Here are some files from the King County archives that illustrate how different the situation with provisional ballots was in 2004 vs. the 3 general elections before Dean Logan came on board.
1) "Special Ballot Summary Reports" (provisional ballots used to be called "special ballots") that the Elections Office prepared for the canvassing board for the general elections of 2000, 2001 and 2002.
2) The Provisional Ballot Summary Report for 2004
In all fairness, the number of provisional/special ballots nearly doubled from about 17,000 in 2000 to nearly 33,000 in 2004. (The off-year elections had much smaller numbers). So one could anticipate a higher number of irregularities. Nevertheless, there appears to be a disproportionate increase in successful and attempted (distributed) fraud, polling place problems and also a lack of infrastructure in the home office to deal with the provisionals. The 2004 report appears to be designed to cover up as much of this as possible.
Here are some of the more interesting findings --
A) The number of special/provisional ballots identified as going through the Accuvote--
2000 - 1
2001 - 0
2002 - 9
2004 - The report doesn't even say. 660 have since been admitted, but the true number appears to be closer to 900, or somewhere between 2% - 3% of all provisionals processed.
B) The percentage of special/provisional ballots that were rejected because the voter also cast a mail-in ballot --
2000 - 0.3%
2001 - 0.6%
2002 - 0.4%
2004 - 0.9%
[pop quiz: how did the elections office discover that the provisional voters had also sent in a mail-in ballot?
hint: the mail-in ballots are credited to the voters before they're counted in order to prevent vote fraud. But please don't mention this to any of the lunatic-fringe bloggers, otherwise you might hurt their feelings]
C) One other very interesting observation. The 2000,2001 and 2002 reports were prepared for the canvassing board for the certification meeting. The 2004 report, produced in response to a records request, was revised in January 2005, two months after the first certification [says 2004 by mistake]. I'm still hoping to get a copy of the pre-certification report, assuming there even was one.
D) The 2000 - 2002 reports all say "Total Special Ballots Issued". The 2004 report says "Total Provisional Ballots Processed". I'll bet this is a fudge to hide the number of issued Provisionals that went into the Accuvote. "Processed" seems to include only the ones that went into the side pockets of the machines in their proper envelopes. It would be interesting to see a more thorough accounting of the provisional ballots issued in 2004.
E) The number of 2004 Valid Ballots is given as 28,010. In the first count, the number of "Add-on" ballots counted was 28,433. In the machine recount that number increased to 28,538. In the manual recount the total number of "Add-on" and Polling Ballots increased by another 31. Bear in mind that the "Add-on" number in the canvass appears to include both provisionals and the real "add-ons" which I explained earlier. The best number I can estimate for add-ons is 462. Even if my estimate is imperfect, there are still unexplained discrepancies in the number of provisionals in the various recounts and in this report.
F) Finally, this Excel spreadsheet which was compiled by the Secretary of State's Office and delivered to the federal government in compliance with HAVA, asserts that the number of provisional ballots in King County was 27,641.
I'm sure there's a good explanation for all of this.
[thanks to Bob Williams of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation for providing the 2004 Provisional report and the Secretary of State's spreadsheet]
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 17, 2005 01:01 AM | Email ThisThey tried the 're-counts option' only to realize that they had not planned on such a large turn out. (i.e. they hadn't falsified enough ballots!)
Don't you HATE when that happens!!
CALL KINKO'S IN TEXAS!!
They 'rushed' into production, the 'Magical Mystery Ballots', which could be 'FOUND' just in time to count and, what do you know, STEAL the election.
I am surprised it is this obvious.
The DNC is getting sloppy. (Hilary must have been busy re-inventing herself)
They used to steal elections flawlessly.
Shouldn't somebody who has so many protests of the election laws at least have enough common sense to KNOW said laws before he protests them?
Soon Rossi's erroneous list of voters will prove greater in numbers than those which he professes to have been illegal.
Follow a dimwit and you all continue to look like dimwits.
Posted by: King County is the only one that matters on March 17, 2005 05:06 AMTalk like one and...?
Posted by: South County on March 17, 2005 05:38 AMMs KING COUNTY IS THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS.
** !! DIM WIT ALERT !! **
Posted by: budster on March 17, 2005 05:56 AMThe provisoinal ballot issue and ballot enhancement (such a nice word) is where the dems and MSM really fear the light of day. It is certinly the most complex part of this and most casual observers do not understand it.
Bringing the porvisional issue to the front is the real challenge. It's hard to read the facts and not come to conclude that this election was stolen.
I think you assume to much to believe that the canvassing board wanted to certify the election honestly.
The canvassing board was out canvassing the warehouses, offices, and even the empty polling machines so that they could count every vote! They found 22 more of them in the polling machines, which were suppossed to be empty.
Those deviants in charge of elections up there have been doing every possible spin job, statistics are funny things, you can spin them to prove whatever you want by picking and choosing which categories to look at and compare.
They have been doing it for months with the votes counted and voters credited. I don't give a damn who or how many are credited with voting. I want to know how many VOTED and how many votes counted!
The rules changed early in the counting for ballot enhancement. It was the clerks doing it and they were probably doing too good of a job and the XAG wasn't getting enough votes, so the canvassing board took over the job! How else can a vote for Christine Rossi count for her? It should have went into a garbage can!
Posted by: sgmmac on March 17, 2005 06:38 AMI've thought the same thing all along. If KCEC only followed the SOS recommendations, Rossi would be Governor. There was a simple and cost-effective solution for the provisional ballots - color-code them! How easy is that?
Neglect:
1 : to give little attention or respect to
2 : to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness
Seems to me it would be a slam-dunk to prove neglect by KCEC in a court of law - and that neglect disenfranchised me and you and thousands of others, which is a violation of Equal Protection.
Posted by: Larry on March 17, 2005 07:12 AMIf you read the recommendations on page 48 of the King County Citizens Election Oversight Committee May 2004 Report advising King County on its election process, you will see a series of recommendations regarding provisional ballots (which the Committee was very concerned about)
http://www.metrokc.gov/mkcc/docs/CEOC_report.pdf
Recommendations:
• Review the reasons provisional ballots are issued and note any cost effective steps that can be taken to reduce their number – such as timely processing of voter registration and early voter registration drives – without interfering with a citizen’s right to vote.
• Estimate the number of provisional ballots that will be returned during the 2004 presidential election and person hours required to process them to ensure adequate staffing.
• Consider establishing a position of provisional ballot judge for general elections in high turnout polling places.
• During the canvass process, track the number of provisional ballots counted by poll machines each election.
• Determine provisional ballots counted by poll machines during the canvass process and subtract from machine totals
• Track the error rate and if significant, implement procedural and/or technical changes to reduce errors.
• Consider strategies – such as color coding ballots – so that they can be identified more easily during canvass.
Gosh, if this May 2004 report weren't so many months ahead of the November election, one could accuse the Committee of Monday morning quarterbacking. Was the problem really this obvious this many months in advance?
I guess, then that the reason for the problems were that officials intentionally ignored the problem for some partisan reason.
Posted by: Bob on March 17, 2005 07:14 AMI hate those hippes with every bone in my body.
Posted by: dpmiv on March 17, 2005 07:16 AMIs that enough to raise an eyebrow...
You could show any reasonable person the Election Oversight Committees reccomendations pre 2004 election then show these provisional results and they would be able to hold the right person accountable!
Instead TALK SHOW RADIO HOSTS AND A HUMAN PROCESS!!!
WHAT A JOKE FOLKS...
https://tips.fbi.gov/
If enough of us do that it may at least get their attention. We need to do something.
I submitted a tip and they called me back the same day. I doubt they will do anything on just one request, but it looks like they have to respond to every tip submitted in a timely fashion. If they get hundreds of requests for them to get involved I think they would look into it just to shut us up.
Has anyone else submitted a tip?
So, sometime later they seem to have added 369 provisional ballots to the vote tabulation process. Note that their total ballots counted went up by 336 from the initial certification to the first recount. Could some of those provisional ballots have been added to the first recount?
This belated January report replaces some previous "final report" that probably contained the total numbers in that public release of 17 November 2004.
Note that the difference between ballots "issued" in the Nov. 17th report and ballots "processed" in the January report is an addition of 1451 ballots. I wonder if there is any explanation for this increase from 31,545 "issued" to 32,996 "processed." If they claim to have received that many from other counties, when did they receive them and from which counties? (It would be interesting to see if those other counties have any record of having sent a certain number of provisional ballots to King County.)
Ok fine Docbenton so only 800 felons voted illegally... it's ok right?
Posted by: Joe on March 17, 2005 08:40 AMMy list of questions:
1) Are you the slightest bit concerned about 1100 non-reinstated felon votes as documented by County records?
2) Are you the slightest bit concerned about precincts with 15% more votes credited than polling place ballots issued? (Bothell)
Posted by: Al on March 17, 2005 09:27 AMHey doc...any comment on the revelation that hundreds of ineligible felons voted, and there's no mechanism in place to prevent it?
Posted by: South County on March 17, 2005 09:51 AMMy count shows that the 348 pbav were included within the 660 "adjusted #'s" in the reconciliation spreadshete, so the maximum number of provisionals fed thru the accuvote is 660 and not the 900+ that you claim.
I agree that even the 660 is disturbingly large, given that King County was on notice about this problem and had specifically trained all election workers about how to treat the provisionals. I do think the large increase in provisionals probably overwhelmed the election workers.
These problems were spread throughout the county. In Beacon Towers, the Notes show that 2 lawyers and 7 poll watchers were there thru-out the day, yet at least 13 (possibly 16) provisionals (pbav's), were fed thru the accuvote machine, which also malfunctioned. Similarly suburban Bothell had provisional problems.
So far there is no evidence of "fraud" by either voters or election workers. While some voters who fed their provisional's thru the accuvote might have done so knowing they were not qualified voters rather than simple mistake, there is no evidence of that. In any case, whether they committed "fraud" for Bush or Kerry can never be known. All other cases were just mistakes, and based on the 348 pbav, some 75% to 85% were qualified voters (depending on which figures you use).
Whether any of these "improper" provisionals will help the election contest is legally more iffy than the already iffy illegal felon votes. You first have to show misconduct or neglect, and despite all your handwaving about this, King probably did take reasonable steps to try to deal with the forseeable provisional problems. Those attempts failed, but 660 is not an outrageous failure.
Moreover, how you would attempt to prove that the 660 changed the outcome of the election is much more speculative. If you assume fraud then for who? If you assume mistake, then do you have to estimate how many were valid? How do you estimate who they voted for? Do you know their sex, race, age, or where they lived? You know that for felons.
Chew what were the resonable steps? Please tell me I'd love to hear it.
Also 660 is an outrageous failure when you could have made "reasonable steps" to prevent ALL 660.
I would have agreed with you if you said 6 is not an outradeous failure.
CHEW you are in denial!!!!!!
They only admitted the error after they got called out on it. The lying and covering up didn't work.
Posted by: Steven on March 17, 2005 10:06 AMWe will never really know the last percentage but I can venture a guess that it is less then 70%. Just by the nature of how they were handled makes you wonder how qualified they really were!
And none of this seems to bother you... Strange
Posted by: Joe on March 17, 2005 10:13 AMThe same reasonable steps the GOP took in calculating the felon vote. HaHaHaHa!!!
After 3 months of research the GOP list of felons wrongly includes at least 167 juvenile offenders who were not disqualified from voting. The fact they were juvenile offenders was noted on the State Patrol database, yet they were still included. How could the GOP be that stupid? Probably because they didn't know the law, or hadn't instructed their workers correctly.
In contrast, all King County election workers (those 4000 little old ladies) were trained to require provisional voters to return those ballots to them. This was the same training most other counties did. They did nothing more than King. King just had more aggressive provisional voters than other counties. Should King have done more. In retrospect, yes. But the court won't look in retrtospect, it will have to see what was reasonable to do at the time.
Posted by: chew2 on March 17, 2005 10:13 AMYou claim that you have been able to figure out that all the 348 "PBAVs" reported in January by King County are included in the 660 "Adjusted #" provisional ballots belatedly and begrudgingly admitted by King County as having been unlawfully inserted into the ballot box via the AccuVote machines at the polling places.
I don't think you have been able to do any such thing.
Even Logan the so-called expert only claims that there is "some overlap" between the 660 and 348 numbers. Yet you claim to have figured out that there is a complete overlap -- that is, all the 348 are included within the 660, not just some of them.
Show me.
Posted by: Micajah on March 17, 2005 10:27 AMChew,
You do realize calculating felons who voted and preventing loopholes pre-election are two very different issues. Right??? One holds a slightly higher responsibility then the other.
So training is your answer to reasonable steps?
How about the reasonable step of closing the loophole completely?
Clearly marked information that one can't see is hardly an issue.
Posted by: Al on March 17, 2005 11:03 AMLet me make my claim more precise. The vast majority if not all the 348 pbav are incluced in the 660. Do you dispute that, if so explain to me why. I've asked both you and stefan to explain why that is not the case.
If you look at the reconciliation spreadsheet, you will see that nearly every time pbav's are counted a nearly equivalent number of "adjusted #'s" are counted. This indicates that the "adjusted #'s" and pbav's all come from the same universe of "no labels" found by the reconciliation teams. The numbers may be off a little, but that's probably because different counters worked on each. If the pbav's were drawn from a different set of data than the the 660 adjusted #'s (no labels) then you would expect to see at least some precinct's showing pbav's, but showing no adjusted #'s or at least a much smaller number of adjusted #'s. From my inspection of the reconciliation spreadsheet, this does not appear to have occurred. Of course, I could have missed something. On the other hand, there are many precincts with no pbav's listed, but which show adjusted #'s (no labels). These are the cases of "no labels" which were not noted at the time by the election workers in the precinct Notes.
The Summary Notes to the Reconciliation make this clear in the Clark Elementary case.
"Clark Elementary – this is an example of a situation where there was confirmation from a poll worker that provisional ballots went through the Accuvote machine. In this instance, the number is represented in the “PBAV column” and then in the “Adjusted #” column so that the adjusted reconciliation for the polling location indicates a net difference of 0."
This shows (to me at least) that in preparing the reconciliation spreadsheet, the preparers carried over the pbav's to the adjusted # column from which the larger 660 figure comes.
Posted by: chew2 on March 17, 2005 11:24 AMYou apparently haven't visited "Croker Sack" recently. If you had, you would know that I have not claimed to have figured out the reconciliation summary released by King County. Instead, I've made available what I have figured out so far.
You, on the other hand, claimed that you did figure it out -- but now retract that claim.(Hint: Get yourself a free blogspot blog and start sharing your thoughts rather than making claims you have to retract later.)
You don't have to go far in the reconciliation summary to see that your initial claim to have figured out that all 348 are included in the 660 was false.
Look on page one of the reconciliation summary.
Aki Kurose Middle School polling place: 6 PBAV indicating that these 6 are part of the 348; no "Adjusted #" indicating that these 6 are NOT part of the 660.
Look on page two of the summary.
Arrowhead School polling place: 1 PBAV indicating that this 1 is part of the 348; no "Adjusted #" indicating that this 1 is NOT part of the 660.
If I can figure out what the canvassing crew was doing and then figure out how the summary and notes document what they did, I'll post it at Croker Sack -- just as I have posted my analysis of the Bothell Regional Library polling place.
Bothell clearly represents provisional ballots which went through the AccuVote machine, but which were not reported in early January as part of the 348. All 31 "no labels" were included in the "adjusted #" column -- which totals 660 for the county. One ballot of unknown origin resulted in a +1 "net difference" for the polling place -- which totals 216 for the county. All 32 ballots were in addition to the 348 reported in January -- not even one PBAV was reported from this polling place.
Now, I'm trying to figure out how to determine how many of those 348 are included in the 660.
Posted by: Micajah on March 17, 2005 12:27 PMYou said:
I thought there was a ruling to the effect that they could _not_ have access and had to rely on publicly available information?
Clearly marked information that one can't see is hardly an issue."
Yes they did.
The Seattle Times says:
"Regarding the voters with juvenile offenses, Lane said she was not sure how those people ended up on the felon list. Those offenses are included in the Washington State Patrol criminal database Rossi used to find felons who voted. But they are coded to denote a juvenile case."
There are obviously some other factors involved in the process that resulted in some juvenile offenders being included in the list.
If the people compiling the list had simply included every juvenile offender, the list would no doubt have run into the thousands.
Perhaps the "coding" used to "denote a juvenile case" was not entirely clear or consistent, so that some juvenile offenders were included along with juveniles tried as adults and convicted.
In any event, while unfortunate, the mistaken inclusion of some 170 juvenile offenders on the list is nothing, when compared to the hundreds of correctly identified felon voters on the list.
Posted by: ewaggin on March 17, 2005 01:30 PMI've never claimed to try to understand what exactly was done by the reconcilers in each precinct, as you are attempting to do. What I have attempted to do is to evaluate stefan's and your initial claim that the 660 and 348 should be added together. My claim is that the vast majority of the 348 are included within the 660 and shouldn't be added to it, because they are extracted from the same data, the polling books and machine count, and that stefan's specific claim of 900+ is far from accurate.
The 348 was reportedly extracted from the polling place notes where election officals realized at the time the provisional ballots had been fed thru the accuvote machines "pbav". The 660 "no labels" was apparently extracted during the reconciliation process and is based on comparing the machine count with the number of regular ballot signatures in the poll book. My claim is based on the fact that the pbav's should also have resulted in a mismatch between the signatures and machine counted and thus been picked up by the reconcilers in totalling their "no labels". Clearly there was human error and judgement calls in compiling both lists. My assumptions seem far more credible than stefan's, where he assumes they were somehow compiled from separate data sources with little overlap. I'm saying they were compiled from the same raw data.
You point out that there were 6 pbav, but no adjusted # for Aki Kurose in the spreadsheet. The curious thing is that the Notes show 6 pbav, and IN ADDITION 14 "no labels". None of this was reflected in the adjusted # in the spreadsheet. That appears to be human error or an incomplete reconciliation of that polling place.
Neither you nor Stefan have told me what you would do with Beacon Towers, where there are 13 pbav's, 13 adjusted #'s, and 16 no labels in the notes.
I say you count it as 13 or at the most 16. Stefan and you (?) apparently would add them together.
I'm sure Stefan will have more information on this...But - Juvenile criminal files are SEALED.
Very few have access to them once the juvenile is over the age of 18 - unless the juvenile was tried as an adult...then he would be subject to the same felony restrictions as adult felons....
My question would be.....How could the State have a list of Juvenile Felons when those files are supposed to be completely sealed and inaccessible? And how could the State make those files available to the news media???
This isn't a Rossi problem.....this is a huge lawsuit in the making against the state!
Regarding the Aki Kurose Middle School polling place: I don’t claim to understand what the canvassers did with all the “no labels.” I only assert that the reconciliation summary which shows the total of 660 in the “adjusted #” column clearly doesn’t include the 6 “PBAV” ballots which are in the column which totals up to 348. In other words, whatever the canvassers did with those other “no labels” they didn’t include the 6 PBAVs in the 660 “adjusted #” total.
Beacon Tower polling place presents a similar enigma that I don’t claim to understand. There were 16 “no label” provisional ballots that were issued but not submitted to the polling place officers in signed, sealed envelopes. There is no note indicating that any precinct officer reported that provisional ballots were inserted into AccuVote machines – so there shouldn’t be any number in the PBAV column of the reconciliation summary. But, there is a 13 in that PBAV column. The summary indicates that the canvassers concluded that 13 of the 16 “no labels” were inserted into the ballot box via the AccuVote machine, yet there was apparently only an excess of 12 ballots to be explained. Why conclude that 13 of 16 went into the ballot box? Why not just 12 of 16? Since there was no report that they were inserted into the AccuVote, why did King County call any of the 16 “PBAV”? It makes no sense so far.
Beacon Tower, among others, is what led me to begin to believe that the procedure I was able to figure out for the Bothell Regional Library polling place may not be the procedure followed by all 22 members of the “canvassing crew” that was trying to figure out how to account for ballots issued and cast.
The so-called reconciliation may contain a lot of balderdash. Or, perhaps a little more information from the poll book cover sheets and ballot accountability forms would hint at what was done. I don’t know whether the compilation of notes contains all the notes made – sometimes there is a reference to notes from precinct officers that the person compiling that document couldn’t find.
Note that King County was required by law to provide a “narrative report” to the canvassing board prior to certification to explain discrepancies and their resolution.
If they had complied with the law, we wouldn’t be puzzling over the numbers on the reconciliation summary and the notes compiled into that worksheet.
Of course, if they had complied with the law, someone might have had a conscience that was developed well enough to cause him to hesitate to certify as true the numbers contained in Logan’s abstract of the votes. It’s a slim chance, but there might even have been legislators whose consciences wouldn’t allow them to accept as credible the King County election returns.
That’s all water over the dam now, but when the court considers whether to defer to the King County canvassing board’s certification of the election returns, it would be interesting to hear the judge “think out loud” about the balderdash in those returns and the effect it has on his ability to give them any credence. The presumption that officials did their jobs correctly is only a presumption – at some point it could be overwhelmed by the evidence.
re: Beacon Towers
you say: "There is no note indicating that any precinct officer reported that provisional ballots were inserted into AccuVote machines – so there shouldn’t be any number in the PBAV column of the reconciliation summary."
There was a note at the top of the Notes for Beacon Towers showing at least 11 pbav's, as folows:
"hand counted ballots. Probably 7 pb with no label were put through Accuvote. Probably 4 pb with no label went through Accuvote.
ID - AV jammed once; some pbs could have gone through; had 2 lawyers and 7 pollwatchers there all day (signed SS)"
My claim is that in general most all pbav's were reflected in the adjusted #'s column. In Aki Kurose this wasn't done, because of random human error, not because it wasn't supposed to be done. Even the 14 "no labels" were not reflected in the adjusted # in those precincts.
But I agree at the micro level, it's impossible to figure out exactly what went on in each precinct.
Maybe you and I should give our minds a rest and drink another guinness!
More to the point, however, is against whom should you direct your ire and what should the consequence of those felons voting be to the rest of us? I suggest you direct your vitriol and effort against the felons, where the blame lies. The Republican claim that the election officials are responsible for failing to detect felons within the system when those officials are given neither the money nor the data to do that job is the absolute height of hypocrisy. If you attempt to "Starve the Beast" through your financial agenda, don't be surprised if the government doesn't run to perfection. To claim that allowing (an as yet undetermined number of)felons (but apparenlty substantially fewer than Republicans have claimed to date) to vote under those circumstances is sufficient reason to simply throw out the nearly 3,000,000 legitimate votes that were cast in the election is even worse. And finally, the mass-psychosis opinion that the felons must have voted for Chris Gregoire in sufficient quantity to change the outcome of the election is both unsupportable and inherently stupid, even under any valid proportional analysis theory.
You march each of those felons (if you can actually find any) up on to the stand and establish how they voted through evidence, and at that point I would let the chips fall where they may. But you won't do that. Because you know how it would come out.
Posted by: docbenton on March 17, 2005 07:08 PMYou may be correct that the "probably 7...probably 4..." notes refer to statements made by precinct officers.
I had not understood them to be, since no precinct officer seemed to be identified as having said it. In other notes, there is usually some indication that an inspector or judge said it.
One part does indicate that an inspector said a part of the note, since I think "ID" is some jargon meaning precinct inspector or judge:
"ID - AV jammed once; some pbs could have gone through"
One of the problems (aside from the generally sloppy work by King County personnel and the absence of an actual narrative explanation) is that the compilation of notes and the reconciliation summary spreadsheet weren't done by the canvassing crew -- and weren't done back in November prior to certification. Instead, they were done recently. So, it's necessary to figure out what the canvassing crew actually did based on a slapdash summary compiled by Logan's people recently.
In other words, we have to find a way to peer through one layer of rubbish to see if we can tell what the rubbish supposedly explains.
I agree that it is likely that not every precinct was done the same way -- whether by error or simply because no uniform procedure was required of the 22 members of the canvassing crew. They may have been left to their own devices to try to reconcile the ballot numbers.
But, until I've gone through the whole mess, I won't know whether I can say one way or the other what they were trying to do, how they were trying to do it, and how their work is reflected in the summary and compilation of notes.
Posted by: Micajah on March 17, 2005 07:13 PMAll inspectors in each county are drawn from the ranks of the party who had the highest vote totals for President in the most recent Presidential election, by state law.
Thus, in many Eastern Washington counties, all of the polling place inspectors are Republicans ("IR"). In King County, all of the inspectors are Democrats ("ID").
The notes, "ID - AV jammed once; some pbs could have gone through."
translated, means:
"We called the inpector to discuss anomalies. The inspector confirmed that the Accuvote jammed once and had to be attended to (check +/- to see if the jam occured before or after the card had been fully read, if under or over, may have to zero out and re-run because jam may have affected machine total at the end of the evening). In another item, there is a possibility that some provisional ballots went through the Accuvote - use this information when examining over and under counts."
There's a lot of code in those li'l notes....
Posted by: Susan B. Anthony on March 17, 2005 11:33 PM"...You march each of those felons (if you can actually find any) up on to the stand and establish how they voted through evidence, and at that point I would let the chips fall where they may. "
Are you really serious?
The courts are appropriately skeptical of the sworn testimony of felons. I wonder why that is the case? Maybe it is because in their mental weighing of moral options felons have demonstrated what they are capable of by becoming "felons." Using the "honor" system among people who aren't honorable, is just jumb.
Posted by: Bob on March 18, 2005 09:25 AMSo the GOP will try a proportional analysis. Proportional to what? I admit to having little knowledge of statistics, but it strikes me that you simply can't compare the population of convicted felons who voted in a precinct with the entire population that voted in that precinct. The two groups simply aren't the same demographically and the ability to extrapolate from one population to a subset of it seems like it shouldn't exist. We know that the population of felons who voted has a higher percentage of felons (100%) than the percentage of felons within the entire population who voted in the precinct (0.00something%.) I'm willing to bet that the population of felons who voted in a precinct doesn't come close to matching the population of all voters in the precinct on many of the following, let alone the whole: gender, race, age, ethnic background, socio-economic standing, literacy, party affiliation, education, we could probably go on and on. Not to mention that I doubt the number of felon voters in many precincts would even be statistically significant so that one could even get to an analysis in the first place. So I doubt that any legitimate statistician is going to be able to convince a court that you can validly extrapolate from a larger group to a much smaller and much different subset of the group.
So that brings us back to the GOP bringing in the voters it accuses of being illegal. Should be quite a show. I'll be the guy eating popcorn in the back of the court room.
Posted by: docbenton on March 18, 2005 11:41 AMThanks for that info. I hadn't thought about the partisan affiliation of the inspector as the reason for the D in ID.
It's too bad that not all the notes in the compilation by Logan's people are identified as having come from either an inspector or a member of the canvassing crew who was expressing in a very brief narrative the conclusions reached in the reconciliation effort. That's what is often unclear in that compilation. Sometimes, it shows that the note is information from an inspector or judge, but other times it doesn't say who is the source of the information in the note. "Probably 7 pbs went through AV" could be a canvasser's note expressing the conclusion reached in the reconciliation effort -- or it could be a statement from an inspector recorded in a note with the poll book or a statement from an inspector made to the canvasser.
Posted by: Micajah on March 18, 2005 11:50 AMYou confuse me. You say that all felons are NOT liars and that they are just like everyone else. Then you say that they arn't representative of the counties that they live in and that they arn't like everyone else.
Which is it?
If ludachris took King County by 70%, then 70% of the illegal votes from King County would be subtracted from her total, and 30% subtracted from Rossi's total. It would work the same way for every county.
The Demoregressives are busy going over all of the tossed out provisionals in King County looking for more Gregoire votes that their attorney says Judge Bridges can add to her total. Of course, I'm sure if any of those provisionals are for Rossi, they'll ignore them like they did with the absentee votes without signatures.