolute proof" of the need for a revote."It's enough right there to invalidate the election," Vance said. "This is a bombshell."
Democrats downplayed the importance of the revelation, noting that King County verified 94 percent of provisional ballots.King County reported 28,538 provisional ballots. If the unverified ballots were exactly 6% of the total they would number 1,712 (My data analysis shows a net 1,782 provisionals unaccounted for). Kristin: that is thousands and it does make a difference."There would have to be thousands before it would make a difference," said state Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirstin Brost. "This is just the attack of the day from the Republicans."
King County Elections director Dean Logan responds to criticism of the discrepancies, preparing the public for the fact that the "final numbers" to be released on Friday ain't going to add up. Read his surreal "Baghdad Bob"-style evasions and happy talk and you can imagine that he would qualify for a cabinet-level position in the Gregoire Administration (should there be one, God forbid).
In the extended entry I post e-mails from two individuals who tell harrowing tales of unverified provisional ballots: Joe O'Donnell, an election worker who spoke at Vance's press conference is quoted in Thursday's P-I article; and Ned Moser, who was a Republican poll watcher.
From Joe O'Donnell
My name is Joe O'Donnell over the past 2 years I have worked at King County elections as a temporary employee for 3 different election cycles. The most recent was the Primary and General election of 2004.
On each cycle that I worked I started as a poll worker recruiter. But after each election I would join the canvass crew to assist in balancing the signatures in the pollbooks to voted ballots at the polls.
I am here today to speak about my experience as a canvass crew member and what I saw while trying to balance the pollbooks. Specifically provisional ballots and protocol followed at the pollsites.
When we began the process of balancing the pollbooks I and other members of the canvass crew started to notice something troubling. We found that the protocol for provisional ballots at many of the pollsites across King County were not followed correctly.
Many of the provisional envelopes that we received back had the words "Ballot went through Acuvote" written on them. Many included the voters personal information to verify the voters eligibility however several that I saw were incomplete. At this point regardless of verifiable information that person's ballot had run the acuvote and had been counted.
In several cases when the pollbooks didn't balance we were instructed to call the inspector of that polling place to help get a better idea of what occurred. In most cases they had more ballots counted then signatures in the pollbooks. The common response by the inspectors was "those ballots went through the acuvote by accident" In most cases it is an innocent mistake but in a close election it makes all the difference. Before having a chance to verify these ballots they were counted and are now untraceable.
The most alarming thing I found and several other co-workers experienced was that when calls were made to the inspectors many admitted that they tore up and/or through out provisional ballot envelopes when the person voting it did not return with the ballot to put it in the envelope. In almost all the cases the ballot appeared to have been voted. This means that we had no way of determining eligibility of the voter connected to that ballot and envelope. We will never know their name, if they were eligible, or if they had already voted, because in many cases proper protocol at the polls wasn't followed.
Several hundred of these ballots cast may or may not be valid ballots. Many of these ballots will never be able to be linked to a voter or a signature in the back of a poll book. This also circumvents the system check for multiple voting.
I believe from my experience alone the number of provisional ballots that ran through the acuvote on the day of election before any kind of verification is greater than the margin of victory in either of these recounts. And due to the volume and nature of these voted-at-the-poll-provisional-ballots the gap between voters and ballots cast will never be able to be bridged.
--
From Ned Moser
I was a Republican poll watcher at Dino’s polling place (the Timberlake Christian Fellowship church in Sammamish) on November 2nd.
There were 103 provisional ballots issued by the precinct judges for the nine precincts at that polling place on that day. An entry was created for each provisional voter on special provisional ballot pages in the Registered Voters
and Signature Books maintained by each precinct judge. Each provisional voter was required to produce identification and sign their entry.
Unfortunately, 12 of the 103 provisional ballots issued were counted as regular votes. There were only 91 provisional ballot envelopes in the side receptacle of the AccuVote machine base when it was opened after the polling place closed.
The difference of 12 was confirmed exactly when the tallies from the AccuVote scanner printout were reconciled with the precinct judges’ Registered Voters and Signature Book records that night before the ballots were sent to the depot. Everything else reconciled exactly, and we verified that ALL compartments in the AccuVote machine base were EMPTY (part of the standard, published polling place closing procedure).
The problem arose from the fact that there is nothing to distinguish a provisional ballot form from a regular ballot form. Voters casting a provisional ballot are given the same form as that given to voters casting regular ballots. From talking with folks in Pierce County (which also uses the AccuVote scanner method), the same situation existed there, and from a conversation with Diana Soules, the Elections Manager in Yakima County, which now has electronic voting but previously used punch cards, the same problem had existed there with respect to punch cards. At least in Yakima county, the provisional voters are now separated by the fact that they are issued manual ballots instead of being given access to the voting machines.
I understand from a person who recently worked in the Kitsap County elections office that they issue separate provisional ballot forms that, like sample ballots, have all of the provisions for all of the voting districts in the county on them and cannot be processed by the scanning machines. The voter’s instructions on these ballots have to be duplicated onto regular ballots in the canvassing process. I would not be at all surprised, however, if the problem of using the same ballot form for regular and provisional ballots is nearly universal in counties that use scanned ballots or punch cards.
>From the patterns I see in the numbers you provided from the precincts voting at the Clark Elementary School in Issaquah, this problem led to the same situation there as I observed in Sammamish, and it is logical to conclude that these patterns were repeated wherever the same form was used for provisional and regular ballots.
Anticipating the potential problem in this situation, the inspector in charge of my polling place instructed the precinct judges to fold the provisional ballots in quarters before giving them to the provisional voters. The success of that preventative measure is dependent upon the judges remembering to make the folds in the provisional ballots, and is therefore subject to human error.
There were several occasions when I observed that as many as five or six provisional ballot envelopes were certified within a five to ten minute period. These occasions occurred during peak rush periods when lines of voters built up
in front of the tables at which the judges were seated. I was the only Republican poll watcher (along with one part-time Democrat poll watcher) observing nine precinct positions and 22 voting booths. Given the intensity of
the traffic (1,556 regular and provisional ballots cast and 152 absentee ballots brought in to deposit), it was impossible to monitor each provisional ballot from the time it was issued until it was supposed to be inserted in the special provisional ballot envelope, certified, and deposited in the side slot under the AccuVote scanner.
The folds that the judges were supposed to make in the provisional ballots were the only way the judge monitoring the scanner had of preventing the provisional ballots from being scanned as regular ballots. Provisional voters should receive different, distinctive ballot forms which should be vividly colored, to make them easily identifiable. I made this suggestion in my poll watcher’s report that I sent to Joan Crecca (the GOP Chairman for the 5th Legislative District) a couple of days after the election. She forwarded it on to Maria Seal (GOP Elections Chairman for King County). Maria incorporated it into a report she wrote up, adding that the provisional ballots should also be differentiated in such a way that they would be automatically be rejected by the AccuVote scanners.
This is bad new for Gregoire. If the republicans can prove to a court in an election contest that 1,712 unverified provisional ballots were mixed in with the normal ballots, this might be a significant step in having a court throw out the election results. Perhaps this alone will do it.
In fact, this the only allegation, of proven, would constitute the type of evidence to have the court set aside an election. All of the other errors pointed to by Vance such as out of date voter lists, and felons voting, likely occur in every election to some extent in every state each year.
However, Vance still has to prove that there were 1,712 unverified provisional ballots mixed in. Once the facts and witnesses give their testimony to a court, perhaps the number will be less or more.
The only witness I have heard has stated that he believed 100 to 300 of these ballots were accepted. I think it is a leap to say the unreconciled number = provisional ballots according the county auditors.
The problems with the provisonal ballot theory is that we don't know how they voted and I do not know if a court is going to speculate and estimate that they voted 20 percent to the better for Gregoire because they are from KC. If not, the Rs will lose.
On the other hand, if there are enough of the ballots found, the numbers may be overwhelming enough that court may conclude that the ballots were not secure and set aside an election.
Vance will get his chance to lay out all of his theories soon after Gregoire is certified.
Posted by: Erik on January 6, 2005 12:03 AMSo much for the open and honest answers to questions that these two were supposedly previously serving up.
(Actually, I think they were just spinning - friendly they may have been, but I do not believe for an instant they were being truthful about the whole situation.)
Staffers inside the office say on the QT that the numbers have been off for weeks -- before the FIRST certification the staff widely knew there was a balancing problem. This out-of-balance situation had been agressively brought to the attention of management, including Huennekens.
And the outright lie that Bill Huennekens told this week about the county "historically" not balancing voters to ballots?
Wrong again.
A series of certification reports for all of the countywide elections obtained from the election office show that from 1989 - 2002 the superintendents of elections balanced their numbers to the ballot on certification day, or if they could not balance (and it was always a small number - 17 ballots, 11 ballots, etc.), then analysis was done of the geographical placement of the missing or extra ballots and showing whether the ballots would be outcome-determinate.
The canvass board in the past then certified the election based upon seeing this analysis and being able to clearly see that there was absolutely no mathematical possibility of a change in the election outcome.
But, keep in mind, the canvass board was predominately Republican throughout the 90's, and early in the new millenium until 2002. Chris Vance himself served on the canvass board in 1997, 1998, and 1999, and certified many of these elections in the past -- when the books actually balanced!
Posted by: Annie on January 6, 2005 12:47 AMThe answer is - EVIDNECE PROVEN TO BE TRUE IN A COURT OF LAW - not allegations; not accusations; not public relations. If the Repubs thinks they have evidence that will withstand discovery; investigation, cross examination, then bring an action in court and PROVE IT. Otherwise, shut up. I suspect that the public relations and political blitz the Repubs are waging is because it is easy to throw out accusations, allegations and inflammatory innuendo, but it is another thing to prove it. It is put up or shut up time Repubs - show us what you got in s court of law!
Apologists for this election should not fool themselves into thinking this can be airbrushed away.
Posted by: Bostonian on January 6, 2005 05:59 AMIf it is proven that provisional ballots were purposely slipped into the tabulation stream, it is a VERY GOOD BET that they were all Gregiore ballots. Otherwise what was the purpose? Why take the chance?
Posted by: Baynative on January 6, 2005 06:30 AMI find it funny reading the rhetoric coming out of the Dems in WA state - the same party whose US "Representatives" and Senators are TODAY going to challenge the electoral vote tally in Congress over the vote certification in Ohio (Bush by 118,775 at last count), a largely procedural move that is probably nothing more than a bone to the Michael Moore-types.
Still, it is somewhat illustrative of the Dems selective outrage over voting "irregularities", isn’t it? When legitimate questions are raised in WA regarding thousands of "votes" cast (out of about 3-million) in a race decided by less than 150 votes, their answer is to "Shut up and sit down". Why? Because their side "won", of course. Never mind that the rules were changed (several times) in mid-stream – clearly in violation of the SCOTUS rulung in Bush-v-Gore.
Now, outrageous conspiracy theories are tossed about to question the result in Ohio, where over 110K votes (out of about 5-million) separate the two candidates, and the same leftists feel that we need to tie-up the Congress for the rest of the week - thereby attempting to cloud the legitimacy of the first majority elected President since 1988.
Not that selective outrage is anything new to the Democrat party. Note that they are not interested in re-examining the votes in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - states that were decided for Kerry on a narrower margin (percentage-wise) than Ohio was for Bush - and were MASSIVE voter fraud (10's of thousands more "votes" than voters in Philly alone, for example) likely swung the election in those states from Red to Blue.
But Congress won't be debating this, will they. Nor will you read it in the NY Times or see it on CNN, will you.
Typical.
All that said, Rossi's folks better get a lawsuit filed in a hurry (today, tomorrow, Monday at the latest). If not, then I'm afraid y'all are going to have to, paraphrasing Baroness Gregorie, "Shut-up and sit-down", lest you start to look like "Sore-Loserman"s.
Just my $0.02, and worth probably much less.
Cheers,
Doc J
Remember when the talking point was that Logan was a repub?
However, Vance still has to prove that there were 1,712 unverified provisional ballots mixed in. Once the facts and witnesses give their testimony to a court, perhaps the number will be less or more.
Eric, I'm amused at your attempt to raise the bar.
Posted by: South County on January 6, 2005 07:46 AMCheers! I had the same thought last night when I saw that the Democrats were trolling for a Senator to challenge the electoral vote in Congress.
A 110,000-vote difference is worth debating about in Ohio, but a 129-vote difference in Washington is a clear victory!
The hypocrisy of the Democratic Party knows no bounds.
Posted by: Larry on January 6, 2005 07:47 AMHmmm....
Was thinking the same thing. 129 vs. 118,000+ !!!
Oh, don't worry "DPK" - there is ample evidence that your fellow Dems will be trying to spin away when the court convenes in the near future -
Posted by: Shaun on January 6, 2005 08:10 AM"King County Elections Director Dean Logan, who cut short a business trip to Washington, D.C., to deal with the GOP accusations, said the provisional-ballot problem has been exaggerated. ... Logan criticized O'Donnell for speaking at the Republican news conference: "It's disappointing to me that someone who works in the [Records and Elections] Division would choose to address that issue in a partisan fashion.""
I think it's disappointing that the KC Elections Director would head out of town at a time like this!
Posted by: Regret on January 6, 2005 08:26 AMBut everything that I hear from the Leftists/Demos is strictly partisan Democratic propaganda. Do they really think that the average Washingtonian is that dumb? Oh, never mind--I get it--they are smart, we be stupid.
We should just trust them. Yeah, right.
First, I no longer work for Records and Elections.
Second, I don't remember Dean offering me a chance to share with the media what I and others saw during the canvass process.
If Dean watched the conference he would know that I never made any comments about revotes, the candidates, or my political views or opinions. I was not there to editorialize. I simply stated what I observed during my time there. Much of which has been confirmed by Hunnekens and Logan.
So when did telling the TRUTH become addressing issues in a "partisan fashion."
Is it because I am a republican and I was allowed to speak at a republican press conference?
But what didn't get too much play in the media was that sitting on the opposite side of Chris Vance was Ruth Bennett, a Libertarian. Who spoke on the issue of ballot enhancement procedures and ballot security. Just as important as provisonal ballots but a little more complicated to explain to the public in a 20 second sound byte news story.
I think it is interesting to note that Logan and Hunnekens make the Repulicans point every time they have spoke this week.
1st Example:
He (Logan) said "the total number of votes still to be accounted for is "in the realm of literally a thousandth of a percent" of all votes."
But isn't that also the margin of victory?
2nd Example:
Speaking about how many provisional ballots were voted at the polls before verification.
"What part of it was it?" Huennekens said. "I don't know. Did it happen? Yes."
During my review of the pollbooks I found a few hundred that had been sent through the Acuvote before being counted.
1. Gregoire won by hundreds
Therefore only hundreds have to be wrong to make a difference.
2. hundreds of ballots were counted incorrectly
Whoa, looks like it affected the election
3. Brost says thousands would have to be wrong to make a difference, even though Gregoire only won by hundreds.
Now we finally see the hypocrisy of the Democrats when they claim they want to count every vote. When Repubilcans win, they call shenanigans. But when Democrats win, they play see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
PlutosDad
http://eyesontheball.blogspot.com
News satire that's right for you
Dear Jeff B.,
Delighted to get yet another message asking for the legislature to overturn the vote count and again revisit the governor's race. Before the recount, I indicated I'd vote for the "winner" if this came to the legislature. Many championed my statement and sent emails and made calls to thank me for such a vote. If Mr. Rossi had been the winner, he'd have had my full support and I said so in the News Tribune.
He lost.
My vote still goes to the winner. Personally, I see a revote as another chance to visit the problems of a close encounter with the voters. What would you suggest if again the vote count were within 42 votes, or 10, or 163, or whatever amount? Another vote and another and another and another? Or, we live with the laws we have, the certification by Sec. Of State Sam Reed, and the will of the voters? I will support the recent recount.
Thank you for your concern. Hopefully, you and I will work to make either candidate who becomes governor the best governor they can become.
Dennis
State Representative, 27th District Position 1
Robyn, thanks for the email. Please excuse the length of this email, but I think it is important that I thoroughly explain my views on this crucial topic and what I have learned by talking to many people in both political parties.
I have to tell you up front that I do not support the proposal to hold another election for governor. Several years ago, the legislature established the current election and recount laws (and Senator Rossi voted for them) that reaffirmed that a recount must occur in any election where the two candidates are separated by one-half of one percent or less. The law also established one additional recount, by hand, if paid for by candidates or parties. That is the process that was followed in the 2004 governor's race. In the hand recount, each ballot was examined by one Republican, one Democrat, and one neutral person who had to agree on the voter's intent before a ballot was counted. While the 723 additional ballots in King County received lots of press, there were actually 4,018 additional ballots added to the manual recount, many of those in counties that Mr. Rossi carried.
The main problem with the governor's race is that it was very, very close. With over 300 people elected by the voters in Washington state this year, I find it difficult to say that there were major problems with the election. Yes, it was the closest gubernatorial election in state history, but closeness is not a reason for voiding and election--at least in my view.
It should also be pointed out that there were Democratic, Republican, third party, and unaffiliated observers watching the recounts in every county. And each ballot was reviewed by a three person team (Democrat, Republican, and independent) before it was counted. There were zero complaints of irregularities from any of the persons in any of the 39 counties in the state. Those directly involved in counting the ballots seemed to agree that it was a good process. I do not know of one single county auditor who has questioned the legality of this election.
As to the claims being made about more ballots than voters, that is questionable. The Republican Party was told that those were preliminary lists. Due to the length of the recount and the staff required to do it, counties have not done the final reconciliation between 2004 voters and the county voter files. Some military voters are allowed to register at the time they vote, and that has to be added. Address confidentiality voters have to be included—people who use a special PO box address to avoid stalkers, violent partners and spouses, etc. And each poll book has to be checked to make sure all voters were included. Most counties have not had time to do this yet.
"I do not feel this has been a botched election. Nothing I have been informed about rises to the level of fraud", says Secretary of State Sam Reed (R), the state's chief elections officer. He says that he has not heard or seen of any fraud in the election.
And as the Seattle Times (a paper that endorsed Rossi as I remember) says, "It's not a playoff series. If you need a sports metaphor, consider the recounts as an instant replay of a disputed call. The point was to look for errors in the initial count." And some were found without any change in the rules or bending of state laws. Asking for a revote is like saying that all one run baseball, or very close football (such as the Rose Bowl or the Seahawks-Atlanta games), or basketball games should be replayed.
There are always ballots mailed to auditors after election day, and none of those ballots were counted. It is unfortunate that the federal government cancelled the SERVE project that would have allowed US military and civilian voters living overseas to vote via secure Internet sites. The Defense Department cancelled the project because it was not sure Internet voting would work. I hope that they continue to work on the idea during the next four years because it would be a fast alternative to ballot delivery by mail. However, Washington state does allow overseas and out-of-state voters to email absentee ballot applications and receive ballots by email to help facilitate delivery of ballots. Ballots can also be faxed from out-of-state voters. County auditors did all they possibly could to get ballots to military voters; however, the counties cannot control what the postal service does or how the delivery of ballots is handled. Any military ballot properly postmarked and received in an auditor’s office by November 16 was counted.
I think one thing we definitely need to do is move the date of the primary election earlier in the year. County auditors are placed at a disadvantage with a mid-September primary because the election is not certified until October, leaving less than a month to get ballots printed and mailed. Having an earlier primary would assist voters in getting their ballots in timely manner.
As far as the cost of the manual recount, that was paid for by the State Democratic Party and not the taxpayers. The funds came from private donations. While the Democratic Party is eligible for a refund because the outcome of the election changed, I have recommended that the party forego the refund.
Before the recount started Christine Gregoire said she would live with the established recount process--win or lose. I wish Mr. Rossi would do the same.
Representative Sam Hunt
Majority Floor Leader
District 22 (Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, Northern Thurston County)
-----Original Message-----
From: rdgood1@comcast.net [mailto:rdgood1@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 8:54 AM
To: Hunt, Rep. Sam; Romero, Rep. Sandra; Fraser, Sen. Karen
Subject: PLEASE, Do NOT ratify
January 5, 2005
As a concerned citizen in your district I ask you to please consider the will of the people. I believe that you are all competent people that may hold some different views and idealogies than the republican party, but, nonetheless are intelligent and able to see that the people of this state do not have confidence in our recent gubernatorial election process. I ask you to please not be partisan about ratifying Cristine Gregoire as governor. As you know, things are coming out daily that show that there are too many issues in this election to proceed to ratification, against the will of the people. Please truly ponder this one, don't be quick to dismiss this.
One more thing, if I may. My five children are watching this whole process. They range in age from 9 years old to 16 years old. They are actively following the daily events of this process and it is quite a lesson for them. I hope that in the end it will not discourage them from voting, as two of them will be able to vote in 2008. Please help show them that integrity is more important to you than partisanship.
Respectfully,
Robyn D. Goodwin
Boy this is going to blowback on Gregorie, as a Rossi challenge has far more substance.
And will the Republicans challenge WA elector count with its well known errors. Any Rs in the house from WA?
Posted by: HowardDevore on January 6, 2005 10:25 AMBut, this will make it very easy to know who to vote for in 2006 and 2008. Remember the midterm elections in 1994 at the Federal level? That was when the congress swung wildy Republican. I expect we will see a similar thing here in 2006.
No one is going to forget this obvious attempt to sweep a very flawed election under the rug.
1) It is obvious that the WSRP and Rossi are going to make the legistuture vote on this issue before they take it to court. This put an extreme amount of pressure on democrats in close districts, especially those that Rossi carried. It also gives some more time to find problems. Until the time this brought to court the main objective is to keep the momentum going and to get as many people involved as possible.
2) The issue of 3500 voter less ballots (or what ever the number ends up being) has been admitted to by KC and the only debate in court will be what it means. A lot has been made about figuring out how to distribute these votes between candidates. That will be argued and the higher the number the better for Rossi. Yet, more to the point this mess points to misconduct and once misconduct is proven (very much self-evident) the numbers will not be as important. IF MISCONDUCT OCCURRED the courts would have to conclude that the election in KC is invalid.
3) The information that the BAIW has disclosed about the 400+ affidavits turned in by the Democratic Party (if proven) points to the Democratic Party commiting fraud. I do not think the judge who already expressed his discussed with having to make a ruling will take very kindly to this, someone will have to pay.
4) At this point the number illegal votes (felons, dead, etc) is a secondary issue. We still need to find them and as many as possible. First to make the case stronger and second to make sure people are prosecuted for committing fraud. This is the only way to discourage this from happening in any future election. Lastly we need to supply names to the counties and insist that they remove these people from the voter list.
So, keep the pressure up and contact your representatives.
The more appropriate response (being that WA really wasn't that close) could be for Republicans to formally object to the electors from PA and WI ...
... or simply to spend the next two years using this display of rank hypocrisy to remind the electorate why they cannot trust the Democrats with power again in our lifetimes.
Cheers,
Doc J
Posted by: Doc J on January 6, 2005 10:39 AMMy hope is that the politicians will close their collective mouths and open their ears, hear the outrage of Washingtonians, actually listen, and maybe, just maybe, do something about it. Like a ReVote, or a reasonable facsimile, such as restoring Rossi as the true Governor-Elect.
One can hope, and be politically aware and active.
If I'm wrong, please tell me, because I'd love to come up with an airtight argument why there should be a revote. This provisional ballot issue sounds like more evidence of incompetence in King County, but it doesn't look like it's an issue that, by itself, even comes close to swaying this election.
Posted by: D.J. on January 6, 2005 11:17 AM"If Senate Democrats allow [Christine Gregoire’s*] victory based on questionable numbers to stand, the Green Party will tell Democratic voters: you have wasted your votes and your campaign contributions on a party that will not defend your right to vote," said Marc Sanson, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.
"Regardless of whether the recount effort or a challenge from Senate Democrats overturns [Ms. Gregoire’s*] 2004 election, Americans need to see that corrupt elections will not be tolerated," added Mr. Sanson. "At the very least, a challenge will advance some sorely needed reforms: auditable paper records of all computer votes; equitable distribution of election equipment; assurance that legitimate votes aren't obstructed; removal of biased partisan officials from supervision of vote counts; clean election laws. This is what the Green Party stands for. Where do the Democrats stand?"
*Oh, whoops… my spell-checker accidentally changed George Bush to Christine Gregoire, how’d that happen? Click on hyperlink below for full article (under Regret)
If the paper had said 94 percent were valid, that's different, of course.
And who knows what the spokeswoman actually said. It was a newspaper after all, and they could have misquoted her.
Posted by: Bostonian on January 6, 2005 11:31 AMThe 6% of un-checked or not-valid provisional ballots should be applied to the population of ~28,000 ballots throughout the county and state.
The hundreds of provisional ballots that went into the machines cannot be identified nor separated now - nobody knows that they are provisional, they're mixed in with the rest now.
Posted by: Larry on January 6, 2005 11:42 AMJoe,
Did you actually see the provisional ballots go into the machine or did you figure they did from looking at some books?
-Erik
Posted by: Erik on January 6, 2005 11:43 AMHowever, the Democrat controlled legislature in the State of WA refuses to even consider calling a new gubernatorial election. The margin here is on 130 votes. Shouldn't they at least debate the issue to call attention to the many irregularities out there?
Of course, they will do no such thing. The hypocrisy of the modern Democrat Party knows no bounds.
Posted by: Kevin S on January 6, 2005 11:47 AMwhen the shoe is on the other foot....it hurts....
Posted by: dinesh on January 6, 2005 11:54 AMBear in mind that you have a higher bar to hit here: Democrats ran those counties in FL, so if there was pro-Bush cheating, it had to get past a lot of people who would be eager to catch it.
Posted by: Bostonian on January 6, 2005 12:03 PMWhen I quote you my ballpark number that is the number I have DIRECT knowledge to. Meaning that is the amount I found while reviewing my portion of the pollsites/pollbooks. This does NOT include numbers that my co-workers found. There was a crew of about 26 working to reconcile the pollbooks. I don't believe you can multiply the amount I found by the number of other workers auditing pollbooks. However I know many of them had similar numbers to mine. I do believe the amount of provisional ballots invalidly cast at the polls exceeds 1,000.
To read more about what I saw at my time on the canvass crew, and what Ned Moser observed at the polls you can click on the "continue reading provisional madness" at the bottom of the story, Stefan has posted our statements.
I hope this answers your question.
Get over it, Dinesh.
Posted by: Kevin S on January 6, 2005 12:20 PMIf you even assume that there were only 1000 provisionals that got forced into the general population, the numbers are GC - 570 and DR - 430. This is still enough to change the results...
It seems that KC is going to have to find a way (in my opinion) to leave no more than 1000 votes unaccounted for. That includes all provisional violators, dead people, convicted fellons, questionable affidavits, claims of voters who didn't receive an absentee ballot yet show up as having voted... all of that.
Posted by: Koeppel on January 6, 2005 12:55 PMBut in the "circus atmosphere" of KC we're supposed to accept this as within the boundaries of the "routine" and "ordinary" because it's a big operation so slip-ups are unavoidable from time to time. Okay, so they couldn't safeguard the voting machines completely during the voting process--had to have them "out there" for some yet-to-be explained reason.
Slip-ups can happen. I can imagine in such an over-worked sloppily run ennvironment it could happen once or twice. Hard to imagine a dozen times though. But no! This happened over 1,700 times! There must have been vote-counting machines that were not just "handy," but sitting there with a sign saying: "Why wait? Deposit your ballot here and save time." But even this would not be sufficient to account for these numbers without active assistance from helpful poll workers in the case of these lost, dumocrat, provisional voters.
Posted by: RLG on January 6, 2005 02:02 PMEVERYONE---Please call Sen Jim Hargrove @360-786-7646 and ask him NOT TO CERTIFY. Party lines + Sheldon + ??????????
Hargrove is a good man. CALL!!!
According to I believe both P-I and the Times, the validity rate of provisionals in KC was 87%. That means a speculation on the impact requires sufficient numbers of mistabulated ballots, to where 13% are greater than the margin of victory. So even if there's 1,000 of them that can be explicitly verified, they'd ALL have to be Gregoire votes to approach the margin of victory.
Discrepancies assuredly occurred in every county. Mistakes are extremely unfortunate, but since a) the count is certified; b) there is no evidence of any fraudulent activity to date, and c) recreating an accurate count of mistakenly accepted ballots is now impossible, I can't see any grounds for action here. Responding to Joe once again, could you describe how the analysis of the pollbooks leads you to your conclusion? Specifically?
Thanks
Posted by: torridjoe on January 6, 2005 03:24 PM
I wonder if you could answer my other question? I think that's pretty important--on what basis did your analysis of the pollbooks lead you to conclude 300 unchecked provisionals had gone through?
Posted by: torridjoe on January 7, 2005 10:59 AM