BUT

Bill Huennekens can promise us is that the software system did not change the outcome of the election. (You know, the one they just installed that they don't/didn't know how to use, which mailed out duplicate ballots and late ballots and who knows what else they aren't admitting to, Bill can promise us that none of that affected a 129 vote margin).

Thank goodness Ron Sims has appointed such good shepherds of the election process for us here in King County. Up until this article I was getting a little worried.

It sounds as though they had serious problems.

It's amazing that their elections director would say that those problems didn't affect the outcome of the election. How could he possibly know?

I sure hope your analysis of the precinct data shows that the election's outcome was probably changed by the mystery ballots, since I think the law requires such a showing.

The secret ballot keeps us from knowing how people voted, but it seems reasonable to presume that neither side was more likely to cheat -- so the mystery ballots which apparently weren't properly cast should be presumed to have been cast in the same proportions for each candidate as the legally cast ballots in those precincts.

As for the mysteriously disappearing ballots, it seems generous to give the benefit of the doubt to the Democrats on those. I'm not sure how to fit their disappearance into a calculation of the probable effect on the election's outcome.

People who claim that the election was simply too close for us to know the outcome with certainty -- because of simple human error -- need to consider first this question: Was the election actually so close, or was it made to appear this close by votes which weren't legally cast and counted?

County officials said the county's election system does not allow more than one vote per person to be counted.

Oh really? Tell me: Precisely what steps did you follow to ensure that no one voted more than once?

If they had prepared a "real time" list of people whose ballots had already been received, they could have easily -- on Nov. 17 -- asked that same database to produce a list of the voters who participated in the election.

Only if they used no such database to prevent double-, triple- or quadruple-voting by cheaters would they have been unable to produce such a list of election participants instantaneously.

The same list which would enable them to keep voters from voting more than once would also enable them to answer the simple question: Who voted?

They couldn't answer that question then or much later -- and cannot answer it now.

Yet the reporter accepted and repeated the silly statement that the system prevented the counting of more than one vote from each person.

There would be ways to have a system set up that would prevent double-voting and yet be unable to provide a real-time machine-readable list of who voted. Simply require that all ballots for people in a certain precinct be counted there, and have poll books at each precinct which indicate who has voted and by what means they did so.

Unfortunately, from what I understand, King County counts provisional ballots in the precinct where cast, rather than the precinct where the voter belongs [I personally think that voters should only be able to cast outside their proper precinct if they can show they were mailed incorrect information]. If provisional ballots were all forwarded to their proper precincts for counting, validation would be possible without a centralized database. But since they're not, I see no realistic means by which ballots can be validated.

If a precinct is controlled by one party and its legitimate voters break 70-30 for that party's candidate, it's unlikely that all the mystery votes will go to the other party. On the other hand, I see no reason to believe that the minority party would get even 30%--or even 1%--of the mystery votes. It's possible, of course, but I'd see no reason to believe it to be the case.

Trouble is, incompetence is no defense, in my book.

Enjoy,

Until we have major reform the simple fact is in order to win republicans need to win big enough to overwhelm these kinds of tactics.

You might be able to devise a system that avoids the need for a "real time" database that lists all voters whose ballots have been received, but it wouldn't look like what we now must live with.

You stated at January 22, 2005 03:11 PM how you think that system might look:

There would be ways to have a system set up that would prevent double-voting and yet be unable to provide a real-time machine-readable list of who voted. Simply require that all ballots for people in a certain precinct be counted there, and have poll books at each precinct which indicate who has voted and by what means they did so.

Are you assuming that all voting by absentee ballot would be prohibited?

Are you assuming that clerical errors which resulted in putting the name of a properly registered voter in the wrong precinct's poll book be treated as the voter's tough luck?

Whether there's a way to do it in the future or not, my point is that the rules in place for the November 2004 general election required a "real time" list of voters whose ballots had been received. Otherwise, there would be no way to know whether the ballot being processed by an election worker is the second, third, or thirtieth ballot already received and counted from that particular voter.

Absentee ballots received before election day are verified and readied for tabulation on election day -- meaning they are separated from the outer envelope containing the voters' names and signatures. Once separated from those envelopes, they cannot be retrieved and set apart from ballots on which the votes will be counted.

Unless the precinct poll books are up-to-date for election day, people who already submitted absentee ballots could vote again in person. The procedure now calls for a notation in the poll book indicating that the voter already was issued an absentee ballot -- which ought to be enough, if carefully done, to prevent double-voting. However, when the provisional ballot which would be issued to a voter who claimed not to have received or voted the absentee ballot is processed, there has to be a database to check to see if the absentee actually was voted -- before separating that provisional ballot from its outer envelope and putting it into the pile to have the votes on it counted.

For absentee ballots that arrive on and after election day, there needs to be a database to check to be sure the voter hasn't already cast a ballot by a duplicate absentee ballot, a provisional ballot, or a regular ballot at the polls.

I don't see any way to be relatively certain that people don't vote more than once, if you have no database in which you are keeping track of who has voted so far.

The fact that King County couldn't produce a list of voters who voted in the election tells me they had no database they could have used to keep people from voting more than once.

I really wish someone would read the written rules King County supposedly followed -- to see if there is anything in the procedure they follow during the processing of ballots received from voters which would prevent people from voting more than once.

I'm studying the rules in my own county, and I haven't found anything yet.

They seem to rely on trying to prevent the issuance of more than one ballot, rather than checking to see if each voter is actually casting only one ballot.

I understand Judge Bridges is thorough. Let's hope so. This travesty is getting more ludicrous by the day.

No, merely that absentee ballots would have to be counted at the polling place where a voter was registered. Until a voter appears in polling books, or an addendum thereto, the person's absentee or provisional ballot is kept in its envelope, in the precinct to whose polling book the voter should be added.

In general, I would like to see a requirement that absentee ballots be received at the proper polling place by election day, except for military or oversees absentee ballots. If a voter shows up who had previously voted absentee, the person--upon producing a valid signature--could request their absentee ballot (which they could either leave it as cast, supercede it, or--if they themselves didn't cast it--ask that it be admitted as evidence of attempted [but unsuccessful] fraud).

Forwarding all ballots to the precinct where the voter belongs seems like it should be a very simple and logical step toward ensuring that everything balances out as it should. Even if someone's registration isn't in the polling book on election day, I see no reason it couldn't be put in an addendum (with a note explaining why it wasn't present on election day) before counting their vote. Handling such procedures at the precinct level should allow for all precincts to perfectly balance votes and voters regardless of the numbers of absentee or provisional ballots cast there.

i just saw the ram rodded governor on C-span giving the Democrat Rebuttal to the Presidents weekly radio address. Hmmmmm was this staged?
Make her look as ligit as possible when ever as possible. Out of all the Democrats they picked her. Miss 129

i just saw the ram rodded governor on C-span giving the Democrat Rebuttal to the Presidents weekly radio address. Hmmmmm was this staged?
Make her look as ligit as possible when ever as possible. Out of all the Democrats they picked her. Miss 129

i just saw the ram rodded governor on C-span giving the Democrat Rebuttal to the Presidents weekly radio address. Hmmmmm was this staged?
Make her look as ligit as possible when ever as possible. Out of all the Democrats they picked her. Miss 129

"'In a database that has a million records there are probably at all points in time going to have some records that don't have an (signature) image attached,' Huennekens said."

Even an Access newbie like me knows, you can set properties on the various fields in a database, requiring them to be populated. If the "signature present" field is blank or set to "no", then the record doesn't get filed!!!

Sheesh...it seems they're trying to prove that hand recounts really ARE more accurate...

Sorry, but Bill H. always gives the same response. "Yes, we know there were all these errors & we never mentioned them etc. But it's nothing. Really. Don't worry--it never affected the election."

I just don't buy it anymore. The KC elections office could burn down and he'd be saying the same thing. It's ALWAYS the same response.

While likely not prudent to bet the ranch on getting a ReVote quite yet, might not be too early to start thinking about how we can all help maximize turnout for Dino in our home counties. If the Supremes sustain a ReVote decision by the lower court, a maximum "ReVote for Dino" effort needs to be up and running immediately thereafter.

Methow Ken

As far as I'm concerned, if the number of errors exceeds the margin of victory, then there's no way of knowing how things actually turned out. I'm not as outraged about fact that errors occurred as I am about the hand-waving that election officials are doing to explain the errors away. Elections are not supposed to be a statistical sample, they are supposed to be an accurate count of all legitimate votes -- and only legitimate votes.

For every ballot that was illegally cast, and for every legitimate ballot that was not counted, it is stupid to assume that there was any particular statistical distribution of votes that would allow us to "correct" for the error. It's the same as if there are errors in trying to balance a checkbook. You can't really make assumptions about where a discrepancy came from and how to "correct" for it, in order to know the "true" balance. Well, you can, but it's just a guess, no better than all the possible guesses that one could make. That's why people make a real effort to count money right and get suspicious about explanations about why things don't balance out.

I found this passage from the article particularly disturbing, especially the last sentence:
"Workers accidentally sent thousands of duplicate ballots to voters who updated their voter registration with a new phone number or some other detail. Election workers neglected to check a box to let the system know that they were updating a file, not issuing a new ballot, officials said.

New ballots should be sent only when the address or ballot type is changed, or when people request a replacement ballot, officials said.

"Some of these voters were mistakenly issued another ballot," computer support person Scott Turnbull wrote in an October e-mail to Logan and Huennekens. "I think we can classify these as user error."

The county put a team of seven to 10 people to work calling about 3,500 voters who were accidentally sent two, three and sometimes four ballots to ask them to throw the extra ballots away."

Up to FOUR ballots! I really hope that this is not as bad as it sounds.

Evidently, KC Elections knew which voters had been sent multiple ballots. It's bad enough that all they did was ask that the extras be thrown away, instead of demanding their return.

But there is no indication that each of the excess ballots could be uniquely identified and accounted for. If that was the case, then what would stop a person with extra ballots from filling them out and sending them in?

And BH would like us to believe that these extra 4,000 or 5,000 (or more) ballots couldn't influence the election? That goes way beyond chutzpah...

Christine Gregoire is YOUR governor now and no tired old silly calculations of mythical voting "errors" will do anything to change that.

When the Judge refused all Republican requests at that hearing on Thursday you entire case collapsed and it is over, fini, dead.

You have no public support anymore for this "tilting at windmills" effort. You could only turn out TWO demonstrators at the hearing.

I suggest the next thing all of you tiny handful of windmill tilters should write is a letter of best wishes and belated congratulations to Gov. Gregoire.

After spending hours combing through KC records of election issues the council and Citizen Election Oversight Committees dealt with in 2003 through 2004, I thought I'd seen it all!

(As a side note....I have to say I thought it ironic that one name kept coming up as the cheerleader for each failed system....'Larry Phillips'! He even thought it was a terrific idea for the county to spend 1.6 million dollars for a *temporary* computer fix for the 2003 elections!)

In May 2004, a citizen election oversight committee spelled out - in detail - what was needed to retore faith and function in our election process and what corrective actions must take place before the General election in November.....
Not only were NONE of those actions implemented - but it appears the entire election system of King County went into a death spiral!
Here is the Election Oversight Committees report from May 2004 - it's on PDF - or you can read it in html in google...

http://www.metrokc.gov/mkcc/docs/CEOC_report.pdf.

All I have to say is after reading the problems cited by the oversight committe - and knowing they were not addressed or corrected by KC, AND noting the new revelations of additional problems in the election procedures........there is absolutely NO WAY anyone can know who won the Governors race - or - any other race that was decided by King Counties ballots....

I notice that Temporary Governor Gregoire backed off on her request for an additional $600 million in taxes. Can anyone guess why? Because she thinks she might have to run for Governor again very soon - and it's difficult to win when your ratings are in the toilet AND you're asking for $600 million in taxes.

I just watched a few minutes of TV with Dean Logan fielding questions from legislators. The issue of enhanbced ballots came up. Everyone seemed earnestly concerned about how to do the enhancing better. Nobody (while I was watching) had any concern at all that maybe enhancing a ballot isn't a good idea to start with. What's with these people?

Okee dokee Mr. Phillips!

The "Mistakes of the past" were indeed repeated....and it looks like you added a few big ones! And you spent $1,267,237.00 of my tax dollars for a "short term fix" of the elections operations!
Where did that money go Mr. Phillips?
(Yes - this is the same Larry Phillips of the "My vote wasn't counted" cry babies..married to the airline stewardess who beats up neighbors if they disagree with her hubby....)

Not only do we require a revote...we MUST demand a complete audit and accounting of the King County Elections department - and all council members, vendors, and staff involved..

I wish someone had enhanced parts of my SATs - Maybe I would have done better in areas. Could you imagine the outcry if someone enhanced test answers or bank statements?

These should be subpoenaed and gone through. However, it is a difficult chore to sort through 896,000 to 900,000 pieces of paper. It might show that some people voted more than once. (Does that explain why nearly 600 people were listed twice on King County's list before it was "corrected"?) And it might show that more people voted than originally thought, and data entry omissions were made by King County.

Dear Mr. Phillips,

My guess is you're probably just going to "delete" this message and not read this, but I feel I must send this email anyway.....I just finished reading the most article in the Seattle PI -- New Election System Hit Glitches, Records Reveal. Over the past 2.5 months, I've read hundreds of newspaper articles, letters to the editors, King County PR, emails from both Republican and Democrat legislators, and dozens of web articles. I've listened to many talk shows.

Through it all I've done my best to remain objective and take each bit of information, do my best to make sense of it all, and form an objective opinion.

My question to you now is -- When is the King County Elections department going to get their act together? When is King County going to stop lying?

The election was flawed and Christine Gregoire should have never been certified.

I now believe that King County Government is going to need to work incredibly hard to regain my trust.

..............I'll let you know if I receive a response from Mr. L.P...........

I tell you, some of this stuff just makes my blood boil. Talk about incompetent liars.

REVOTE!!

I've thought about the luke-warm reaction a lot of these incredible revelations of election error, negligence and fraud are receiving from some usually bright people..... Just remember...outrage will make some quick-studies out of them soon..

It's not that they are stupid or ignorant...it's just that they are holding fast to a misplaced trust in the King County system! We were all that way in the past! This is why it is so important that these findings continue to come out and be presented to the public. At some point - the lightbulb is going to go on in the people who are still sitting on the fence about the election fiasco.

At some point - the people are going to say "enough of this nonsense" to the myriad of excuses pouring out of King County! They are going to open their eyes and (like us) not be able to close them again to this corruption.

They are almost there.......

The esteemed gov of Washington.

"Guess who gave the dem response to W today?

The esteemed gov of Washington."

How many counts do I indict?

"Esteemed" - by who?

"gov" - of what?

"Washington" - How is this known?

Thank you, Sandy P! I love your sense of humor!

Don't worry, it will not stand...

If the system does not allow more than one vote per person to be counted, why would the county put together a team of workers to deal with the duplicate ballots sent?

It's more like they called to tell them to throw out the extra ballots because they COULDN'T count only one per person. Or at least they didn't know for sure and didn't want to take any chances. So that would conflict with the faked confidence of that turkey Huennekens. His quotes are nothing more than wishes and covering his donkey.

Referenced Statements:
"Some of these voters were mistakenly issued another ballot," computer support person Scott Turnbull wrote in an October e-mail to Logan and Huennekens. "I think we can classify these as user error."

The county put a team of seven to 10 people to work calling about 3,500 voters who were accidentally sent two, three and sometimes four ballots to ask them to throw the extra ballots away.

County officials said the county's election system does not allow more than one vote per person to be counted."

I would like to propose that the margin of error in the 11/2004 election be designated as a dead horse, so that we can stop beating it.

It now seems clear to me that the pivotal issue for demanding a revote is the complete and utter lack of reasonable care exercised by KC Elections.

Some of the more reasonable opponents of a revote have posted here opining that there are always going to be errors in a given election, and that it would be wrong to do a revote just because the margin of victory was within the margin of error.

For the sake of argument, I am willing to concede this point. If one were to contest an election on these grounds, one would have to convince the judge that the margin of error in the contested was statistically well beyond the generally-accepted margin of error for elections in general. I believe that this would be difficult, not least because such a standard may not even exist.

But if the basis for the contest is that the elections officials failed to exercise reasonable care, then the size of the margin of error becomes moot. If it can be shown that the elections officials didn't exercise reasonable care, then the error is no longer some series of random occurrences, but instead is attributable to specific errors of omission.

A judge still might be inclined to give the elections officials the benefit of the doubt, but I think that the evidence presented in this contest will be damning.

For instance, the recommendation given by the SoS (?) to KC Elections several years ago, which specifically warned that provisional ballots should be color-coded to prevent exactly the problems that occurred in this election.

Or the report mentioned in Deborah's post above, where a whole list of needed actions was given to KC Elections, and none were implemented.

And the final nail in this coffin may be the loss of credibility and integrity of the KC Elections officials that occurs when it is documented that they have been reporting a net figure for problematic "votes", when the combined total of voterless ballots and ballotless voters is almost twice as high.

I heard it! Boy...Dissin' the President's radio address, when your own position is in such peril..is not the brightest political strategy....

But then again...we are talking about the woman who thinks our state elections were a model for the nation.......

Oops! The Codine in my pain med must have kicked in!!! :0

Amazing.....How many dirty little hands were involved with the King County elections shamble!

http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/news/2003/0616031.htm

[snippet]June 16, 2003

Sims proposes election improvements

King County Executive Ron Sims today proposed a series of election improvements aimed at increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the County's election process, its technical infrastructure, information to the public and systems applications.

"The comprehensive projects identified in the election reforms that I am proposing will position King County to meet the election challenges of 2004 and beyond," said Sims. "My goal is to restore the public's confidence with these improvements." [/snippet]

To read his list of proposals..see the URL above...

"Well the site meter shows increased viewing tonight.....
I expect the trolls at any time...."

Due to important business, I can't be here to spank them in a timely manner. I'm sure all of you are up to the task....

(as if my presence is required...Bah!)

http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/news/2003_08_27.htm

[snippet]Aug. 27, 2003

Absentee ballots mailed for Primary Election

Last day to register to vote for Primary is August 30
King County Elections announced that absentee and vote-by-mail ballots were delivered to the Post Office for mailing on Wednesday, August 27. Approximately 468,000 ballots were prepared for the September 16 Primary and Special Elections. Following new procedures implemented for the spring elections, absentee ballots were mailed in one batch.

Depending on the mailing address, absentee voters should begin to see their ballots arrive in the next three to five days. Rural delivery and out-of-state ballots will take somewhat longer, especially with the post office closure on Labor Day. Absentee ballots must be post-marked by or on Election Day, September 16, in order to be valid. Voters can mail in their absentee ballot or drop them off at any polling place on Election Day.[/snippet]

For more wonderful news about the efficiency of King Counties absentee mailing system....see the URL above...

If you wanted to identify multiple voters, you would need to inspect the original source documents. For poll voters, it is the poll book where voters sign by their names and the printed list created by the election worker who writes each voter's name down as they sign in. For absentee and provisional voters, it is the outer envelope that was submitted and signed by the voter.

These should be subpoenaed and gone through.

Richard,

If they followed the rule (a big "if" admittedly) the people who were issued provisional ballots would also have signed the poll book. So, even if some of those people threw away their ballot envelopes and illegally inserted their ballots into the precinct polling place counting machines or ballot boxes, there would be a record of the issuance of that ballot to them in the poll books.

I agree with your point: The original records which should have been the basis for certifying the election returns have to be examined -- poll books, ballot accountability forms, and outer ballot envelopes with signatures on them seem to be the things to get.

The records that were supposed to have been produced during the reconciliation process and the preliminary abstract of the returns that was submitted to the canvassing board prior to certification also need to be looked at -- to see if they recorded any discrepancies at all, much less their resolution of discrepancies (as required).

Here's the administrative rule issued in 2002 that required voters who were issued provisional ballots to sign the poll book:

http://www.leg.wa.gov/WAC/index.cfm?section=434-253-043&fuseaction=section
WAC 434-253-043 Special ballots--When issued. A special ballot is a regular ballot issued to a person seeking to vote in a polling place under the following circumstances:

(1) The name of the voter does not appear in the poll book;

(2) The voter's name is in the poll book but there is an indication that the voter was issued an absentee ballot, and the voter wishes to vote at the polls; or

(3) Other circumstances as determined by the precinct election official.

After the voter signs the poll book, the precinct election officer shall issue a special ballot outer envelope and a security envelope to the voter eligible for a special ballot. The voter shall vote the ballot in secrecy and when done, place the ballot in the security envelope, then place the security envelope with the ballot in it in the special ballot outer envelope and return it to the precinct election official. The precinct election official shall ensure that the required information is completed on the outer envelope and have the voter sign it in the appropriate space, and place it in a secure container. (See also WAC 434-240-250 for voters issued an absentee ballot.)

[Statutory Authority: RCW 29.04.210, 29.36.150. 02-07-029, § 434-253-043, filed 3/12/02, effective 4/12/02.]

I would encourage all to check there former addresses to be sure that no one voted in there name.

I have already checked to make sure that all my recently deceased friends and relatives have not voted in the 2004 election

I think that Headless Lucy used to be a man???

Well, that in itself was a stupid question. Of course, we know that they threw the election; there can't be any other explanation.

My iguana is happy though. He was enfrachised. Your can see him writing a letter at: sillyseattle.blogspot.com

Oh, by the way, Silly Seattle Council - my iguana does performances too!

Bard: Laughed so hard IPMP!

I think it's amazing how each one of the KC talking heads were putting forth such a serious front to get in there and fix these election problems in 2003! Of course they jumped on that soapbox after so much public outrage from the 2001 and 2002 election fiascos!

Committees were formed, lists were written, money was spent (lots of money was spent!)- people were fired and forced to resign!... Yet NOTHING was corrected!

They simply put out the fire of public outrage with their empty promises - then went about doing nothing!

Now it's going to bite them in the butt!

http://www.skepticfiles.org/evo2/skullasc.htm

Three cheers for Stefan and his band of bloggers.

I wouldn't consider it moot; if a candidate were to win by 200,000 votes, even the grossest malfeasance in a county of 20,000 people shouldn't overturn it unless there were other demonstrable problems elsewhere or the malfeasant county reported 200,000 votes for the winner.

Michele S,

All of those snippets I posted above were amazingly from 2003 !!

These were the empty promises of reform made BEFORE our General election! I just posted them to show the contrast of what they are now using as excuses for their incompetence in the 2004 election.

Some of the excuses given by KC now - are absolutely absurd when compared with the proposals for improvements made in 2003!

Answer - Revote

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[snippet]Sept. 2, 2003

Contractor acknowledges elections error

A Renton area precinct with 98 voters had its primary election ballots stuffed with incorrect ballots this week as a result of a coding error by Deibold, a private agency that contracts with King County.

The error caused Bothell ballots to be stuffed in one Renton precinct's envelopes.

"This is a service we contract out, and the private contractor, Deibold, made an error, and has been quite up front with us and the public that the error was theirs," said Dean Logan, newly appointed Records, Elections and Licensing Services Division Director for King County. "No King County processes, employees or systems were in error." [/snippet]

This is interesting because it shows Diebold as the contractor for stuffing ballots! Diebold absorbed Global Elections Systems who bought out Spectrum printing.......

But what's more interesting is how fast Dean Logan, in his new position was able to deflect blame! He has become a master at it since then!

But King Sims IS up for re-election this year. Wonder if he'll have a primary challenger? Where, oh where are the honest democrats in King County? Maybe John Barelli here in SP should challenge him! He seems a trustworthy dem.

I think Mr. Barelli would have to change his party to *Republican* or *Independent* after the primary to win any election in King County after the mess the Dems have made....

I think the Democrat party is on their way out as far as the American public is concerned....

OR

Willful negligance by the King County Elections Division = Distributed voter fraud = Stolen election = REVOTE = Governor Rossi = Significant election reform (justice triumphs !)

You can make a difference...

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed has appointed the following members to the Advisory Board:

Thad Duvall – Douglass County Auditor

Kris Swanson – Cowlitz County Auditor

Dean Logan – King County Director of Records, Elections and Licensing

Nick Handy – Representing the Office of the Secretary of State

Doug Cocheran – Former Yakima County Auditor – Member at large

*&*#$%*$^%$*
also, while sitting behind the portland hockey club tonight, watching the seattle/portland hockey game, in the middle of the very drunk obnoxious, toothless fans, found many anti-gregoire fans. These fans not only had foul things to say about the portland guys and refs of the game, but some pretty choice words for gregoire as well. I learned some new words and sayings tonight while sitting in the middle of this crowd.

I would like someone to be the devil's advocate and try and explain what is happening in this race that I'm not seeing. How can these blatant errors continue, explanations change on a daily basis and the error of margin be larger than the victory..........yet they continue to get away with it????? Where is the justice??? How can the democrats continue to get away with this???

Case in point:
Long piece just posted on Seattle Times web site at usual just-at/after-midnight:

"Scores of felons voted illegally"

Guess what: Positive ID on 129 felons who voted on 2 Nov just in King and Pierce counties; and another 23 felons who likely voted.

.... Let's see: Gov-Temp CG theoretically came out ahead in last recount by ??... Yup.

Full piece at:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002158407_felons23m.html

Methow Ken

I think the liberal Democrats have been desperate. People are not falling for their nonsense anymore. Is stealing the only way they can get what they want?

Problem for them is that everyone else (not liberals or mainstream media) are catching on. It won’t be long before we have "caught up". That’s when Gregoire will no longer be able to pretend to be governor.

It’s been said before, "patience gains all things".

Victory is going to be sweet.

"Because courts and election officials don't use a common identifier, such as a driver's license or Social Security number, they're often forced into a bit of a guessing game. They have to look for matches using a mix of names, addresses and birth dates. The process gets especially tricky for people with common names or when family members with similar names live at the same address." - Seattle TImes

The real question is how to remedy it. Do we really want a common identifier to track us from county to county, state to state? Do we want/trust every agency in the government to have access to our SSN or Driver's License numbers? How do we balance ease of registration/voting and protection from illegal votes?

A centralized registration database will help, but it is not going to solve all of the problems that are likely going to arise in any close election. I believe the problems the state faces is not limited to KC, but are endemic in nearly every county in the state.

Jefferson had it figured out: "... all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Darn good quote from that TJ fellow. The rest of that piece is first-rate, too.

I say, ok, two out of three, Rossi still has it!

As far as 'it costs to much'. Will your taxes go down (as they should) under Gregoire? COST!?

Plug the 'leak' or 'sink' the ship.

If they are REALLY interested in who should win.

RUN IT AGAIN! REVOTE! REVOTE!

What do you bet the 'final' vote count will find hundreds (if not thousands) of 'voters' have VANISHED into CLEAR air! Call Home Security!!

Dean Logan, director of elections in King County, said, "I don't think it's the responsibility of the election administrators to essentially do background checks on registered voters."

Who does he think is responsible to do this then? Perhaps Mickey Mouse? Or Donald Duck?

DIMS?! LOL! I can't believe they named their system DIMS! A dig at Republicans? Or are they so clueless they don't know we call them "DEMS"?

I espcially loved this quoted email from one tech-support person:
""Do they really know what they are doing???" ... What kind of help do they need???? Brain Transplant???"

Ha! But it had no impact on the election!

Well then, they weren't very good at that phone calling job either!

We (3 voters in our family) recently changed our addresses from our physical address to our PO box.

Yep, you guessed it! We each received ballots at both addresses.

No one called us.

"it's a computer glitch and/or data entry problem"

I think they are throwing in the towel. Why else DID they so ignorantly say In court

"It's for the Legislators to decide"

Are their Attorneys really this dumb? Sorry I just answered mt own question, "Dems".

Shapley is calling for 12 billion dollars in new taxes,

The 3.14 is calling for us to just "accept" imperfect elections in the future, through a guest writer from UW academia

The Seattle Times was shocked to discover that FELONS voted!

Thank goodness for the MSM, and their objective, grounded, and nonpartisan ways.

CG beat DR in King County by 58-40, which amounts to 18 more votes for CG out of every 100 votes cast.

Using Stefan's total of 3700 invalid ballots, CG received (3700/100)(18) = 666 illegal votes, which clearly tells us who the author of Luda-Chris Fraudoire's "victory" is.

The Democrats offer that as an excuse, but I find it hard to swallow. Filling in an oval does not require any sort of exceptional intelligence. I would suggest that a more plausible scenario would be that some voters may have started to vote for Ms. Gregoire and then decided against it before making much of a mark, but after making a slight dot.

Unfortunately, since the Democrats have unlawfully altered original ballots that were not counted for Gregoire before but are now, it's impossible to tell how they were marked originally. I would suggest, though, that there's prima facie evidence that the number of unlawfully-altered ballots that explicitly benefit Ms. Gregoire is pretty close to the difference between her tallies on the machine and hand counts.

I think they are throwing in the towel. Why else DID they so ignorantly say In court

"It's for the Legislators to decide"

Are their Attorneys really this dumb? Sorry I just answered mt own question, "Dems".

I think they are throwing in the towel. Why else DID they so ignorantly say In court

"It's for the Legislators to decide"

Are their Attorneys really this dumb? Sorry I just answered mt own question, "Dems".

FastVoteFred says

Don't forget that FIRST the "LEGISLATORS DECIDED to CERTIFY the ELECTION" and pointed "us who question the validity of the ILLEGAL votes cast" to the COURTS. You can have your election contest decided by the courts. NOW the DEMS, say the "contest" should be decided by the LEGISLATORS who FIRST pushed the decision over to the courts.
This is a real case of "Passing the BUCK" No the buck does not stop here, I can't help you with your problem of justice, NOW Just moveon over there.

I wonder if the judge in Wenatchee (Chelan County court) will read any of the thought provoking comments and statements here? Will he only decide based upon what is presented to him in the court room? Yes, probably so. Wonder if can see the malfeasence performed by KC election officials, Dean Logan, Ron Sims, Larry Phillips?

Who would be the proper person to bring a charge into court that this people intentionally threw the election. Can a KC Election offical be convicted of wrong doing? Or only a slap on the wrist?

Yes, we need to have themes, bumper stickers, articles written, ready to go, for publishing when given the chance to conduct a statewide ReVote.

On the other hand, IF ONLY KING COUNTY, SNOHOMISH COUNTY, & CLARK County show up with fraudulent election returns, can money be saved by only holding a REVOTE for Governer in those 3 counties?
What do you think?

Bad idea. Someone who happened to move from some other county into King County would effectively get to vote twice (legitimately) in the 'net' election, while someone who moved from King County elsewhere wouldn't get to vote at all (despite having been in WA state for both).

Furthermore, it would mean that the Democrats would go into the election knowing how many votes they needed to come up with. I would expect that people knowing how close the last election was would turn out in higher numbers for a revote; having the revote only in those three counties would benefit unduly the people there.

On the other hand, having a law that in future any counties that mess up a statewide election will have to pay the costs of a statewide revote (in proportion to the number of 'fishy ballots') would likely work wonders toward cleaning up elections.

"County officials said the county's election system does not allow more than one vote per person to be counted"

If this is indeed their position, how do they explain the fact that there were some 2000+ more ballots counted than voters who voted. That would seem to be contradictory to their statement, would it not?

"I think Mr. Barelli would have to change his party to *Republican* or *Independent* after the primary to win any election in King County after the mess the Dems have made....

If nominated, I will run (for the Canadian border.) If elected, I will fight extradition. (With a nod to Mo Udall.) Sorry, folks. Wrong county anyway, and I really don't want to live in KC. Too weird.

I think the Democrat party is on their way out as far as the American public is concerned....

Oh, I don't know. We've been in worse shape before and come back. For that matter, I remember people writing obits for the Republican party a few years ago. Last I checked, you folks were still alive and kicking.

Soon as everyone figures out that all the Democrats want to do is raise taxes, put in more regulations, generally expand government and take away everyone's gun(s), in addition to their highjinx election antics & you'd think they'd be toast. After all, they've been at it for years. Must be all those King County D's mucking things up....as usual, tilting the results for the whole state. But hey, what's new??