From the 2000 election debacle in Florida, the term "hanging chad" entered the lexicon. In the King County election debacle 2004/5, we get the term "batch slip". A batch slip is a small slip of paper that is used to account for a batch of absentee ballots as they move through the various processing stages. I saw a few batch slips for the first time yesterday. Most of them were in clean shape (this is an example of a good one) but I also noticed several that looked like monkey business. This one indicates that a ballot disappeared during processing without explanation or resolution and that this discrepancy was simply covered-up.
[click for larger PDF version]
The glaring red flag is that 247 ballots should have been forwarded to tabulation, but the tabulator only counted 246, so it looks like he/she simply overwrote the number in the lower right and moved on without a proper investigation and reconcilation. The combination of sloppy processing with falsified reports after the fact suggests to me that there's enough probable cause for a criminal investigation.
A more detailed explanation of the various numbers, courtesy of a King County elections insider, follows --
The batch slip follows the batch through the various stages of ballot processing.
1. Absentee ballots are actually mailed to the post office, picked up by King County staff and delivered to PSI, a Diebold subsidiary, for pre-processing. PSI workers sort the incoming unopened ballots into batches of about 300+/-, with all ballots normally from the same legislative district, and prepare computer disks with the voter ids of all incoming ballots for each batch.
2. The batches then go to the King County Mail Ballot Operations Satellite facility (MBOS), accompanied by the computer disks with the voter id numbers.
3. The first entries on the batch slip are made by the Verifier, whose role is to examine the signatures on the outer envelope and verify that the signature matches the voter's signature on file. If the ballot was postmarked on time and is signed, the signature matches, and this is the first ballot submitted by the voter, then the ballot is accepted and the voter credited, otherwise the ballot is rejected.
4. The number Accepted (282) should equal the Original Count (293) less the number Rejected (11). Another employee double checks to make sure that all the rejected ballots were properly rejected. If any were unnecessarily rejected, the ballot is verified and the numbers on the top row adjusted, with initials
5. The ballots are then sent to an opening machine, which slits open the external envelope.
6. The first "opener" (really a separater) removes the inner security envelope from the outer envelope, and sets the outer envelopes in a separate pile. The numbers of inner and outer envelopes are supposed to be counted to make sure that they match the number Accepted.
7. The second "opener" opens the security envelope and removes the ballots. Any exceptions are noted in the section under the county seal: numbers of missing ballots, any voter intent issues for the canvassing board, write-in ballots, and correctly filled out but somehow flawed ballots (damaged, stained, wrong color ink, etc.) where intent is unambiguous but the machine would reject it are duplicated. The total exception count (35) is noted. The rest are forwarded to tabulation. The original Amount Ready to Tabulate was clearly 247 = 282 - 35. It appears that the 247 was written in opener Ed. E's handwriting.
8. In tabulation, the ballots are run through an AccuVote machine, like the ones at the polling places. Any ballots that are kicked out by the AccuVote are either sent to duplication or to the canvassing board. In this case it appears that 244 were counted by the AccuVote, 2 ballots were duplicated for a total of 246. It also looks like tabulator KV saw that her number didn't match the number that Ed. E wrote, so he/she simply overwrote the previous number. In previous elections, I'm told, such discrepancies would have been investigated immediately, ballots and envelopes would have been recounted at earlier stages. A supervisor would have had to explain any outstanding discrepancies and sign off on any changes to the batch slip.
I noticed quite a number of other batch slips that had similar unexplained discrepancies. It's hardly a surprise then that the people who oversaw this mess also falsified the reports to the canvassing board. Is this incompetence? Willful neglect? Fraud? Whatever it is, it looks serious enough to warrant a criminal investigation.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 13, 2005 12:56 PM | Email ThisWe may find that absentee is not only less secure than polling place voting, but more expensive, too.
By the way, on the issue of changing the color of the provisional ballots at the polling place. It must be made clear to EVERYONE, that provisional ballots run through the AccuVote must be INVALIDATED. Those votes CANNOT ever be counted because the ballots were separated from the validation material. I don't recall anyone making that point.
Posted by: StephenR from Houston on April 13, 2005 01:27 PMB-A-T-C-H S-L-I-P-S
ought to be:
B-I-T-C-H S-L-A-P-P-E-D!!!!!
Is this an adequately observed process?
Not to make too fine a point, you wrote "where the machine WOULD reject it." Does this mean that a person LOOKS at the ballot and decides to forward it on to duplication. What if a disproportionate number of Rossi ballots get forward on the duplication and a proportionate number of Rossi ballots come out.
What are the checks in duplication? From this ballot slip, we see that 1 in 15 ballots (7%) went to duplication. How do we know the count isn't skewed by up to 14% in some direction? A 7% reduction in one party, 7% addition to another.
I'm sure this is needless worrying. There must be some iron clad process we can trust. Right?
Posted by: StephenR from Houston on April 13, 2005 01:50 PMMike Posted by: MikeF on April 13, 2005 02:00 PM
Now that you had a laugh. KV and Ed. E are the product of the Seattle PC math department. When numbers don't add up, make them. Or, when subtraction doesn't work make it up. When the minuend is valid but your subtrahend looks fishy, create a new remainder. That's all they did, Seattle mathmatics. Even Nelson can accomodate this answer as it is how he thinks. Make up something to make his point.
Enough Said In This Fine Post!!!!
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on April 13, 2005 02:25 PMThanks again for all your hard work.
Pudster in Atlanta
Posted by: Puddybud on April 13, 2005 02:46 PMSeriously, though...this clearly does look like a boo boo, but what's the protocol for addressing mistakes on batch slips? Do you see examples in which someone points out a screw up and then comments on the batch slip how it's being investigated or reconciled?
If it's the case that the Ed the opener miscounted and there were only 292 original ballots, what kind of reconciling could happen other than walking over to Ed's table and saying "Hey, I count 246 here, not 247" followed by a pat down of Ed and some overwriting.
Stefan, do you have examples of how corrections are handled well? Perhaps an overwriting of the original count with initials of the opener, or something to that effect?
Posted by: ChrisW on April 13, 2005 02:58 PMCome on. It's so obvious people.
It was Karl Rove.
Posted by: jimg on April 13, 2005 03:01 PMBecause they're verifying the _outside_ of the ballot.
"Is this ballot postmarked correctly?"
"Has this voter voted?"
"Does this ballot signature match the one on file?"
Those are the questions the 'verifier' is supposed to answer. 11 _sealed_ ballots failed that verification... on (if you believe their numbers) 10/27.
The tabulation is looking at the actual ballot. So it is just nomenclature oddness.
On the other hand, changing a number like that without identifying which of the three people that had to mark this sheet made the change or why is irritating.
Posted by: Al on April 13, 2005 03:02 PMif the shoe fits...
I know people whose primary writing implements are crayons who can count better than that.
Rhetorical question: should election workers be required to show ID, proof of citizenship, and a "pass" from the WASL?
Seems reasonable to me.
Posted by: scott158 on April 13, 2005 03:18 PMThe "Amount ready to tabulate" + the 35 are supposed to add up the number accepted in the upper right, aren't they.
Or we can look at this way:
We started with 293 and then removed 11 that were rejected. This gives us 282. Then using the information in the third column, we remove 7 write-ins and 28 duplicates that cannot tabulate now. This should leave us with 247, but instead someone changed that to 246.
Also, I don't know what to make of the "Tabulator/Date" area. It seems to say RU-11-2-04, which would be maybe someone's ID, but not a date. So where's the date?
Posted by: Bostonian on April 13, 2005 03:48 PMI wonder what happens when the inner envelope is not included in the outer envelope (thus making inequal the count of inner and outer envelopes - if they ever even counted those).
In my case, I was paranoid about all aspects of the mail in ballot; so I hoofed it down to my precinct. I had simply hoped to run my ballot through the machine. When I arrived and went to sign the book, and they appropriately noted that I was an absentee voter. I told them that I knew that and "Here is my ballot". The woman was confused and a slight hubub ensued for them to figure out what to do. A person who seemed to be in charge told me that I couldn't run my ballot through the machine. It made me nervously suspicious (even though I later discovered they were correct in their procedure) that my ballot would ultimately fall through the cracks - perhaps literally. She told me to sign the envelope and they'd put it in the side pocket of the machine(I assume the place for provisionals).
Well being a bit nervous in front of the crowd at the precinct, I signed the outer envelope, put my ballot in, sealed it, and then realized I forgot to put it in the inner envelope. She said it didn't matter, but offered for me to fill out a provisional which I declined.
I did keep my eye on my ballot via the web and your database - both showed that I did vote - but I wondered if it caused any trouble that the inner envelope wasn't there when it was ultimately opened. I also wonder how often the inner envelope is missing.
Keep up the good work.
Joe
The answer to your question is no.
Posted by: Danny on April 13, 2005 03:51 PM"Would mistakes found in King County, by itself, be enough to allege potential criminal activity or would a representative sample of voter information from counties both in and outside WA state be needed to prove that King County's tiny batch of errors is indeed,as you seem to aver, a criminal distortion of true voter intent in that county? See what I'm sayin'?"
A surprisingly intelligent question.
To the first half of the question: "Would mistakes found in King County, by itself, be enough to allege potential criminal activity..." - the answer is yes.
To the second half: "...or would a representative sample of voter information from counties both in and outside WA state be needed..." the answer is no, but voters in all states outside of WA should be interested in the information gathered.
I believe some such analysis is being done in Oregon even as we speak.
Posted by: Mac on April 13, 2005 03:54 PMThanks for clearing this up.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 13, 2005 03:57 PMPolice dogs, too...
Posted by: South County on April 13, 2005 04:11 PMI have a project for you, which may greatly increase the number of voterless ballots. It will also determine exactly how many absentee ballots were returned for the general election -- well, maybe not exactly, but it *should* be the right number.
Remember how the Mail Ballot Report didn't have a category to cover careless voters whose absentee ballot envelopes were validated, but who forgot to put any sort of ballot in the envelope? (i.e. if you sign in to "vote", but don't actually cast the ballot, your ballot obviously doesn't get counted)
The Mail Ballot Report only had categories for (a) 203 people who returned multiple ballots and (b) 89 people who returned the wrong ballots. (None of this could be traced to an individual, since it was the inner ballot envelopes that mattered, and those maintain secrecy.)
I have a proposition to test: King County doesn't keep track of the number of people who forget to put any ballot whatsoever inside their absentee ballot envelope.
Let's take Batch Slip 478, which you have displayed. It is apparently one ballot short. They should have tried to feed 247 ballots through the machine, but could only find 246.
There have been three sources of these discrepancies tracked: (a) Multiple ballot voters, (b) wrong ballot voters, and (c) (most recently) inner envelopes not taken out of the outer envelope.
Presumably, the one ballot shortage in Lot 478 could have come from any of these three sources. But it could also have come from someone who forgot to include an inner envelope, or who forgot to include a ballot at all.
You should take all of the Batch Slips -- which I estimate to be roughly 2000 or so, and do an analysis. Also, get any documents which attribute -- (a) multiple ballot voters, (b) wrong ballot voters, and (c) non-removed inner envelope voters -- to specific batch slips.
By doing this analysis, you can hopefully determine the unexplained discrepancy. You may find a few dozen to a couple of hundred no ballot voters. After all, if 203 voters can return multiple ballots (husband and wife often foolishly trying to save postage), I am sure a lot of people can forget ballots entirely -- or even send a protest note instead of a ballot.
So if there are any no ballot voters not previously accounted for, that would further increase the number of voterless ballots by the same amount.
Of course, since you will be inputting all of the batch slips into your spreadsheet, this will result in every single number on the batch slips being added up.
If you start with every single batch slip, the total numbers under "Original Count" should add up to the total number of absentee ballots processed by PSI staff.
Also, get copies of the computer disks which have voter ID registration numbers for the absentee ballots received in each batch. Check the number of registration numbers for each batch slip, and see if it is the same as the "Original Count".
The results of all this will probably surprise us. I am not sure how they will surprise us.
I am sure that the Democrats will be doing the same thing. Their lawyers are at least as bright as our lawyers, and while it would be hard for their computer people to be as bright as you are, I am sure those folks are capable of doing the job competently.
I will be pessimistic, and wager that the number of voterless ballots will be significantly reduced. I will also wager that you will find voter registration ID's that are not listed anywhere in any of the files -- either in the list of credited absentee voters, or in the various categories of rejected absentee voters.
At least 69 of these voter registration ID's should be complete mysteries. These would be confidential address voters, and wouldn't correspond to anyone in the voter registration database, for obvious reasons.
However, I am willing to bet that you will find several hundred voter registration ID's that will not correspond to anyone in either the list of credited or rejected voters. The names of these people should be in the registration database (with the obvious exception of confidential address voters).
Take these voter registration ID's, and make a list of them by batch number. Then go to the batch envelope collection, and see if these voters were accepted.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find Bryan Suits' registration ID in one of the batch files someplace. If so, we can easily located his absentee ballot envelope.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 13, 2005 04:32 PMWhat else would be the meaning of the line in the exclusion block (just above the handwitten 7 & 28) for No Ballot?
And on this batch slip, there certainly isn't a number entered.
Posted by: MikeF on April 13, 2005 05:22 PMYou say: "I have a proposition to test: King County doesn't keep track of the number of people who forget to put any ballot whatsoever inside their absentee ballot envelope."
It is hard to believe that not one person forgot (or chose not) to put a ballot into the envelope out of more than 566,000 people.
There is a spot on the batch slip for "no ballots" -- at the top of the rectangle that provides a place to note how many are separated from the batch and sent to the canvassing board or for duplication or to be counted as write-ins.
I don't know who is supposed to make a notation that "no ballot" was in the envelope, but there is a place for such a notation.
Maybe they simply don't make that notation anymore, if they stopped letting the people who separate the ballots from the inner envelopes examine the ballots. If the "opener" or "separater" isn't also the examiner, then there appears to be no place for the opener to tell anyone anything about an empty envelope.
If they stopped making any notation at all, then it is obviously one way to appear to have lost or misplaced a ballot even though no ballot was in the envelope to begin with.
I'm thinking they don't need a "blue ribbon committee" of bigwigs to look at their operations and procedures -- but they do need to clean house and start all over from the beginning to design a process that accounts for ballots.
They are definitely not ready to handle an election system that relies solely on mail-in ballots.
They cannot even correctly process the ballots received by mail now. (Of course, they cannot handle voting at polling places either; and they cannot candidly and accurately report the discrepancies that occur. Come to think of it, there doesn't seem to be anything they do well.)
Posted by: Micajah on April 13, 2005 05:25 PMIf the 'separation' step made a pile of 282 outer envelopes, with a pile of only 281 inner envelopes - this should be caught for posterity _somehow_.
On another note, what in the heck does 'Duplicates' mean anyway? There's only 282 ballots in this batch, are we supposed to believe that _28_ of them had two ballots in one envelope? Or that 28 of them were people attempting to vote a second time? Or that 28 of them were overvotes? Sent for duplication?
That '28' is a wild number regardless of what it is supposed to be tracking.
Posted by: Al on April 13, 2005 05:48 PMIn any event, while my proposed task is a bit labor intensive, it should answer a lot of questions about the election -- including possible explanation for many of the apparent voterless ballots.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 13, 2005 05:48 PMHeaven knows, there seem to be several levels of mid-management in all areas of KC administration who could be available to make decisions or follow-up, before the process gets too far along and into the recount phase. It still boggles my mind that this election could have been certified with all the numbers so far off. My name says it all: Clean House in the election dept. beginning with Logan and go up to Sims. When the ship runs aground, the captain takes responsibility. Sims needs to remember his home training and take responsibility for what happened on his watch. His Citizen Commission is a joke! Posted by: Clean House on April 13, 2005 05:54 PM
Only when the Captain is a person of honesty and integrity.....and that sure ain't the case in this Sea(ttle).
Posted by: MikeF on April 13, 2005 05:59 PM"Duplicates" means the ballots were sent to another stage of the process because the people eyeballing the ballots could see that a vote tabulation machine wouldn't be able to "see" the votes marked on the ballots.
The first step after separating the ballots from the envelopes is to look and see if the voters marked their ballots correctly. For example, if the voter is supposed to fill in an oval next to a name, but chooses instead to circle or underline the names of candidates for whom he wants to vote, it's obvious to the human eye what votes he wants to cast -- but the machine won't "see" anything at all, since the ovals were left blank.
The ballot then needs to be either duplicated -- make a correctly voted copy, numbered and logged so it can be matched with the messed-up ballot that had to be duplicated -- or "enhanced" (and again numbered and logged so it can be examined later if anyone wants to know what you did when you marked all over that voter's ballot).
The duplicate is then sent through the tabulation machine to count the votes on it.
The ballots that are "to dup" are included in the "Amount Ready To Tabulate"--is this because the new versions are done right there and then? I would assume that "Ready To Tabulate" means "ready right now."
***
In this context, "duplicate" seems like a very unfortunate word.
From the photocopy:
Batch #478
Verifier - 8:35 - 9:05
Date Verified: 10/25/04
Tabulation Date: RU-11-02-04
Opener/Date: ED E 10/27/04
11:45-2:45
Original Count: 293
#Rejected: 11
Accepted: 282
Tabulation:
Ballots counted: 244 (changed from 24??)
Ballots to Dup: 2
Total in Batch: 246
No Ballots: 0
Canvass: 0
Write-ins: 7
Duplicates: 28
Total: 35
Amount Ready to Tabulate: 246 (changed from 247)
And this is one of the better batch slips?
My short opinion is maybe and no. Allow me to expand on that (free) opinion. Mistakes alone are not enough to allege fraud. Repeated mistakes are suspicious--but not enough for accusation--if they tend to favor one side. Repeated mistakes combined with apparent disregard to law, regulation, and practice are very suspicious. Refusing to release public records on those mistakes may very well cross the line. However, knowingly filing false/incorrect certifications that attempt to cover up those mistakes (or whatever) is an illegal act on its own, regardless of whether or not the mistakes were random or intentional.
As for taking into consideration voter information from other WA counties to determine criminal intent, I think their behavior only forms a "norm" inasmuch as those selected counties (1) followed generally accepted election guidelines, (2) followed SoS regs and state law, and (3) the selected counties were forthcoming and honest with their election audit/certification. So any county that followed 1, 2, and 3 and still experienced significant election problems, the issue lies outside of the county. For KC, this definitely is not the case--1, 2, and 3 were all "broken".
Other states don't matter, since 2 & 3 are different from state to state. Except for the really egregious vote fraud (dead voting, poll taxes, etc., etc.), excusing mistakes/justifying allegations would be very hard to do.
I think this is why many people were very careful to avoid the F-word, until the certification document was shown to be intentionally incorrect. At that point, allegations of vote fraud seem to be reasonable to me.
My $0.02 worth (in 1990 dollars, about $0.002). Excellent point.
Posted by: iconoclast on April 13, 2005 07:46 PMIf you want to play tit for tat and throw out Cuyahoga county (Ohio), then you must also throw out Milwaukee and Madison Wisconsin, and probably Des Moines and Ames, Iowa. Hell, throw out the entire country, and you name the president of your choice.
None of it matters, here.
Lucy, think about it, none of it matters, here. What we have here is an election department that cannot account for the source of all ballots counted. Whether the errors are statistically significant or not, the King County election department cannot account for the source of all ballots cast. And to cover it up, they filed false statements about the election.
You can go on and on about Ohio, but the truth is, none of it matters here. You are talking about a presidential race, we are talking about a gubernatorial race, and none of what you are discussing matters here.
Do you get it now? If not, let me repeat: Lucy, nothing that happened in Ohio matters here!
Posted by: MIMike on April 13, 2005 08:01 PMThe ballots are supposed to be "verified" as valid before the votes on them are tabulated.
See the explanation posted by Al at April 13, 2005 03:02 PM.
Fine job darlin Posted by: Back Stabbing Wasl on April 13, 2005 08:28 PM
I was just posting the information from the photo copy for those who don't have acrobat reader...(pdf)
And I was noting the additional date of (10/25/04) that wasn't addressed in stevenantony's post that I quoted.
I should have clarified my post! Sorry...
You are correct about the questions that remain in that batch slip example! Stefan noted that this one is one of many that appear to show *monkey business*....
This really turns my stomach when I think of the possiblities for fraud with absentee ballot voting, processing and now auditing?
Posted by: Deborah on April 13, 2005 08:45 PMI can see that explanation flying. But.
A full 10% of ballots?!?
(And if that reason is true, there's no reason to have a 'Canvas' option here, that decision wouldn't be made until the 'Duplicators' decided they couldn't agree)
Deborah, I think this makes sense to me.
The order is: top boxes, all non-left boxes, then left boxes. (I didn't design it, it looks like the work of a Blue Ribbon Committee to me.)
The top boxes are all done on the sealed outer envelope. In this case, the top boxes were filled for batch 478 between 8:35 and 9:05... AM I guess, on 10/25/04 by 'M'.
M started with 293 ballots, and found eleven that didn't 'verify' because of one of (postmark/bad signature). This is Stephan's step #3. M fills out the boxes 'Original Count', 'Rejected', and 'Accepted' as part of its job as verifier. According to Stephan's insider, someone doublechecks that 'Original = Rejected + Accepted' before the next step. Excellent.
The second set of boxes to be filled out would have to be those under the KC logo. Stephan's step #7, performed by Ed E at 11:45-2:45 on 10/27/04. He fills in 'No Ballots, Canvass, Write In, Duplicates, Total, Opener/Date, and Amount ready to tabulate'.
It _looks_ like Ed wrote 247, which would be the right number to put into 'ARTT'. It's just 'Accepted -Total'.
But... after those last numbers on the left (presumably by R.U. on 11/2/04) didn't add up to 247... it got adjusted. And this had to be double-checked. So that's two people (on just the first count) that had to see this.
Posted by: Al on April 13, 2005 09:25 PMI see the sequence of data as it's logged on the batch slip - per your explanation. It makes sense. 3 dates - 3 reviewers....
But what went wrong? What caused the numbers to suddenly change? This is where the auditor HAS to make proper notes! Simply changing a total with no corresponding explanation is fraud. Especially if other numbers have been written over and changed (with no explanation) to reach that total...No one should have to *divine* what was done to a batch slip...
There is something wrong here.
There are actually four different types of handwriting on the batch slip in question:
(1) The processing people at Diebold/PSI entered the "Batch#" of "478" and the "Original Count" of "293", when putting the ballot envelopes together by legislative district and scanning the voter registration ID's of the envelopes in the batch. This was done sometime prior to 10/25/04 (or at least prior to 8:35 a.m. that morning.
(2) The Verifier filled in "M", "8:35 - 9:05" under "Verifier", "10/25/04" under "Date Verified", "11" under "#Rejected", and "282" under "Accepted" when verifying the ballots.
(3) The Opener filled in "ED(?) 10/27 11:45 - 2:45" under "Opener/Date", "7" after "Write-Ins", "28" after "Duplicates", and "35" after "Total". The Verifier also apparently wrote in "247" under "Amount Ready to Tabulate" as the original writing in that box.
(4) The Tabulator wrote in "KU-11-2-04" under "Tabulator/Date", "244" after "Ballots Counted", "2" after "Ballots to Dup", and "246" after "Total in Batch". The Tabulator also apparently wrote overwrote "246" over the original writing of "247" in "Amount Ready to Tabulate"
Look at the featured batch slip -- Batch # 478. The Verifier supposedly did the task on 10/25/04 between 8:35 and 9:05, and processed 293 ballots.
This happens to be a total of 1800 seconds to process 293 ballots, or an average of 6.1433 seconds per ballot. That is pretty darn quick!
I can imagine the process being highly computer assisted. For example, the bar code can be scanned and the computer can almost instantly displayed the voter signature it has scanned on file, presumably as part of the validatiom screen.
But only six seconds for a relatively untrained layperson to verify whether a signature is valid or not? Maybe only two or three seconds, if we deduct the time necessary to take the envelope out of the box, scan the bar code, load the image, enter the verification or rejection on the screen, and put the accepted or rejected ballot envelope into the appropriate box? Maybe even just one or two seconds?
I just don't believe that is possible to do it that quickly and do an honest and even semi-close-to-accurate job of it. And it is easy to imagine, when ballot envelopes are flying around so fast during this process, that maybe 0.2% or so of them could get placed into the accepted box without actually being entered into the system as verified and accepted. That could easily explain why we have 884 or so more absentee ballots counted than voters credited with casting them.
Also note the percentage of initial rejections: 11 out of 293 in Batch # 478, as well as 7 out of 273 in Batch # 4 (the example of a "good one" that Stefan pointed out). This is an initial rejection rate of somewhere around 2% to 4%.
However, the final rejection rate was much less than 1%. The Mail Ballot Report shows only 3,819 being rejected prior to validation -- 1,700 postmarked after election date, 502 for no signature on envelope, 1,561 for not voter's signature (later reduced by 566 or so), and 56 for being marked deceased or moved. That is less than 0.7% of a supposed 568,333 (ha ha ha) absentee ballots that were returned.
And when you consider Batch # 4 or Batch # 478, these were received many days before election day. So none of them were postmarked after the election date obviously. So you would expect the overall final rejection rate in such earlier batches to be only about 0.3% or so.
But, Batches # 4 and # 478 were initially rejected in the 2% to 4% range. This means that about 90% of the initial rejections were later resolved. Perhaps by submission of a proper signature by the voter. Or perhaps by actually finding a signature image for at least some of the voters whose signature had not been scanned in initially.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 14, 2005 01:20 AM
Remember the Florida butterfly ballot? The people had a hard time deciphering it and it was JEB Bush's fault when Theresa LaPore, a Democrat, head of Palm Beach County designed it? Well some Democrat designed the ballot sheet, but it's Stefan's fault it's crap!
Go figure!!!
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on April 14, 2005 04:12 AMWhy is error, especially as basic as simple additon that supposedly was checked, verified, and recounted, accepted. Don't the citizens have a reasonable expectation of it being accurate, like their bank statement?
I would think that the ONLY acceptable error would be that no matter for whom the ballot was cast that it could not change the outcome of the election - and even that is a stretch!
Posted by: Fred on April 14, 2005 09:09 AMBasically the full 11th Circuit of Appeals said that felons in Florida had a lifetime ban on their voting rights unless they went through the process of restoration. So no rights no voting!!! Now do you think that the 9th Circus Court of Appeals would make that decision? Probably not. But it is a ray of hope regarding the felon vote in WA. State. Now there is higher court precedence!!! As MArv Albert would say: "YESSSSSS! Being in Atlanta this week does have it's priviledges.
NUFF SAID!!!!
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on April 14, 2005 09:16 AM