The following e-mail was sent by King County attorney Donald Porter to attorneys for the parties in the election contest on Friday afternoon once the story of the new absentee ballots leaked out.
The most interesting and disturbing item here is that
I have instructed that no list of voters names associated with these ballots is to be releasedI'm not sure what authority he has to conceal this information, which is of utmost importance to the public. Was there a common pattern to the voters whose ballots were allegedly ignored? Were these voters credited? Do they show up on any of the lists of rejected ballots? I smell a PDA lawsuit waiting to happen.
The complete e-mail follows --
From: Porter, Donald
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 2:27 PM
To: Maguire, Robert; Korrell, Harry; Hamilton, Kevn; Durkan, Jenny; Ahearne, Thomas
Subject: Discovery of untabulated ballots
Counsel,
I write to inform you all that on March 24 while gathering absentee ballots for the democrats' March 8 PDA request REALS staff found 48 untabulated absentee ballots within absentee ballot envelopes. I was actually in the REALS offices at the time and was immediately informed along with Dean Logan. Dean immediately directed a full investigation of all absentee ballot envelopes. I directed REALS staff on the manner in which to precisely document all circumstances surrounding the discovery and all aspects of the further investigation. Since that day several members of the REALS staff have been working on this investigation. Approximately 35 more untabulated ballots have been found inside absentee envelopes, for a total of approximately 73. I say "approximately" because they are still going through batches. But I do not expect that figure to change because at this time they are going through batches for which the batch slips indicate a discrepancy of "1" or "0".
After the discovery of untabulated absentee ballots, Staff were instructed to also examine the provisional ballot envelopes. That task has been completed and it has been determined that there were no occurrences of untabulated ballots being left in provisional ballot envelopes.
On my instructions, all untabulated ballots found during this investigation have been secured in the same manner as untabulated ballots are secured during the course of an election. I have instructed that no list of voters names associated with these ballots is to be released, nor, of course, are the ballots to be opened and counted absent a court order.
I had intended to release this information to you as soon as the investigation was completed so that we wouldn't have another situation of changing numbers. I expected that to be this afternoon. In any case, even if the investigation were not complete by this afternoon it was my intention to brief you all on this no later than Monday so that you would have the information before Tuesday's status hearing. Now, it appears that someone made a call to the media and REALS is responding to press inquiries on this, so I wanted you to have this much information immediately.
I will be able to provide you with a very detailed report on all of this as soon as the final figures are established. I can assure you that the investigation into this matter has been handled professionally, and the report that you will receive will be detailed. The report could come as early as close of business today, but it may be Monday.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 04, 2005 12:31 PM | Email ThisGWB
Posted by: Bush on April 4, 2005 01:01 PMThen, he stated: "But I do not expect that figure to change because at this time they are going through batches for which the batch slips indicate a discrepancy of "1" or "0"."
So King County was accepting discrepancies of "1" or more in their absentee ballot "batches"?
What's the point of processing incoming ballots by batches, if not to keep the numbers small enough to allow human beings to go looking for the missing ballots?
If a batch showed a discrepancy of "minus 1", then go look at the supposedly empty envelopes. If the missing ballot isn't there, figure out where it is -- immediately!
If a batch showed a discrepancy of "plus 1", figure out where the presumably illegitimate ballot came from and try to identify it and remove it from the stack -- immediately!
But no: King County accepted discrepancies in their batch counts.
Did they also "adjust" any discrepancies by figuring out that some of the ballots were illegitimate -- as they did for polling place ballots -- and then leave those ballots in the stack once they figured out that they were illegitimate? Just how low did they sink in their effort to include as many ballots in the vote count as possible?
This is yet more evidence that Logan and his gang didn't intend to count every legitimate ballot (only once). They intended to count whatever got to the vote tabulation stage of the process -- no matter where it came from, no matter how many ballots disappeared, no matter what.
It's no wonder they couldn't continue reporting the cumulative number of absentee ballots that arrived after their erroneous Monday, Nov. 15, report. They didn't know -- and didn't care.
It's no wonder they couldn't state the number of provisional or absentee ballots counted on Nov. 17. They didn't know -- and didn't care.
They didn't prepare comprehensive reports for the canvassing board (and thus for public disclosure), because they didn't want to -- but certainly knew it was required, and knew what such reports would disclose about their discrepancies and gaps in their records.
Their "process" lacked the needed ingredients to provide accurate information which would show whether ballots were being "stuffed" or "ditched."
Accounting for ballots received and their disposition is so basic to the canvassing process, it's hard to believe they simply erred.
If they can reconstruct an "audit trail" in an attempt to show months later how many absentee ballots arrived, when they arrived, and what happened to each of them, I'll be amazed. (I'll also find it hard to accept their reconstructed audit trail as anything worthy of belief.)
Posted by: Micajah on April 4, 2005 01:29 PMHave you asked for the records which would show the required "audit trail" for their absentee ballots?
Maybe you should be more specific and ask for the "bigger binder" that records the discrepancies they accepted as OK in their absentee ballot processing.
It apparently took them about a week to get down to the batches which had discrepancies of "1" or "0", according to Porter's email.
I wonder: How big would the binder need to be to paper over those discrepancies the way they tried to paper over the discrepancies in the polling place ballots?
Posted by: Micajah on April 4, 2005 03:01 PMGiven the mentality at work, they may have decided to count some ballots twice or three times, "just to be sure."
Posted by: South County on April 4, 2005 03:26 PMAs long they believed they could get away with rubber stamping the certification, they counted any ballot they could find, regardless of where it might have come from or if it had already been counted.
Changing numbers? Really?
And the final figures are...well, what would you like them to be?
Where can I send my money to help initiate a court investigation into the problems of King County? I am willing to put $50.00 to get to the legal bottom of this barrel.
Come on. If it is fraud, lets do something about it!
I really expect this to be the smoking gun that undoes the states Democratic party or at least a "governor-aledged" and a bunch of democratic party operatives in King County.
Posted by: Bob on April 4, 2005 09:02 PM