Oops. When the Secretary of State's office gave the Seattle Times a voter registration database, they inadvertently released the voters' birthdates. This is invaluable information for doing research on the voter database. The Times has used this information, for example, to confirm cases of dead voters and to double check on claims of voting by felons.
Now the Secretary of State's lawyer claims that state law does not permit the public disclosure of voter birthdates. By its own admission, the Secretary of State's office screwed up. Big time.
Now the SoS wants the information back [see this oops! letter to the Times]. The Times reportedly plans to fight to keep the data. As long as the Times has access to this information, the rest of us should have access to it too. As we've learned, elections officials do not do an adequate job of maintaining the integrity of the voter registration rolls and it's up to the citizenry to do this job. Birthdates are invaluable for detecting illegitimate votes. It gives the Times an exceptionally unfair advantage to have exclusive access to this data.
A representative of the Times told me that the paper's attorneys have a different interpretation of the law than the Secretary of State has and assert that voter birthdates are legitimate public records. I hope their interpretation prevails. In the meantime, if the Times is certain of their position, they should make this information available to the rest of the public.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 14, 2005 04:42 PM | Email ThisWill Logan ask the supreme court that we start calling Fraudoire 'the accused'
Posted by: Andy on January 14, 2005 05:01 PMI've been thinking the same thing. Or even birth decade. Further, even if the officials can't release the complete actual dates to the public, there should be a procedure by which someone could ask whether the birthdate for "JOHN Q PUBLIC" in King County (born in 196x) is the same as the birthdate for "JOHN QUINCY PUBLIC" in Pierce County (also born in 196x).
Of course, given the complete lack of ID requirements, all this would do is cause people to start using pseudonyms and inventing birthdates.
BTW, on a different note, some states have the election judges initial paper ballots. Does Washington do so? If it does, has any analysis been done to determine whether this might provide a means of separating out certain classes of 'fishy' ballots? It might be interesting to do some analysis in the precincts where voters inserted provisional ballots into scanners illegally (unless election judges are supposed to initial provisional ballots before handing them to voters, which would seem really stupid).
Posted by: supercat on January 14, 2005 05:15 PMKingco will not want to do this, as they are probably worried that a simple database analysis will show them to be lazy record keepers.
Also, why don't they just make a case against a few of the perps of these illegit votes, prosecute and make examples out of them. A little jail time will discourage this kind of thing.
Posted by: johnnymc on January 14, 2005 05:27 PM
KingCo won't want to do that. It might let the Shark and others find out unpleasant things about how KingCo either bent the rules, or broke the law, and would have to be called to account. They are in major CYA mode right now.
We live in a time of *Identity* theft - and Reed releases this information to the media???
The list contains names, addresses, birthdates?
God only knows - who among the media's *stellar* employees have had access to it!
Yep! I can see ramifications here...
Posted by: Deborah on January 14, 2005 07:20 PMIt would be a good basis for a recall petition. Especially when Sam Reed's own lawyer is admitting that his office broke the law. You can't get a more clear-cut case than this.
Posted by: Richard Pope on January 14, 2005 07:27 PMI heard about it on talk radio yesterday.. A representative for the BIAW was on discussing how absurd it was that they were specifically denied this list by Reed - yet he gave it to the media!
Posted by: Deborah on January 14, 2005 07:41 PMif this much incompetence has been uncovered in "ONE" department, elections, immagine what could be found in all the other state agencies. God help us.
If they can release all our birthdays now, why can't they release the felon records? If the judge doesn't order a revote it is time to light the torches.
Posted by: chardonnay on January 14, 2005 09:05 PMRats who call themselves "Republicans" are hardly unknown. Illinois recently had such a critter in the governor's mansion (King George Ryan). Ran to the left of his 1998 opponent on every issue, and by 2002 was so deep in scandal he didn't bother to run again. Unfortunately, the guy who took his place on the Republican ticket in 2002 was also named Ryan (Jim).
I'm not a Washingtonian, but I find myself suspecting that your Secretary of State might be supporting Ms. Gregoire for purposes of job insurance, figuring people would be reluctant to let Ms. Gregoire choose a successor. Earlier I thought that he might have been trying to expedite certification for the purposes of expiditing a challenge, but he could have done that without offering any statement of confidence.
Posted by: supercat on January 14, 2005 10:06 PMOr are they making up the law as they go?
Posted by: TADD on January 14, 2005 10:51 PMI'll repeat--Stay focused!!!!! Deal with Sam later. Recalling him is not NEARLY as important as staying on task and doing everything we can do bring justice to the governor's race. Let the Reed thing die for now....Dino's race is the focus.
Posted by: Michele S on January 14, 2005 11:05 PMWill the Democrats, King County and Mr. Reed take a break for a minute!! Sheesh! Every time they breathe - some new and disastrous and damning evidence with this election is uncovered!
I mean...we appreciate your help (burying you) in this contest and all.....But you have to allow us time to take stock of all the crud that you've done so far...before you add to it!
Dems and RINO's Please stop already!!
We have enough on you!! Really!
I was thinking the same thing. Why is the SoS office threatening "legal action to protect the voter information of concern" against the news paper, when the RCW that was quoted clearly states that it is the "disclosure" of the information in question that is against the law...
Posted by: theBerean on January 17, 2005 06:48 AM