I've now put enough together on King County's story about the 1,800+ discrepancy between ballots and voters that I can call it what it is. It's past the point of routine spin control, it's a lie. It's a major league cover-up and it's a scandal.
The big lie that King County is telling, repeated most recently in last Friday's P-I article, is that this large discrepancy has nothing to do with the actual counting of the votes, it merely arose
in the labor-intensive "voter crediting" or "voter history" process that is done after election results already have been certified.Nonsense. Crediting is an integral part of the vote counting before certification (or at least it's supposed to be) and if there's a big discrepancy in the crediting, then it means there's a big error in the vote count.
The central fact is that crediting has to be done in the pre-certification counting in order to prevent duplicate absentee and provisional ballots from being counted. Three things tell me this: common sense, state law and people with inside knowledge of King County Elections who explained to me how the process works.
[NOTE: I posted an update on Wed. 2/23 8:30 am at the end of the entry, in order to address some questions raised in the initial comments]
Consider this simple scenario. Let's suppose you are a permanent absentee voter, but it's close to election day and you still haven't received your ballot. You still have two options for voting -- either obtain a replacement absentee ballot before the election, or vote a provisional ballot at the polling place. Then suppose the original absentee arrives in the mail on election day. What's to prevent you from casting both the original absentee ballot and the replacement/provisional ballot? More importantly, what if you mail in both the original and replacement absentee ballots and also cast a provisional ballot at your neighborhood polling place. What's to prevent your multiple ballots from being counted?
It's the real-time crediting of ballots to voters is what is supposed to prevent multiple votes from being counted.
Last months P-I also addresses this issue. It was reported that 3,500 voters were sent duplicate absentee ballots in error. County officials gave the reassuring explanation that "the county's election system does not allow more than one vote per person to be counted." In theory, yes. Because absentee ballots are supposed to be credited to the voter as they are processed and before the actual ballot is even removed from the outer envelope. The envelope barcode with identifying information is scanned, and if the voter is not yet credited, the envelope is sent along for further processing and the voter is credited. If the voter is already credited then the envelope is set aside unopened. Similarly, the provisional ballot envelopes should not be opened until after the absentee ballots are all examined and credited to the voters. If a provisional voter is already credited with voting, the provisional ballot is not counted. [ RCW 29A.44.090 and various WACs, including 434-240-250 address this issue as well ].
That's how the process is supposed to work. And if the procedure were implemented properly, every last absentee ballot would be properly credited, with perhaps a handful of exceptions, all of which would be properly documented. Somehow, though, I found a net 810 more absentee ballots counted than absentee voters identified. (This is after reconciling the 566 Larry Phillips ballots that were added in the manual recount). Even after subtracting the 320 federal write-in and confidentiality program voters, there are nearly 500 more absentee ballots counted than absentee voters credited. The insiders that I spoke with can think of no logical innocent explanation for this discrepancy and are not aware of any reconciliation reports that attempt to explain the discrepancy. The insiders also speculate that the people who work in the Mailing Ballot Operations Satellite facility (MBOS) could be in a position to toss in extra ballots into the mix in ways that are virtually undetectable, where the only trace would be an otherwise unexplainable discrepancy between ballots and voters.
Polling Place Ballots
The polling place ballots are an even weirder story. A voter can go into any polling place in the state and if it's not their proper home polling place, they can cast a provisional ballot that should be counted in their home precinct. If I tried to vote at a polling place in a different part of King County from where I live, say, Mercer Island, I would get a Mercer Island provisional ballot but my address information on the envelope would tell the canvass workers what precinct I'm registered in. They are supposed to "duplicate" my provisional ballot onto a ballot for my home precinct so that my ballot is counted with my own precinct and so that I don't cast a ballot that lets me vote in Mercer Island races for, say, state legislature. i.e. they manually fill out a new ballot from my home precinct, copying my votes for all the common races. The original provisional ballot should then be set aside and not counted.
The duplication process for provisional ballots is identified by insiders as the likely source of various errors. First, it is believed that not all provisional ballots that should have been duplicated were actually duplicated. This would increase the numbers of apparent voterless ballots and ballotless voters in some precincts without changing the net number of extra ballots. Whether the failure to duplicate some provisionals also permitted some voters to vote in, say, the wrong legislative races, is hard to say. Second, it's also believed possible that in some cases both the original provisional ballot AND the duplicated ballot could have been counted. This would certainly lead to extra unexplained ballots.
It should ideally also be the case that the polling place votes are all credited in the database, as are the absentee ballots, and to ensure that polling place voters don't cast one or more provisional ballots at other polling places. (Or that someone doesn't cast provisional ballots in the name of another voter). Insiders tell me that the crediting of poll books was also being performed before certification, by poorly trained temp workers who made gobs of mistakes. The numbers were known to be out of whack since November. At the end of the manual recount, there were about 1,600 more provisional and polling place ballots counted than voters counted. This includes the 300+ provisionals that are known to have been stuffed into the ballot machines before they were verified. Tim Borders, the named lead plaintiff in the election contest lawsuit and a Republican observer of the canvassing, posted a comment here recently to the effect that there may well be more than 300+ unverified provisionals, those were only the ones identified after King County examined selected precincts.
Whatever happened, whether it was sloppy crediting procedures, or inadequate security that permitted multiple uncreditable ballots to be cast, or both, the extra ballot numbers are tied to some physical reality but we may never know how to explain them. Certainly there's little reason to have confidence that we experienced a reliable and accurate counting of the legitimate ballots.
[I attempted, unsuccessfully, to get an official comment from King County Elections for this posting. Naturally, I welcome more detail from King County on ballot counting procedures and reconciliation reports, whether in response to my public records request or otherwise]
UPDATE 2/23 8:30am : To address confusion raised by some of the comments: there are in fact some post-certification activities related to crediting that are not directly related to the actual vote-count that one might call "file maintenance". That's presumably the thin justification for the election officials to rely on this excuse. For example, there are "courtesy credits" which are given to voters who submit a ballot that cannot be counted (postmarked too late, ballot not signed, etc.). This would be done after certification. Counties used to do this routinely before certain laws changed. King County did this while Bob Bruce was director, but not any longer. Some other WA counties still do this, e.g. Spokane. Second, depending on the technology used, the credits that are tabulated when counting the votes are sometimes kept in separate data files from the full voter registration records and are then added to the full registration database after certification. Not that that's a real excuse, because any interim files for vote counting should be retained any way, but rolling data from one file to another gives you the fig leaf of saying "file maintenance". But King County, insiders tell me, now uses an "all-in-one system", so this shouldn't be an issue. Finally, if you don't save the voter list from the election and then start cancelling the records of people who left the voter rolls during the vote-counting period, and then rely on the resultant file to count credits, you will also throw your numbers off.
So in that sense, yes, comparing the post-courtesy-credit/post-cancellation discrepancy with the election count discrepancy would be incommensurate. And I'm certain that's what former KC Elections director Bob Bruce was alluding to when he was quoted in the P-I. I know this, because Mr. Bruce explained this to me too. But that's beside the point here, because (a) again, King County does not issue "courtesy credits" any longer. (b) the file they issued on Dec. 27 did not incorporate any cancellations, (c) counties are required by law to keep a file of the cancelled voters anyway, so the full list of voters should and can be reconstructed to do a proper discrepancy count, (d) as reported in other posts, the counties are supposed to be creating and producing reconciliation documents. And for some reason King County has chosen not to show these to the Secretary of State or members of the County Council, among others.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 23, 2005 01:08 AM | Email ThisAnd this takes down all of Goldstein's surface analysis based on the PI article.
It's so obvious from these reconciliation discrepancies, hundreds of felons voting, abuse of self oriented assisted living dwellers, etc. that the election is far, far from any accurate or deterministic result.
This should be a pretty easy decision for Judge Bridges.
Throw it out.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 23, 2005 01:37 AMHmm. Well. Goldy just did a huge piece on this a few days ago with an opposite conclusion.
The two of you need to have a debate on the matter or a blog off. I don't know. But it doesn't look like you have addressed the analysis he put forth a few days ago, like two ships passing in the night.
With the filing Tuesday by the GOP indicating that 884 of at least 1108 felons that voted illegally did so in King County (note that is 80 percent of the felon vote in one county that has about 30 percent of the state's population); the totals of voterless ballots and ballotless voters; and everything else that has come out:
If this does not collectively end up rising above and beyond the level of reasonable proof required for the courts to set aside the 2004 third count for Gov, then it is hard to see how there would EVER by a practical way for the Election Contest statue to successfully be applied.
Reference:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/213202_governor23.html
Methow Ken
The olympian made special note as did the Demos that Gregoire was legit and rec'd a loud applause.
It's funny how the applause and the kegit thing have to pop-up in all of these press releases. It's as if media and the Demo's are in constant mode of convincing themselves that Gregoire actually got elected.
Posted by: flexnfx on February 23, 2005 02:09 AMGetting rid of these systems was the real reason behind the rise of the Republican party. One reason there used to be so many Conservative Democrats was that it was the only way to have a voice in the election process.
Another method of control over the election was the staight ticket lever. I remember these still in place in 1980 when I was growing up in N.C.
This is just like the idea of non-partisan elections. The switch to non-partisan offices in Portland has been one of the method of assuring complete control by Democrats.
Once voters are left with the choice of which kind of Democrat they are, the Republicans will become a dying breed as they were for generations in the now Solid GOP South.
Posted by: Ray J. Tuleya, Oregon on February 23, 2005 03:47 AMWhat's most funny, are these long winded 'dead end' doomsday soothsayers (Like Ray here) who (I think) are actually trying to 'sound' serious! [;-O [;-D
Where have you been the last 40 years, Ray!?
What's more, hang on, the next 40 are (obviously) going to blow your mind!
Hat tip and a wink!
Moderator: What about this ongoing concern that's described as a discrepancy between the number of voters and the number of votes cast? Is that a valid concern or a bit of a myth?
Reed: I think in the elections community it's a false concern, because the crediting of voters has been viewed as a seperate file-maintanence activity for the sake of voter reference, and not as an activity of the last election.
A nationally recognized authority on election administration and reform said it's a red herring, a flap over a postelection file-maintenance chore that has no bearing on the accuracy of the election returns. "It has nothing to do with the ballot-counting. It's a separate process"
Posted by: dpk on February 23, 2005 05:31 AMInstead, publish a false result, emphasize it with inflaming language ("cover up") and reiterate this as often as possible. This is how the right wing creates fear out of non-existent facts.
A previous example was all the FRAUD conclusions --- when push came to shove, and the lawsuit was filed, FRAUD was never in there? Why...because it NEVER existed.
But right wing lemmings repeated the claim TIME and TIME again trying to pretend that saying it often enough would make it true.
The right wing does this all the time (more than half of amercians think IRAQ was responsible for 9-11!)
This is scary. Repeating a lie, using strong languate and repeating it some more DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE.
Posted by: Franklin on February 23, 2005 06:07 AMWell excuse MEEEE!! There is something very basic in the above statement so elementary that I cant believe DPK or Reed even SEE.
Voter = Human Being.
Ballot= Paper used by VOTER to cast Choice.
If you dont have one, you cant have the other....Jeeeeezzz Do these people really think that the citizens of this state are that DUMB.
If I dont vote, you cant use me as a FILE MAINTENANCE ACTIVITY. But IF I DO VOTE, it still is not a "activity of the last election"??? What is wrong with this picture? Voters & Ballots are the only part of an ELECTION, without them, you have NO ELECTION.
Am I missing something here????
Posted by: Chris on February 23, 2005 06:40 AMThen you have felons (who broke the law or they would not be felons)
Then they voted illegally (which is also breaking the law)
And somehow Democrats think that they would answer honestly under oath? There is no way of checking their answers.
Snarkansky's misdirection and slight of hand has pulled the wool over your eyes (not your fault - he is very good at it) so that you can't SEE what the election officals clearly see - that the Snark has confltd two seperate processes so as to creat the illusion of error (for political purposes) and he hopes that by endlessly repeating it (even though he knows, or should know, by now it is false) others will ignore the clear statements of the election professionals to the contrary.
Here are other expamples for you:
Secretary of State Reed said he thinks most counties don't even calculate voter-crediting variances "because it's not particularly relevant to anything meaningful."
Bruce, who was King County elections superintendent and later the records and elections director for 13 years, until 2002, said that discrepancy wasn't even calculated when he was there because it wasn't necessary, and it "should not be an issue" now.
"We never bothered doing a comparison (of the variance with those of previous elections) because we never needed to," Bruce said. "But I would guess that it would probably have been about the same number" as the 2004 variance."
Posted by: dpk on February 23, 2005 07:03 AMApparently they are all satisfied that thousands of ballots can exist without voters. Yet we all know that if it were Bush winning by hundreds in a Republican county with the same patterns, Dan Rather and the commenters here would be all over it like white on rice.
To Franklin - the reason that fraud was not alleged is because it does not have to be. Fraud is a state of mind, which is difficult to prove, and doesn't need to be proven to get the election thrown out. Understand? I doubt it.
This is a cover-up by King County, pure and simple. They cannot reconcile the ballots, Dean Logan has already admitted neglect in at least twice as many ballots as the election was decided by, and all of us readers here are going to keep this hot on the front burner regardless of whether all you liberal kool-aid drinkers would like it to go away.
If Barbara Boxer can waste our money spewing filth in Congress about a 110,000-vote @ss-kicking in Ohio, then certainly we have every right to take our private time to keep this on page one. Get it through your thick skulls, we're not going away, and we're taking the state back from you pansy blue tree-huggers.
Posted by: Larry on February 23, 2005 07:09 AM0. I agree.. more pathetic every day (thanks to the postings like the original here).
1. Fraud WAS alleged. Vance and his lemmings repeated the accusations ad infinitum.
2. Fraud is a state of mind? Huh?
Try the dictionary defintion:
A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
UNLAWFUL = ILLEGAL. Frame of mind? You've got to be kidding.
Lynn.
Posted by: Lynn on February 23, 2005 07:36 AMWell I am glad you considered what I SAID in my previous post. You obviously only believe what you read yourself. I THINK FOR MYSELF. (Although Stefan has done alot of research, and alot of work, and deserves credit for it)
I know it takes a VOTER and a BALLOT to get an election result. I dont give a DAMN about how or what they reconcile. If you have more BALLOTS counted, than Voters Voting, there is a problem somewhere.
Let's take it a bit further.....Why is the importance placed on File Maintenance Activity? What are they maintaining in the files, they obviously dont check to see if the voter voted? But yet Reed states they USE this information to provide "party" (i can see where the priorities are) with info on our Voting Practices? Which is more important, providing other parties with my voting regularity???
Come on DPK, something is fishy. I voted, and they cant tell me if it counted, or counted twice? If they reconciled the precints, why cant they just add them all up or is that what the 1800 reflects.
I am not an attorney, but I do like numbers, and for REED to say that it(voter/ballot) doesnt have any thing to with the Nov. Election is in CG's words LUDICRUOUS....
Posted by: Chris on February 23, 2005 07:43 AMBack in November, I was pretty sure there was fraud and/or gross negligence going on in King County, and I posted as much on my blog. This was due in part to the circumstances, and in part to my having lived in and near King County for the last 25 years (and followed local politics).
Then when the dems put up $750,000 (which was only to be refunded if the outcome changed), that sealed it for me. Once they had $750,000 on the line, it was a sure thing that they were going to MAKE SURE that they got that $750,000 back.
It's been nice to see someone dig deep and actually come up with some pretty solid evidence which proves what I think we all have suspected for a long time, and I (and every other person for FAIR, HONEST, and OPEN elections in the State) am very grateful. Thanks Stefan!
Posted by: Scott on February 23, 2005 07:45 AMSS in particular and some who comment on SP insists on conflating two separate processes to create the illusion of error. I say this with confidence because the people who manager the election, including the Republican Secretary of State, have repeatedly said it:
Secretary of State Reed said he thinks most counties don't even calculate voter-crediting variances "because it's not particularly relevant to anything meaningful."
When asked about the ongoing concern that's described as a discrepancy between the number of voters and the number of votes cast, Reed said, I think in the elections community it's a false concern, because the crediting of voters has been viewed as a separate file-maintenance activity for the sake of voter reference, and not as an activity of the last election.
You are being offered a false premise by the Snark because it is an easy opportunity for slight of hand and creates the illusion of error. The illusion is simple and attractive while the truth is complex. Snark hopes to inflame the passions of the SP population with his slight of hand. You guys shouldn't let him get away with it. It demeans you.
Posted by: dpk on February 23, 2005 07:51 AMNumber of Voters that Voted = _______
Number of Ballots Cast = _______
They should match PERIOD.
Sorry Stefan, but I though this one up on my own....
What is it with calling Stefan Sharkansky 'the Snark?' If we are going to have a civil debate on the matter of voting irregularities then using disparaging sobriquets are counter productive since they can arouse ire and just bring the level of discourse down to the gutter.
Do you have a rebuttal??? you seem to know the defination to terms, but how about my post?
BTW-Do you really believe everthing the SOS, LOGAN, and other Elected officials Say??? I always try and keep an open mind, when listening to politicians talk. They have agenda's, and they are usually for their OWN GAIN.
Posted by: Chris on February 23, 2005 08:15 AMOr, are you saying there is some mechanism other than vote crediting that is used to prevent multiple votes being counted for the same voter?
Posted by: Patrick on February 23, 2005 08:20 AMA Big thanks for your efforts here! You got em on the run! And you keep them looking over their shoulder, as should be the case! And will be the case in court.
Posted by: GS on February 23, 2005 08:29 AMIn more civilized times, an election with similar questions would be examined and reported on by the local MSM in detail - recall how several news organs jointly recounted the 2000 Florida election.
In these times, reading the MSM mostly results in quotes from authority figures that everything went fine and there's nothing to be gained by rigorous examination and the election was 99 and 44/100 percent pure - just like Ivory Soap. The MSM, for whatever reasons, refuses to pursue the questions that should be answered to an informed electorate.
Hence Stefan's voluntary labors must be credited as an invaluable public service. His work, combined with the discovery process ongoing in the election challenge before Judge Bridges, will furnish the electorate with far more information than the State or County election boards ever counted on surfacing. And some authoritative gasbags may have to eat their soothing words in praise of a distorted election process.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on February 23, 2005 08:55 AM"Truth is complex"?
Huh?
Aahhhhhhh!!!!
Nuance, says he. All has become clear. Clouded in its clarity.
The blind and those with eyes wide shut, what a combination!
Posted by: Jericho on February 23, 2005 09:09 AMConsequently, those of us who believe in having honest elections, Rs and Ds alike, are simply insisting that an honest accounting of the voters casting ballots and actual ballots cast MUST be part of the process before certification for all of the obvious reasons already stated.
I suppose you would also support the idea that the bank teller who took your deposit does not need to balance out at the end of the day, perhaps pocketing your deposit instead of putting it into your account. After all, balancing is a "false concern" because it is just an after-the-fact file maintenance activity, right?
Sam did not do his job properly...so why quote him?
He should have expected more from his counties in the beginning and certified the election after ALL counties reconciled....Then and only then. Maintenance up-front prevents chaos in the end. Sam failed to do the necessary maintenance work.
He should not be quoted as an authority.
File Maintenance Activity has a new meaning. It is where Illegal Votes count toward an election, where there is no actual Accountablity of the Ballots cast matching the Voter whom cast it.
WOW Just think DPK, is this how REED wants his "legacy" to be? Maybe someone should ask him if HIS VOTE counted, and can he verify that it did?
How about those 700+ ballots they found that "DIDNT" get counted (1st count), where did they come from? Did they have a precint to match with? Did the precint match up? Do they really know? Did those 700+ ballots cancel out other vote perhaps, or did it just add to the 1800+ ballots WITHOUT a voter.
These are legitimate questions, that have answers, but no one is WILLING (in public office) to answer them honestly and forthrightly. That is the problem here, too much rear covering going on.
Yes, and those who are relying on Goldstein's dismissal of the enormous amount of work that Stefan has done to arrive at these conclusions should note that Goldstein has only latched on to everything that Stefan is reporting in a defensive, dismissive way.
You won't find Goldstein pouring through the voter record files, counting and trying to make sense of why it does not add up, and trying to uncover the actual process that happened inside KC elections. Goldstein's comments are based on an interview with one person inside KC elections who is quite sympathetic to Goldstein's opinion.
Throughout this whole mess, Republicans have primarily been concerened with getting to the bottom of of an obviously flawed election. Republicans know that a new election would be a chance to set the record straight and would give Gregoire a good chance of getting elected with a real mandate. Regardless of what has happened with the election, many Democrats out there still agree with her ideas.
Democrats on the other hand simply want to sweep this under the rug and do anything to preserve a Gregoire win. There is almost no acknowledgement of the obvious flaws in the election, and no contrite response to common sense reforms.
The average moderate rational Washingtonion has every reason to believe Stefan's work over the cursory dismissals of the liberal bloggers and the MSM.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 23, 2005 09:31 AMThat Statement alone Jeff, is the REASON we trust Stefan's Work.
The laxydaisy attitude of the D's and MSM have alerted the average rational Washintonian to this issue, and their actions or the lack thereof smells funny.
Posted by: Chris on February 23, 2005 09:41 AMIs there any evidence that some of the ballots that were "found" late in the recount were due to the provisionals where people voted at the wrong precinct?
Posted by: VaCSProf on February 23, 2005 09:49 AMHere's a tip I thought you might want to track down since you are against voting by mail...
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20050223/topstories/93345.shtml
Looks like Bob. T. of SnoCo wants everyone to vote that way! P.S. also tipped off T. Goddard
Posted by: CR ACTIVIST on February 23, 2005 09:55 AMI believe it's time to to speak the word.
Posted by: Ken Muller on February 23, 2005 10:34 AMWith all due respect, I'll be telling the "elections community" what they should be concerned about, not the other way around.
Posted by: South County on February 23, 2005 10:34 AMWake up Rip Van Winkle. Gregoire did actually get elected. You can verify by contacting her at her new address: Governor Christine Gregoire, Office of the Governor, PO Box 40002, Olympia, WA 98504-0002
Jeff B, wrote, "There is almost no acknowledgement [by Democrats] of the obvious flaws in the election"
There is an acknowledgement of election flaws and the need for election reform. But, there is disagreement that the flaws uncovered constitute fraud. Stefan provides a nice write up, and describes numerous issues, but it is a big leap for him to preface it with the words "cover up" and "scandal", and his thesis does not demonstrate that.
Posted by: Daniel K on February 23, 2005 10:44 AMNumber of Voters that Voted = _______
Number of Ballots Cast = _______
These numbers must match. This is common sense and is the only fair thing for the voters.
DanielK, dpk, headless, etc. can blow as much hot air as they want to, but they're trying to ask people to ignore their common sense, and that's not going to work.
Posted by: Bostonian on February 23, 2005 10:48 AMExplain to me why a majority of Democrat legislators are against the kind of meaningful reforms that would actually assure that this does not happen again? Purge the voter rolls every few years, require ID at the polls, color coding of provisionals, more oversight, required reconciliation of results *before* certification, etc.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 23, 2005 10:55 AMImagine you have a parking lot full of cars that need to be moved. You move all the cars you can, but in the end realize that you have 10 cars for which you can not find the keys, and you also have 7 sets of keys which don't fit any of the cars. Most reasonable people would say those are two seperate discrepancies. However King County is aggregating them, saying that 10 more cars than keys, and 7 more keys than cars results in a net discrepancy of 3 cars without keys. But you can't aggregate that way if the extra keys don't fit the extra cars.
If precinct A and B are at different polling locations, and A ends up with 10 more ballots than voters, and B ends up with 7 more voters than ballots, how can you possible aggregate those numbers to claim that the final discrepancy is only 3 more ballots than voters? It's not like the 7 voters at precinct B magically had their ballots deposited at precinct A.
Who knows, maybe the answer to this and other questions are in that Big Binder that's been discussed lately. I know that FOIA requests need to be specific in nature, so I don't know how well it would go over if someone requested "All the Big Binders" from KC elections.
Posted by: Jason on February 23, 2005 10:58 AMThe legislators I've been in contact regarding election reform are for meaningful reform. What you believe is meaningful and what I believe is meaningful may differ. Purging voter rolls is not going to solve the problem and will cause far more. I agree on the ID at polls, and agree that needs to be strongly enforced. Measures have already be taken to ensure provisional ballots cannot be fed into optical scanners, I agree, using a differentiated ballot would be a further safeguard. More oversight is vague. There was a tremendous amount of oversight by poll watchers and that didn't do enough. Better access by voters to their voting info would be good - a publicly accessible database so the Stefans of the world don't have to try to gather data and reconcile data in an external database.
Finally, let's admit that accuracy trumps timeliness and to get accuracy we have to accept it will delay certification. Too many people believe we need to know the results the night of the election. They want to eliminate mail in ballots or ask those people to vote many days before the election so the votes can be counted quicker. We should care more about accuracy, and less about speed.
Haste makes waste, and in this case haste probably caused a lot of the errors.
Posted by: Daniel K on February 23, 2005 11:20 AM"There was a tremendous amount of oversight by poll watchers and that didn't do enough". That's an irresponsible use of adjectives. Even 'tremendous amounts' are laughable when the overseers can't get close enough to the process to see the details - as occurred in King and other counties, per testimony on this blog.
"accuracy trumps timeliness and to get accuracy we have to accept it will delay certification".
Er, no. King County should not be allowed to get away with such unrigorous procedures that nine separate batches of surprise ballots turn up in the month following the election, or votes misbalance voters by 1800. Existing laws specifying election procedures need to be enforced. Some jail time for election executives would improve performance marvellously. If necessary, voters disenfranchised by such lax practices should sue those Records and Elections executives personally, for malfeasance of Enron proportions.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on February 23, 2005 11:48 AMLook around at some of the other legislators and what they are saying. Many are against even some of the reforms that you say you are for.
And your true colors show when you are against purging the voter rolls. At bare minimum, we need to do this at least once to purge all of the obvious problem voters that we've already uncovered in the spotlight on this past election. To be against this is to be fine with sources of error in our process.
So if you are for these reforms going forward, why should we allow all of these same abuses to have rendered the result of this past election indeterminate? Nothing is set in stone and that is why we have an election contest statute. So why aren't you for bringing all of the problems under the microscope to both decide whether we had a result that was accurate enough to declare a winner and to learn from the problems to make our elections better in the future?
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 23, 2005 11:57 AMHOWEVER....this doesn't mean that there wasn't even more problems WITHIN a specific precindt. That is...within a precindt there could be ballotbox stuffing and unstuffing that nets out to zero in a specific precindt. In someways, Stefan's reconciliation is THE MINIMUM reconciliation problem.
Perhaps Goldy will soon have another BIG BINDER to scare us with!! I keep having these horror movie visions of the 3-story tall BIG BINDER with firey eyes, Pinocchio nose and Dumbo ears staggering thru downtown Seattle looking for us right-wing bloggers to dump on.
Watch out for Goldy-locks and the 3 BIG BINDERS...yes Goldy, you are well-known for telling fairytales!!!!!!!!!
During the course of the interview he would ask the the question, "if you had 10 precincts with with 80,000 ballots each, how many total ballots would there be?".
After listening to several candidates answer the question correctly, he asked the final candidate this same question. The individual thought about it for a minute and responded, "How many would you want there to be?".
The last candidate was immediately offered the position.
Posted by: jaybo on February 23, 2005 01:15 PMJudge Bridges will probably not ask the plantiff to prove the unprovable like the Pro-Luda-chris forces, Berendt and their ilk would hope for. There is such a thing as collateral damage that will take shape in the way of a house cleaning in the Legislature in the Nov. 2006 elections. Meanwhile, the wheels of justice turn.
Posted by: KS on February 23, 2005 01:40 PM"Secretary of State Sam Reed, Logan's former boss and still a fan, defended King County in recent weeks. But yesterday he said he was deeply concerned about what he termed serious problems.
"I think unfortunately it reflects the fact that this is a county that has had some real problems with its election operations for years," Reed said. "The problems in King County aren't problems of lack of good policy or lack of guidelines. It's a problem with execution."
LOGAN (same article)
The embattled Logan hopes that admitting the errors and trying to fix the problem, even at this late date, will help calm voters' fears.
"It is more important that the errors get corrected than we save face," he said.
Singing a Different Tune these days....
Posted by: Chris on February 23, 2005 01:54 PMWhen I first started voting many years ago (you had to be 21, not 18, so that dates me somewhat), I worked at my precinct to count votes. We did it manually, with three people tallying the count. All three people had to agree, and the count had to match the number of people voting.
It seems to me that if we had small precincts, and manual counts along the lines I have just described, we would have less voter fraud and ballot stuffing than we have had in King Count (how about Cook county, Il,?), and thus, more reliable election results.
But then, what Democrap wants honest election results?
He seems to know more about what's going on down there than THEY claim to.
Way to go, Stefan, for calling it what it is.
Posted by: Michele S on February 23, 2005 06:47 PMJust look at the many trolls posting in this thread alone!
Just because the Democrat machine keeps repeating the same lies - it doesn't make them true. Yet, they continue to spin and spin the numbers, the process, the final counts, etc....trying to make the people of this state too dizzy to make sense of it!
It ain't going to happen this time! In fact - the more the Dems resist telling the truth - the more *The People* talk about splitting the state, the county, true reform and government accountability! (Oh...and of course..the revote!)
Posted by: Deborah on February 23, 2005 07:58 PMIrregular votes (votes that may be judged illegal)
- (348) Votes counted without verifying registration
- Votes from the mentally and physically impaired totally incapable of voting. Possibly cast by care givers allowing the hiding of double or more voting.
- (12,328) Votes added to a pre-existing count
- (500 and counting) Voters deliberately mis-stating public buildings as residential and mailing addresses
- Genderless voters
- Voters registered after the election
(about 13,000 votes)
Suspect voting
- (1512) Signed in voters without a resulting ballot of any type
- Registered voters not being counted
- (400) Violation of a court order in canvasing for ballot signature matches
- (710)Enhancement of ballots
- Military votes not being counted.
(about 2700 votes)
Thats a total of at least 25000.
Now over 25000 votes missing or illegal amounts to a preponderance of evidence. What happens when voting records are purged and it is discovered the true number of illegal voters. We may find over a hundred thousand less registered voters the next time around. A comparison of how many of them voted in this election and where they are r3egistered at will be very interesting reading.
Now lets get personal with this. Pick an area in this state, a county even. Someplace you can feel empathy for where all the votes in it were not counted or were invalidated by the errors and illegality above. Here is the list of disenfranchised counties @25000 or less.
Adams
Asotin
Chelan
Clallam
Columbia
Douglas
Ferry
Franklin
Garfield
Grant
Grays Harbor
Jefferson
Kittitas
Klickitat
Lincoln
Mason
Okanogan
Pacific
Pend Oreille
San Juan
Skagit
Skamania
Stevens
Wahkiakum
Walla Walla
Whitman
I'm sorry for those who feel this case is without merit. I feel sorry for the politically blind out there from either party. But, with 2/3's of the counties in our state standing to be individually disenfranchised this really hits home. This isn't about a .2% 0r .02% error rate. This is about upholding the law first and the stupidity, incompetence, and possible illegality of what led to a .89% error rate comes in second. They say the liar proclaims innocence the loudest. If that is the case is it the shame you feel that makes you argue against an honorable effort? Support an annulment which will force a revote, rally for your party to spice it up, watch like a hawk the results and counting to make it fair, and embrace the legitamacy to wipe away the stain of what we are being forced under. I cannot answer for a lawyer when he fails to make the perfectly valid claim of fraud, maybe he will let the judge state it by preponderance of evidence. Legal strategy, go figure. All I know is this election should not have been certified. The state admits they didn't certify it properly, and the counties which failed in the certification process may claim innocence but they still give out the factual evidence of their guilt. These are hard facts here. Dispute the truth of hard facts and and your left with lying about the results you receive. Why would you do that? What is your motive?
Posted by: Mark Beyer on February 23, 2005 09:01 PM(and don't forget the 55,000 "permanently enhanced" ballots...)
IF King County works the way outlined, I can get my absentee and send it in. (One fully legal vote.)
Then I go to 'my' polling place and say "I haven't mailed it." Perfectly true - my wife did. I get a provisional ballot and fill it in perfectly legally - it should NEVER become a vote, so it isn't vote fraud. But it's a vote.
But wait, I walk up the street and fill out a second provisional. there's nothing stopping that _either_. I could theoretically manage 1 per precinct without alerting any poll workers by asking the same person for a provisional twice.
Great - 2600 votes by an individual and NOT ONE FREAKING CRIME.