You read it here first, and the P-I now has the story.
UPDATE: Richard Pope in the comments beat me to this critical part of the report:
the newfound ballots were still sealed in the security envelopes within the outer envelopes, which had been slit open, officials said.The outer envelopes aren't supposed to be opened unless the signature is validated and the voter credited. If the P-I's report is correct, then it means that the voters should already have been credited, in which case the number of mystery ballots goes up by another 87 to 867.
On the other hand, the Times reports the less definitive "The ballots were still sealed inside their original envelopes.". King County should release the names and voter id #s of the people whose ballots were allegedly discovered. It would be interesting to check the voter registration file to see if these people were credited. The Absentee Ballot Audit Trail, which King County is dragging its heels on releasing, would also be indispensible to help figure out what's really going on here.
UPDATE 2: A long-time observer of King County Elections e-mails:
The Times' article says that they were unopened, but I think that's wrong. (And I don't think it's their fault -- it sounds like Egan and Logan were dancing wildly around the truth today.)For all we know, somebody could have simply stuffed some ballots into the used envelopes. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 01, 2005 11:36 PM | Email ThisI think they were opened, which would mean they were validated, by the photo of Mikki Asmundson in the Times. Mikki's going through batches of verified ballots (I can tell by how they are bundled -- rejected ballots of all types are alphabetized in trays for archiving, not put in bundles, which are the remanants of the original batches.)
Then you find them, act surprised, and demand that the 87 additional Gregoire votes be counted.
QED
Posted by: MIMike on April 1, 2005 11:43 PMI would have had less of a problem if the outer envelope was still sealed and the absentee ballot had never been processed at all. This would at least would some checks and balances. But the way it is, so long as they got the right precinct ballot, they could have stuffed these outer envelopes last week even.
Obviously, it would be very important to check and make sure the right precinct ballots are in each envelope. If this is a fraud, it is always possible they screwed up and didn't do the fraud correctly.
Or maybe King County has already emptied out the 87 outer envelopes, since it is important to protect those voters' privacy. That way, King County simply has 87 inner envelopes now, separated from the outer envelopes. That would be extremely convenient, of course.
Even if this situation is legitimate, it would mean 87 more absentee ballots. Presumably, all 87 outer envelopes were already credited with voting an absentee ballot. That would make 87 more voterless ballots, since the number of absentee ballots counted would exceed the number of absentee voters credited by another 87.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 2, 2005 12:00 AMIt has occurred to me, of course, that these new ballots may have magically appeared in order to provide GreGore with a little more cushion. They may be thinking that if the court says that the error is too much larger than the margin of victory, increasing the margin to more than 200 might make the win a little more convincing.
King County has shown that nothing is below them, so it wouldn't surprise me if this is what happened.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on April 2, 2005 12:25 AMAs for those provisional ballots in King County, you don't mention that four Eastern Washington counties that voted overwhelmingly for Dino Rossi, tallied 1793 provisional ballots without first matching signatures to those on file. Democratic King County had an error rate of like 0.07%, as compared to the 4.32% error rate over in Rossi country in Whitman County.
Skip that blog. It engages in as much deception and half-truths as Mr. (ir)Relevant. Anyone looking for a good Washington blog should check www.HorsesAss.org. The author does a great job of proving false all of the bullshit claims made by the Dino Lossi campaign, and has the facts and numbers to back up everything he says.
And while I'm at it, I'll put in a plug for www.nwportal.org, an excellent collection of blogs for Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
Posted by: Rudepundit on April 2, 2005 05:07 AMWhat strange universe is this where leaders are not held accountable?
How can Logan have a job???
Posted by: Bobs yer uncle on April 2, 2005 06:39 AMwow...i'm just shocked...this is startling news..
how could this have happened when men of integrity such as Logan and Sims are running the show...we all know they run a tight ship and their hearts are in the right place.
As usual, KC brings forth another shovel-full of barn stall droppings. As Deborah so eloquently writes (snicker).
These guys are like the 50+ y/o man, about 150 lbs overweight, wearing the Speedo, covered from head to toe in hair, except for the plugs on top of his head, SOMEHOW looking at himself in the mirror and saying, "damn, you look good."
I've decided these guys are not crooks...they are imbeciles. Crooks aren't this stupid.
Posted by: dkpcowboy on April 2, 2005 07:31 AMhttp://www.torontofreepress.com/2005/cover033105.htm
Outrageous.
It is apparent that the leftists are getting a little apprehensive about the court case, otherwise why are they here? Certainly not to share their vast intellectual acuity, their sense of humor, their veracity, their strong grasp on reality, their clear ethical standards, or their wisdom. Most leftists are posting here simply to provoke, but in doing so they also give us glimpses into the moral abyss of socialism.
I am not surprised with King County's latest act of fraud/incompetence. This will not be their last faux pas, accuse my French.
We will get no help locally or statewide. We need the Justice Dept. to come save us.
Two words: Grand Jury!!!!!!!
It's over; finis; ended; Rossi kaput, loser, private citizen; Gregoire Governor.
Get a life.
The next election is November 2006. No governor's race on the ballot again until November 2008.
What sore-losers you are.
Posted by: Nelson on April 2, 2005 08:42 AM
...The guy who stole my TV 4/2/2005
There is no proof of fraud here. Isn't it much more likely that election workers simply failed to remove the sealed envelopes after the outer envelopes were checked. Incompentence. Question: were these envelopes concentrated in just one or two boxes or spread out?
Moreover, the court may have to take these votes into account in the election contest. If this constitutes "misconduct" or "neglect" within the meaning of the errors statute, then the court may have to determine whether these votes changed the outcome of the election. (I'm assuming that they signatures can be confirmed.) Counting these votes will likely increase Gregoire's margin of victory.
News is News.... KC elections screws up AGAIN !!!!
Learn it, Realize it, Know it.....Accept It!!!
Posted by: Chris on April 2, 2005 09:35 AMBut he also said Rossi should accept his defeat.
"At some point, we've got to quit counting and chasing things," McDonald said.
It there something wrong with his thinking????
Wasnt the Dem's motto "Count Every Vote"? Or does that really mean, count only the votes they want to count?
As usual talking out of both sides of his mouth.
I would agree that counting the "missing" ballots is likely to add to Gregoire's apparent "victory" margin. Whether this is by nearly 87 votes, or whether it is by only about 16 votes is another question.
I would propose to count the 87 "missing" ballots. And then go back to every precinct that has more ballots than voters. If more poll/provisional ballots than voters, randomly withdraw the excess. If more absentee ballots than voters, randomly withdraw the excess. Then recount the precincts from which ballots have been withdrawn.
After all that is done, Rossi should be ahead by 100 to 400 votes. Go to Olympia and celebrate the Rossi inauguration.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 2, 2005 10:29 AMNo, there's no "PROOF" of fraud, here. There's also no "PROOF" that Scott Peterson killed his wife. But what we're dealing with is the massive amount of circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing.
My scenario up above was one possibility of what actually happened. Richard Pope's observarion is another. A third possibility is that the votes in the envelopes were not counted and the voters not credited. A fourth is that those 87 votes were duplicate absentee ballots which were discovered after the outside envelopes were opened.
All of these scenarios are possible and we don't know which actually happened, but three of the four possibilities suggest fraud.
As far as taking these votes into the election contest, no one knows exactly what has happened to these envelopes over the past 5 months. There is no evidence that they are valid votes, that is to say there is no "PROOF" that the votes are valid.
If the Dems posting here would stop being partison for a few minutes, they would have to realize that circumstantial evedence is enough to convict someone, even in a capital murder case. Or maybe they have realized it and are trying to ignore it.
Posted by: MIMike on April 2, 2005 10:55 AMDean Logan finds 15 more ballots in his shower this morning...building on Gregoire's lead!
Ron Sims discovers more ballots in his glove box...further increasing Gregoire's lead!
Gregoire and Democratic legis;ature announce special tax on newly discovered Rossi ballots!
Posted by: flexnfx on April 2, 2005 11:05 AMThe notion that you can actually count each and every ballot in a system based on pieces of paper and volunteer workers scattered all over a major state is ludicrous. There is no system without errors. It's like trying to measure molecules with a yardstick.
More here
Posted by: Kevin Murphy on April 2, 2005 11:05 AMIn one week, Logan's Losers could easily have checked to see if the voters on the envelope had been credited with voting. If they were not, how many more ballots did the Loser's misplace? If they were, then whose ballots were counted?
We do live in interesting times.
Posted by: iconoclast on April 2, 2005 11:11 AMHere's been my suggestion for months...
No one seems to know who won...all polls performed suggest that Gregoire is STILL viewed as unelected and illegit...Rossi has stated that (unlike Gregoire, he will not simply accept being appointed as Governor...a smart move considering his opponent, Gregoire is still quite unpopular and probably DOA come next election because of questionable KC ballott discoveries erring in her favor....)
MY SUGGESTION...vacate the Office of Governor (You eliminate the likelihood of the ugliest imminent Gubernatorial election (soooner or later) in state history and appoint Brad Owen Governor to serve out the remainder of the term (he is a conservative democrat who has shown that he can work on both sides of the aisle)
As much as I like Rossi (and believe - with much of the rest of the state view him as the rightfully elected gov) and as much as I truly despise Gregoire (who daily shows us why she most likely lost - with even Demos voting for Rossi and Bennett over her), I think Owen is the only chance for healing this state as I believe that now Rossi and Gregoire have both become divisive figures...
Posted by: flexnfx on April 2, 2005 11:24 AMWords cannot even begin to describe the incompetence of King County Elections. We'd be better off if they rounded up all the homeless and put them to work -- they'd almost certainly do a better job!
Common sense says the Republicans' court case is a winner.
I do not think Gregoire and the D-Leg are gonna know what hit them if Rossi wins this challenge...Gregoire arrogantly believes that no one cares...the D-Leg are having a field day with our taxes...
I think that this state is in for a major power shift VERY SOON.
Posted by: flexnfx on April 2, 2005 11:48 AMTo all us mainstream folks...we have to stand up to this asinine extremism from our own party. It's not only embarassing (see above post), it's also wrong and will shift power back to the Dems. We have to wake up and let the extremes do their own thing...they represent a small minority of conservatives and give us all a bad name.
Posted by: harvey on April 2, 2005 11:53 AMI understand that recent polls demonstrate that people are wanting to move on...but the same polls also still give Gregoire a large disapproval rating, Rossi, a large approval rating, and a large majority believe he was the legit-elected governor.
Albeit, polls are polls, but all polls from January to March have all had consistent trends and lest we forget, Gregoire was whining and complaining when she was 0-2 in the count/recount.
I work in a liberal establishment (the state)...people talk about this alot, a friend of mine works in a union fire station...people talk about this alot...my wife works in a small business...people are still talking about this...The Democrats are still trolling for votes...with each court date announced, this issue gets press coverage
This is an issue because of a small margin, changing stories (of overvotes) and what is at stake.
Maybe you would like to live in a state with a canned meat tax, but I think we can do better.
I say, vacate the office and appoint Brad Owen (saving us all tax dollars) and move forward!
Posted by: flexnfx on April 2, 2005 12:08 PMFor instance:
-----------------------------------------------
300 absentee envelopes arrive in the mail. They are bundled and noted with the date, batch # and count...300 envelopes.
After they've been verified, they are sorted: 200 valid, 100 rejected (and ideally STAMPED as rejected). Rejected envelopes are subtracted from the batch, bundled--with a note of the original batch #--- and stored separately.
At some point the valid envelopes are opened, their inner envelopes set in a separate pile. Once again, they are counted: there should be 200 outer envelopes, 200 inner envelopes. Outer envelopes are bundled with a note of the batch number and sent for certifying.
At the appropriate time the ballots are removed from the inner envelopes, set in a pile. Another count: there should be 200 ballots, 200 inner envelopes. Workers compare those numbers to the total shown on the batch cover sheet. They must match. The inner envelopes are bundled with a note of the original batch # and set aside.
Then the 200 ballots can be added to the "pile" to be run through the machine...ALONG WITH THEIR original batch cover sheet! In the end, all batch sheets are tallied up and must match the number of ballots run through the machine.
-------------------------------------------------
This is so common in business. My employees occasionally complained about it. But they agreed when I reminded them how much easier it is to balance at every step rather than find yourself out of balance at the end and have to wade back through ALL the steps.
Isn't this just common sense????
The "87 uncounted absentees" can be validated and counted with certainty. If they can't be validated then they shouldn't be counted.
Going back to precincts with ballots not matching voters (either too many ballots or too many voters), and either eliminating ballots or adding ballots by lot is not authorized by the election contest statute. A judge would have to make up that remedy out of whole cloth, and I don't think we want that sort of unbridled judicial activism. Moreover, a large number of those ballots were probably valid, since 75% of those prior 346 provisionals were shown to have been cast by valid voters.
Posted by: chew2 on April 2, 2005 12:22 PMBut, if you look in the elections office of king county, there are several people that just seem to ooze "activism." I've talked to some election workers over the phone, and most of them have been extremely pleasant and helpful. Inside the office, though, you see the people that I guess they try to keep off the phone. Dyed black, spiked hair; that lesbian punk look, with pierced everything; etc ... I think these are the people that Logan is talking about, and these are the people that could easily stuff ballots.
I would be willing to bet that Logan himself suspects that these people with from "the culture" were stuffing envelopes, but he is a little bit trapped. He can't make wild accusations, but he can't say everything was perfect, but it happened on his watch, and he isn't quite sure who was working with "the culture" element that did it, but obviously we all know HE would also prefer that GreGore won .... so, he's in a very difficult spot.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on April 2, 2005 12:33 PMThere were actually 376 provisional ballots where the voter was issued a provisional ballot envelope and put the ballot through the AccuVote machine instead. King County Elections said 348, but looking at the numbers precinct-by-precinct, Shark came up with 376 on an Excel spreadsheet.
Out of those 376 provisional ballots, only 252 were cast by registered voters in King County who had not already voted elsewhere.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 2, 2005 12:40 PMI am curious if these PB's are distributed evenly throughout the counties or are concentrated in and around campuses for Gonzaga, Eastern and WSU.
I am aware from folks I know in Whitman County, where I lived for most of 1990's after arriving in the US, that MoveOn and other leftist groups were targeting college students to vote by PB in their college states.
I recall that the contest statute allows evaluation of illegal ballots on a precinct basis. I certainly hope the RP lawyers are planning to do so.
Posted by: DeadWood on April 2, 2005 12:52 PMThe Schiavo case is not out of the mainstream of America either. If you are relying on polls for that assertion, think again. The polls in the Schiavo case were all tipped by the information and questions given to the respondents. Most Americans don't know the ugly truths in the Schivo case. If you want more information on the Schiavo case, check out www.theempirejournal.com/
The polls before the election showed that Gregoire should have won. What happened? She didn't even convince democrats that she was a better candidate or that she wouldn't raise taxes. Washington residents/voters sent a clear message on Taxes. Look at what she and the Legislature are doing. It is being reflected in the polls now.........
Democrats should be scared, damn scared! With every news release that King County has found MORE uncounted ballots, a seed of doubt questioning the fairness and accuracy of our elections in this state is planted in our minds.
If you are referring to the provisional ballots in 4 counties not being counted. You are wrong, they were counted and they were counted correctly and fairly. They apparantely did not check the signatures because they assumed that the person standing in front of them asking for the provisional ballot could sign their name correctly. They can easily check all of those signatures now. And that my friend, is a lot better and a lot less fraudulent than King County altering and enhancing over 55,000 ballots.
Oh and what's up with the missing 180 brains in King County. I would like to know when the people of Seattle are going to get fed up enough to take some action about all of the corrupt leadership there? If the election isn't inspiration enough, is the county stealing body parts and selling them for profit enough? Maybe the lawsuit from the Jewish family in Florida will provide some motivation. They have retained an Attorney and I hope that they can do even more than sue. Criminal charges would be appropriate!
Have a great weekend!
I haven't seen any reference to large numbers of unlawfully cast provisional ballots in counties where Rossi led in the vote counts.
There was this article in the Seattle P-I, which reported that 4 counties failed to comply with the WAC rule requiring that they verify the signatures (much like they do with absentee ballots) before including those provisional ballots in the vote tabulation.
That's a different situation entirely from King County's unlawfully cast provisional ballots. In King County, there were at least 664 (and perhaps as many as 700) provisional ballots that Logan and his motley crew admit were unlawfully inserted into the ballot boxes via the Accuvote machines at polling places.
In the 4 counties noted in that P-I article, the ballots were lawfully cast in signed, sealed envelopes. The screw-up was committed by the elections office personnel -- who only checked to see if the voters whose names, addresses, etc., appeared on those signed envelopes were registered voters. Having found that they were registered voters, the elections personnel treated them as valid ballots without also confirming that the signatures matched the signatures on file.
However, the end result may be the same: Unless all those provisional ballot envelopes in those 4 other counties turn out to have verifiable signatures on them, some of those ballots shouldn't have been included in the vote tabulation.
As part of the evidence offered in the election contest, there ought to be evidence indicating whether there were any illegitimate ballots included as a result of the screw-up in those 4 counties.
Posted by: Micajah on April 2, 2005 01:55 PMI hope Judge Bridges does something good.
Posted by: Big M on April 2, 2005 03:38 PMThe left is obviously afraid that the court result will not go their way so they'll need all of the votes (legal or illegitimate) that they can get. The King County machine needs not only to be overturned in the Election contest hearing, but also is screaming for Federal investigation.
If these 87 votes are counted, it can safely be said that the system of laws has clearly broken down. If the system of laws breaks down, we have anarchy. Y A W N - Nelson, Lynn, Anntheman and all of you other leftist anarchists - you are verbally defecating on our system of laws so that you think it will help your Democrat brethren - but it will only serve to bring down this Democratic Republic - you don't get it and you don't want to get it ! You left-wing nuts are in the minority and you all need a sanity check. Get in touch with your selves and go see a shrink or you'll self-destruct, but you have the freedom in this great country to say screw you and go about self-destructing.
Posted by: KS on April 2, 2005 03:44 PMThey will "find" as many as they need, again.
This election has now been truly been Loganized or Simsed, if you prefer,
and Washington State has been GreGored.
Incompetent frauds. Reeddiculous.
Posted by: JG on April 2, 2005 04:45 PM
APPEAR
To seem or look to be: appeared unhappy. See Synonyms at seem.
To seem likely: They will be late, as it appears.
To have an outward look (legal)
To give a certain impression or have a certain outward aspect
To seem to be true, probable, or apparent
Antonyms: be doubtful, be uncertain, be unclear
SEEM
To give the impression of being; appear: The child seems healthy, but the doctor is concerned.
To appear to one's own opinion or mind: I can't seem to get the story straight.
To appear to be true, probable, or evident: It seems you object to the plan. It seems like rain. He seems to have worked in sales for several years.
To appear to exist: There seems no reason to postpone it.
Ok, the election results appear illegal, are likely to be illegal, have every outward look of irregularity, give no other impression of being fairly conducted, and in all probability should be overturned. The results of KC big book and certified results seem to show fraud, render to any rational observer an opinion of fraudulent or uncertifiable results, and seems self evident as to the need for legal investigation and prosecution.
RCW 29A.68.050
Contest of election-judgement.
If in any such case it shall appear that another person than the one returned has the highest number of legal votes, said court shall declare such person duly elected.
As a result of the discovery of the errors it now appears the count should be heavily favored to both uncertainty and statistically toward Rossi as our duly elected Governor. The courts have the venue and legal right to make it so. Thankfully Rossi has laid a public claim to annulling the election if in office and forcing a new vote.
RCW 29A.68.110
Illegal votes-enough to change results
No election may be set aside on account of illegal votes, unless it appears that an amount of illegal votes has been given to the person whose right is being contested, that, if taken from that person, would reduce the number of the person's legal votes below the number of votes given to some other person for the same office, after deducting therefrom the illegal votes that may be shown to have been given to the other person.
In use of the antonym of appear, “the validity of this election is in doubt” is a correct statement as it defines appear in a “doubtful, uncertain, or unclear” result due to the numerous errors discovered so far. The judge may well use this definition in his arguments. Suffice it to say, there is no thesaurus or dictionary term of syntax or legal definition of Webster’s dictionary and Roget’s thesaurus requiring finding of fact for “appear, seem, doubt, uncertain, or unclear”. It is sufficient only to “appear” enough to change results. This election as it stands is still in doubt and the legal and certifiable results also remain in doubt. Even many of the votes are in doubt. The word doubt should be used as much as appears, seems, fraud, illegal, irregular, and uncertain in describing votes, results and office, until the contest/challenge is finished.
KC Elections are acting like these are sacred and are awaiting "Direction" from "someone" to tell them what to do with them....Ironic isnt it, a County Elections Dept, the largest in the state, not quite sure what to do....The statements alone made by KC Elections should tell the Judge something.
Kirotv reported they are bringing in an outside auditor to "find" the problem, and the FT staff at the mail ballot facility have been reassigned to other jobs. The scapegoat is rearing it's big head, let's blame the people at the facility, not the big cheese Logan himself.
Posted by: Chris on April 2, 2005 06:49 PManother reason Soundpolitics is THE blog of choice. Plus, I don't have to read a slur of F-words (hey, don't take my word for it, just go over to HA and see for yourself! It's positively amazing) in a single entry.
Posted by: Michele on April 2, 2005 07:35 PMMichele,
Yep, Goldy only posts when it is either beneficial to him, or he can slam Stefan. You won't hear him mention the 87 ballots because that would be an admission that the election is screwed up beyond knowing who truly won.
How in the Hell are the Dems in King County going to spin this one??
There can only be 2 reasons that this latest find was made public...
1. Someone working within KC elections wasn't on board with the cover up and leaked the information about the found ballots....
2. These ballots were purposely planted by King County in an effort to strengthen the ratio of Gregoires lead in the eyes of Judge Bridges next week... (ie; If these ballots just happen to favor Gregoire by a large percentage..the Dems may think it will help to make the case that Gregoires lead in the disputed ballots would still give her a victory - based on ratios...)
(OK..I know there is a better way to explain that...but I'm laughing too hard!)
I can't find that in the web page, was it on TV, their webpage doesn't say that. We should all be worried about the "outside" auditor....
I hope the Rossi campaign seeks an injunction against them. They should seal the building, put yellow crime scene ribbon around it and call the US Marshalls!
Last week, the democrats lawyer released a statement that they were seeking to count the rejected 4000 plus ballots...... They are absolutely up to no good.
Posted by: sgmmac on April 2, 2005 08:56 PMExactly!
They can only plead ignorance so many times.......With regard to Novembers election mess - their *ignorance* surpasses reality!
At some point - it's just not believable anymore!
They past that point a long time ago. Now - it's time for them to be read their rights. Anything - any of them say (including their pleadings of ignorance) will be used against them in a court of law.....
They have the right to remain silent...but they won't....they will soon be throwing each other under the bus....
Posted by: Deborah on April 2, 2005 11:14 PMI don't discuss law anymore with folks who get their legal knowledge from LA Law.
Posted by: chew2 on April 2, 2005 11:44 PMDeadManVoting/Iguana,
I wish you had not written these words, because your argument was weakened by stereotyping certain people at the Elections office.
I agree that employees are capable of stuffing ballots, but you can never tell who, based upon looks alone.
By analogy, there are people who steal other people's food in the office refrigerator, but the culprit is just as likely to be the spiffy dresser in the neighboring cubicle as the unkempt, spiked-hair guy across the hall.
Sorry for the scolding, but I thought it was necessary.
Posted by: Tim B. on April 3, 2005 12:30 AMI whole heartedly agree we should be bringing in a Federal "Somebody's" to take care of this.
I was surprised to hear the MSM spinning this. Sounds like the Dem's have something up their sleeve, especially since the court date is a week away.
I agree with Tim B, that sterotyping "ballot stuffers" isnt the answer to Logans problems. Logan is "blaming" those under him, whom IMO are his responsibilty.
Deja Vu. just look at Lawsuit the State lost under our AG Chrissy, when she couldn't be an effective Boss, but then again, she blamed it on a subordinate, like Logan is doing.
The 87 found ballots issue DIDN'T HAPPEN.
If the folks at HA ignore it, it will go away.
Posted by: Chris on April 3, 2005 07:47 AMThat's because Chew got all of her legal knowledge from The Practice.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on April 3, 2005 09:17 AM"All along we've believed there were a significant number of ballots that should have been counted in King County and weren't," Durkan said.
She said she doesn't think the newly discovered ballots can be counted and added to the official tally for the Nov. 2 election. But, Durkan said, "I fully expect the court in the election contest will have to look at them" in deciding the rightful winner of the election.
"Frankly, it's a shame that a better job wasn't done," Durkan said. "But given the magnitude of this election and the pressures put on officials ... those kind of errors are going to happen in every single election.""
I am amazed at this woman's forsight.
She (Dem's) KNEW of Ballots that didnt get counted and should have been counted.... Interesting, crystal ball says "ballot stuffing"
She expects the court to use the Newly Found Ballots to make a decision on the Rightful Winner of this Election....
Intersting....Crystal ball says "Is she not sure who won???? Rightful is a big word here"
She doesnt expect to count those ballots and add to the Nov 2 count....
DUH Jenny....The Nov 2 "Tally" count, was only one count, the ballot total change several times, each time with KC elections finding more Ballots each time.
She refers to Magnitude of this Election is reason for errors. I think she needs to think in the sense of "129 VOTES"......
Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said workers pored through 375 archival boxes and 565,000 absentee ballots to come up with the tally. The process took nine days.
The discovery of the uncounted ballots, in the midst of a Republican-sponsored lawsuit challenging the 129-vote victory by Democrat Gov. Christine Gregoire, has also prompted Elections Director Dean Logan to order a "personnel investigation" aimed at the Mail Ballot Operations Satellite. Leading the investigation, Logan said yesterday, will be Island County Auditor Suzanne Sinclair and King County Labor Relations Manager Nancy Buonanno-Grennan." Dean Logan is looking for a sacrificial lamb, I wonder if they will find one. What a sad pathetic leader he is! He needs to stand up, and take responsibility for his and his subordinates actions.
Posted by: sgmmac on April 3, 2005 10:35 AMCuriously, it describes the first find as a "bundle of 48" ballots:
"Through the course of responding to discovery related to the Republican Party’s list of alleged felons, staff first discovered a bundle of 48 uncounted ballots Thursday, March 24."
Why would they be bundled? Were they rejected and put in the wrong place?
Also, it is worded as though the outer envelopes have not yet been opened:
"Election officials do not intend to forward these uncounted ballots to the canvassing board and have been advised by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office not to open the security envelopes unless ordered to do so by court order."
There is a pdf document that shows the precincts to which the ballots belong. (Except for two ballots for which the precincts couldn't be identified -- another hint that these are ballots which had been rejected.)
Are their records so poorly kept that King County cannot simply look to see if the voters named on the outer envelopes were credited with voting in the general election? That crediting would have occurred when the signatures were confirmed, if these were valid ballots rather than rejected ballots.
Posted by: Micajah on April 3, 2005 10:44 AMMaybe there was some "f-word" going on here, and if this is so, finding out if these votes are correct is one way to explore that possibility.
Posted by: MIMike on April 3, 2005 11:48 AMI want to know who handled the ballots. I want to know how the ballots are marked for the Governor's race. I want to make sure that the voters marks on the ballots don't all have the same "ink." This could be a true smoking gun on fraud or it could be just gross incompetence, but by now we should assume the worse until proven otherwise.
In todays story with Logan reassigning people, he is obviously concerned and afraid of something. I think there is more to this story than we now know.
Now is the time to press to find out what he is afraid of and to then when Logan is under oath in the Governors contested case, question him until the truth leaks out.
Posted by: Bob on April 3, 2005 12:00 PMIt could mean the outer envelopes had been opened, which would have occurred only after signatures were verified.
How, then, could there be two envelopes for which the precincts were "unidentifiable"? How can you verify a signature match if you cannot identify the voter's precinct?
Posted by: Micajah on April 3, 2005 12:03 PMhttp://www.metrokc.gov/elections/news/untabulatedballots.pdf
It is possible that the two ballots that don't have a precinct identified might have come out of the outer envelope without the workers noticing which one it came out of. Presumably, all of the outer envelopes would have been verified as valid voters, etc. With King County, of course, you can never tell.
What is more disturbing is where the 93 untabulated ballots came from. Only 3 of them are from Seattle precincts. This is slightly more than 3%. However, 35.67% of King County ballots came from the City of Seattle overall.
Also about 23 of these come from unincorporated precincts, or approximately 25%. However, only 20% of the people in King County live in unincorporated areas. And probably even less of the registered voters -- since Seattle has very few children, and unincorporated areas have a lot of children.
So it is quite possible that Rossi would pick up net votes from these 93 mystery ballots.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 3, 2005 12:51 PMThat's an interesting possibility -- that the inner "security" envelopes had somehow been separated from the outer signed envelopes, leaving them unable to say which voters cast those two ballots.
If that is the explanation, then it seems the ballots had been accepted as valid -- so the voters should have been credited with having voted.
I'm still puzzled by the description of a "bundle" of 48 ballots that was first found. Since they weren't all from one precinct, I don't know of any reason why they would be bundled together after signature verification -- unless that happened to be the size of the "batch" that was being processed for signature verification, and they just never made it to the precinct sorting stage.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a "transparent," "upfront" description of the circumstances by Logan?
Posted by: Micajah on April 3, 2005 01:00 PM
Gee.....
This sort of puts a damper on the rush to an "All Mail" voting system.....
Isn't it ironic how quickly the Democrats in the legislature pushed that bill through for an all absentee voting system? Do you think maybe they had prior knowledge of the potential for more ballot discoveries and errors in this area - and they had to work fast before the flaws in this mail system became obvious?
This latest find of absentee ballots should cause ALL counties to pause before adopting an "All Mail" voting system!
Posted by: Deborah on April 3, 2005 07:40 PMI don't discuss law anymore with folks who get their legal knowledge from LA Law.
I don't try to have serious discussions with lawyers.
Posted by: South County on April 4, 2005 05:34 AM