My highlights from this morning's King County Council meeting, where Dean Logan and Kurt Triplett (Ron Sims' chief of staff) presented their 2004 election report.
The first two hours were a complete waste of time. The meeting started 15 minutes late and with an unannounced half hour tribute to outgoing local NAACP president Carl Mack; Triplett spent 15 minutes giving a laudatory introduction to Dean Logan, and then Logan spent an hour reading the entire text of his report that has been on the web since last Wednesday and that all of Councilmembers had each already read several times before they walked into the meeting. You can bet that Politburo Chairman Larry Phillips scheduled it this way on purpose so as to take time away from actual questions, for which he only left 30 minutes (but which went into overtime until 1pm).
Among the more interesting points that the various Councilmembers raised:
Republican Kathy Lambert asked questions about felon registrations. Logan confirmed that his office will cancel the registration of a felon when it receives the conviction notices from the courts, but it does not maintain a list of felons so it can check whether a new voter registration is from a felon. Nor does he check any other database to ensure that a new registration is not from a felon. He claims he does not have statutory authority to refuse a registration that appears to be complete. I find that hard to believe, but let's grant him that. What he does have is the ability to be proactive and detect registrations from people who appear to have provided false information on their voter registration form (e.g. that they lied about not being felons) and report them to the county prosecutor. [Stay tuned, I have a thought experiment on this subject that I'll write up and post later].
Republican David Irons reminded us that when he was on the canvassing board for the 2000 election, the discrepancy between voters and ballots was not 1,800, but 17. He also mentioned that he spoke with retired elections director Bob Bruce, who held Logan's job in 2000 and says he recalls a similar number. I spoke with Bob Bruce later on Monday afternoon. He doesn't recall the exact number of hte 2000 discrepancy but said it was "under 20". Bruce also told me that in his 12 years in senior positions at King County elections he never saw a discrepancy that was anywhere near as large as the 2004 discrepancy and can't imagine what would explain it. [More later from my conversation with Bob Bruce]
Steve Hammond wanted to know who exactly would be held accountable for the various mistakes which Dean Logan and Ron Sims are trying to sweep under the carpet. Shouldn't some heads roll, he asked? Dean Logan, answered that rolling heads won't solve anything, there are just some "cultural issues" that will take some time to work on. (read: there are some really dumb friends of Ron Sims who have been given jobs in the elections office along with several surly Teamsters members who have been there for years and can't possibly be fired).
Newbie Republican Reagan Dunn echoed Kathy Lambert's concerns about felons being allowed to register and vote and pointed out that if Gary Ridgeway submitted a voter registration card, Dean Logan would allow him to vote.
Democrat Larry Gossett took offense at the suggestion that all felons were like Gary Ridgeway and said that he thinks we should allow felons to vote, unaware, apparently, that it would require a change to the state constitution.
Democrat Julia Patterson praised Dean Logan for giving a "very thorough" report. Her biggest concern was that Steve Hammond's comments that people who work in KC elections should be fired if they don't do their jobs properly would send the wrong message and discourage the hundreds of "grandmother and disabled people" election temps from participating in the process. Apparently she believes our democracy should depend on 75 year old ladies to stop the MoveOn.org goons from stuffing ballot boxes and that the right of a blind person to fulfill her dreams of working as a signature checker is tantamount to all else. Patterson poohpoohed all Republican criticisms of King County elections as sour grapes because of the outcome of the governor's race. Her solution: All the Republicans should endorse her lame-ass "election reform" package so she can call it a bipartisan solution.
Bipartisan Republican Pete von Reichbauer (bipartisan in the sense of he swings both ways) didn't ask any helpful questions, and neither did Republican Jane Hague, a former Manager of King County Records and Elections, who really should step up to the plate and use her knowledge to ask tougher questions.
Bob Ferguson, the one Democrat with some integrity on the Council, forced Dean Logan to admit that the 1,800 discrepancy was the net of both voterless ballots and ballotless voters and asked why there were so many precincts with more ballots than voters and vice versa. Logan said this was attributable in part to provisional ballots cast in one precinct by a voter from a different precinct [A misleading answer. I'll explain more later]. Ferguson asked Logan what the real discrepancy would be if he were to add the total of precincts with missing voters and precincts with missing ballots. Logan looked like a deer in the headlights who didn't understand the question. The Washington State Republican Party later in the day issued a press release to help Dean Logan answer Bob Ferguson's questions. That's probably not the kind of bipartisanship that Julia Patterson had in mind, but it works for me.
After Bob Ferguson, Dow Constantine had the second best performance of the Council Democrats, but only because he kept quiet the whole time.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 14, 2005 11:56 PM | Email ThisYeah, Julia Patterson got her sideways jab in at Hammond, accusing him of beating up on Grandmamas. That's just so typical of the worst of the worse of the Democrats in our area government. These people are will to throw the baby out with the bath water in order to make sure the poodle has some place to pee.
Hammond was pretty good. Ferguson was too, although he backed off his question because he didn't want to embarrass Logan.
I still don't understand why on earth Logan is falling on his sword like this for these snakes. He's one of those oh so typical Seattle type guys that has less testosteron than a castrated mouse, but still, even for a guy like that, I'd think he would have gotten p-ed off by now. Sims, Gregoire, and all the rest just aren't worth self destruction. He could easily just say exactly what you did - the people working in the elections office suck big time and until the County gets off it's pro-union circle jerking it can't be corrected.
And, I had not realized this netting trick was going on. So, really, what happened is a bunch of ballots dissappeared, and bunch other magical mystery ballots appeared.
If that isn't fraud, and everyone doesn't recognize it for what it is, I just don't know what to make of the sheep that are willing to live with it.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on February 15, 2005 02:30 AMThanks, Louis
Posted by: Louis on February 15, 2005 05:07 AMI watched the Dog & Pony Show. I now know why I dont live in KC.
It was pathetic, at best. As noted by Stefan, there were good questions, but lame answers. Pelz mumbled and never really made any point, and Patterson looked stoned, and only whined about the 2000 presidential election.
Lambert and Hammond both tried, but I think were censored by the chair.
I think that MSM should air this episode for all of KC residents to see on primetime. It was a perfect example of Censorship, and although comical at times, it was in CG words "Ludicrious".
ALL KC taxpayers should witness what they are paying for.
JP Patches could have done a better job, at least I trusted him at one time in my life.
Posted by: Chris on February 15, 2005 07:13 AMInitially filtering the registration database for felons would be time-consuming (elimination of false positives would probably require human checking), but once done update of the various county databases would be much simpler.
Since there are many commercially available databases that track state and federal felony records--records that can be readily verified--extending the felon check beyond our state borders could be readily done as well.
Furthermore, restoration of felons right to vote appears straightforward in Washington (http://www.aclu-wa.org/ISSUES/voting_rights/Restore.vote.html). Once a felon has served his/her time and paid the financial obligation they can vote. Cannot own a firearm, but they can vote (go figure).
So why cannot Logan et al do the same thing expected of a small firearms dealer?
Posted by: iconoclast on February 15, 2005 08:08 AMHuh?
Posted by: Daniel K on February 15, 2005 08:34 AM"The most important thing," Logan said, "is that we not take radical action in the wake of this close race. We need responsible, meaningful election reform."
Logan: "There have been cultural issues in the division for years." (???)
"We knew that the Republicans would have to come after King County because they would have to make the case that something very bad happened here, and it's just not true," said Kurt Triplett, chief of staff to County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat.
Huennekens said the integrity of elections doesn't depend on reconciling the numbers of ballots and credited voters, but instead rests on such "front-end" controls as maintaining security at polling places and verifying signatures on absentee ballots.
(Councilman, D-Seattle) Gossett said it was "demagogic" to crusade against voting by felons, who he said are disproportionately African American and who often don't have their voting rights restored because they are too poor to pay their legal debts.
Sorry for repeating some of what Stefan wrote about so well, but do these people hear what they are saying?
"Tough questions for elections chief as County Council looks into vote"
By Keith Ervin
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002180594_logan15m.html
Link at:
http://www.orbusmax.com/
There were 5,845 more ballots than voters in 1,318 precincts;
There were 3,751 more voters than ballots in 1,011 precincts;
There were a total of 9,596 discrepancies in 2,329 precincts.
I'll agree that the 9,596 figure is the true count of discrepencies, however I do wonder how the explanation that Logan gave figures into this. He said that if Voter Bob casts a provisional ballot at precinct A, but his real home precinct is precinct B, his vote will be added to the count for precinct B, not precinct A where it was actually cast. Seems very convoluted, but I do wonder if that is part of what lead to this huge discrepency of votes and voters.
Posted by: Jason on February 15, 2005 08:57 AMOf the "1800", 69 were 'hidden address' voters, and 251 'federal absentee ballot'. (I think those were the right numbers - they were in the presentation.)
So we should adjust our numbers appropriately to give the stronger rebuke:
Voters: "xxxx votes were unreconciled"
Logan: "Yeah, but that includes all the hidden address + federal..."
Voters: "No, it is ONLY the unreconciled voters."
Unbelievable!
Posted by: sgmmac on February 15, 2005 09:00 AMI would love to understand the details behind that statement. Even more, I would love to hear the justification for Logan and others to allow this culture to continue.
But really, no one should care about the details or the justification. Just about how to rectify the situation. By objective measure (voting errors), this culture appears to have grown up since 2000. So correcting it should be fairly straightforward using normal management techniques. Retraining and selective dismissal are the two primary tools. Retraining so people know what they should do. Selective dismissal to eliminate the leaders of the dysfunctional culture and provide an object example to everyone else.
Which means that it will never occur under Sims/Logan.
Posted by: iconoclast on February 15, 2005 09:04 AMMaybe instead of a new building, we need a 100% new elections staff.
Posted by: Jason on February 15, 2005 09:19 AMExcellent Point Jason.....Cheaper Too !!!
Posted by: Chris on February 15, 2005 09:23 AMThe Republicans' analysis said there were 5,845 more ballots than voters in 1,318 precincts and 3,751 more voters than ballots in 1,011 precincts, Vance said.
King County officials dismissed Vance's attack as an irresponsible attempt to undermine confidence in Democrat Christine Gregoire's 129-vote victory over Republican Dino Rossi in a manual recount after Rossi led in two earlier machine counts."
So that's it - using mathematics properly is an attack and an irresponsible attempt to undermine confidence.
Seems I read something about the quality of mathematics instruction in Washington state....and isn't this where Sims, Logan, and Huennekens were educated?
It's all coming together now.....
Posted by: Larry on February 15, 2005 09:32 AMMr. Ferguson,
I am not a resident of your district but I was watching the briefing and applaud/Thank you for your line of questioning in regards to the level of variances.
I believe that the number that King County Elections arrived at, approximately 1800+, is not a correct number. Netting out the number of ballots more than voters and voters more than ballots is incorrect. These are two entirely different problems/variances, and by combining them or netting them out, only leads to minimizing both of the problems that need to be addressed.
In fact one of the problems gets completely masked by the other. If it happened at the same polling place you might have a case for netting those out. In that case voters would get a ballot from the wrong precinct then the poll book they signed in. But when it happens at different polling places then they are two seperate problems entirely.
For example what if the number of ballots more then voters was 3,000 and number of voter more then ballots was 2980 in an election. But they all occurred at different polling places. You would get a net number of 20. Which looks really good on paper! In reality the number that should be reviewed in this scenario should be, or is more like, 5,980.
In my scenario where did the 3000 ballots go at various locations? And why did voters at other locations receive 2,980 more then actual voters. I am not asserting that in King County there was massive effort for ballot box stuffing or ballots being thrown out. But combining these numbers does not make sense. It only serves to mask a greater number that needs to be looked at carefully to determine what can be done to lessen both categories of irregularities when trying to present reasonable reforms.
I appreciate you following up on this and hope you continue to raise your concern for combining these two different numbers.
Vance stated, "You've got to add those numbers together, not subtract."
So if I live in precinct A but show up at precinct B and vote with a provisional ballot, according to Vance that counts as two discrepencies, when in actual fact it should amount to none.
Posted by: Daniel K on February 15, 2005 10:04 AMYour theory sounds wonderful. If in fact these provisional ballots were properly checked and accounted for, they would not result in discrepencies. Do you understand the problem now?
They would know who you are, that you are properly registered, that you live in precinct A and voted in precinct B. However, it has now been 3.5 months since the election and King County Elections Commission cannot straighten this out.
That means either:
1. They did not check the provisionals for validity nor properly account for them, or
2. The provisionals are not the cause of the discrepencies.
Either way it's a problem, yes?
Posted by: Larry on February 15, 2005 10:14 AMIt either is voter fraud or it isn't - as for proving it/incompetence by the King County Elections Board that is distributed and the addition of votes for the successive recounts among other malfeasances gives the results the appearance of fraud which appears to look more real every day. Voter fraud does not need to be committed by one person - it can be committed by a whole host of officials, etc. as it apparently was here. It was Distributed voter fraud - that's my claim and I'm sticking to it !
Posted by: KS on February 15, 2005 10:26 AMWould you be satisfied if you deposited your paycheck and a percentage of it just "went away" but the teller doesn't know why, the bank can't be responsible for tracking every single penny! The idea! We got MOST of it didn't we?
The more they heap on this pile of *$%#$# the more it smells like *@&#^%$, looks like *%^#(, and probably IS *(#%^#!
Posted by: Bill Burt on February 15, 2005 04:11 PMThe logical way to handle provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct would be to physically forward them to the right precinct, keeping transit longs to ensure everything goes where it should.
Even if this is not done, if there's a database that shows where people actually voted versus where they were registered to vote, this database would allow one to resolve any discrepancies that result from off-precinct provisional ballots, assuming that there were consistent procedures that were followed.
If neither of these things is being done, doing a meaningful audit is apt to be difficult; a cynical person might think that is by design. If the record-keeping is so sloppy that off-precinct provisionals get credited to different precinct from where the voter is credited with voting, without any record to reconcile them, the only way I can see to attempt to reconcile things would be to make a list of precincts that have moved, since that's the only "innocent" explanation I can see why many people would cast off-precinct ballots.
Posted by: supercat on February 15, 2005 04:11 PM