Okay, I've now read the entire 436 page transcript of Dean Logan's deposition.
Lots of damning admissions. I'll post a few of the highlights in between tending to other business.
One of the most serious admissions is that Logan was aware before certification that some unverified provisional ballots had gone through the Accuvote, yet concealed the details from the public. Is this fraud or willful negligence? It's time for a prosecutor to investigate --
p. 147:
Q: Do you remember having any discussions prior to the initial certification about unverified provisional ballots being counted?On p. 144:
A: Other than the general reference I spoke of before to being aware that there had been some instances of that occurring as in past elections, I was not aware of a specific number.
A: The 348 were identified during the canvassing period. Again, based on information that was obtained from the documents that are reviewed during the canvassing process.So Logan's staff knew of 348 such ballots, but he didn't know even a general number himself? What he did admit to knowing was that this was an issue in previous elections. Indeed, we can see in the 2003 General Election (Logan's first in his current role), the Special Ballot Report that his staff submitted to the Canvassing Board specifically identified this number ("3 already tabulated"). Nevertheless, he didn't think to ask his staff what the specific number of unverified provisionals was this time and that information didn't independently percolate up to his level? Worst of all, the Provisional Ballot Report that his staff submitted to the Canvassing Board and that he signed off on purports that all provisional ballots "issued" were accounted for and contains no mention of tabulated unverified provisionals as was the custom in every election going back years?
Give me a break. If concealing this information from the public at the time of certification wasn't outright fraud, it was at the very least willful negligence. This information was concealed through the two recounts, even though it should have been obvious that the recounts were a bogus exercise that could not possibly rectify the problems that Logan and co. already knew about. There's no excuse at this point for not having a criminal investigation.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 26, 2005 11:28 AM | Email ThisIs this the wiz-kid that botched our election?
Watch the MSM avoid any hint of curiosity along these lines.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on April 26, 2005 01:00 PMHe isn’t all that smart, he may not appreciate the position he is in, if he is relying on either KC or the KC Democrat Party’s legal team for advice.... ... .. . he’s toast.
He impresses me as the quintessential bureaucrat.
God this is great, usually it is the taxpayers who are the ones who suffer most in the aftermath of the likes of this debacle, this time the ‘Peter Principal’ works to the detriment of those responsible. The King County Democrat Machine, Sims & Co and the rest of those responsible for 'installing him.'
The Democrat National Comittee will rue the day they left these clowns to opperate without adult supervision.
Who decided to "reconcile" the polling place numbers by "adjusting" for the unlawfully cast provisional ballots?
For example, if 10 of the provisional ballots that had been issued were missing, and 10 more ballots were in the ballot box than should be in there, the canvassing crew concluded that the 10 missing from one place were present in the other place -- and adjusted the numbers to make it appear that the voter and ballot numbers at the polling place balanced exactly.
Who decided to do it that way, rather than simply report the actual discrepancy between regular ballots issued and ballots in the box?
Posted by: Micajah on April 26, 2005 01:11 PMI can recall a time shortly after the election when any mention of the 'F' word was met with scorn and ridicule, as though I were some sort of conspiracy minded freak...well, it's looking like those black helicopters may just be real after all!
Posted by: Kevin S on April 26, 2005 01:16 PM"There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity".
---Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe
Adapted from THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH 1320
Posted by: MikeF on April 26, 2005 01:18 PMHowever, with all that said Kevin S, in my heart-of-hearts I'M WITH YA BROTHER! Some of these LEFTIST PINHEADS F***ING CHEATED!! F***ING LIED!!
AND ARE GOING TO F***ING HELL FOR IT!
There were approx. 15 people who had worked on the canvass crew in prior elections, and about another 10 who were new. The rookies received "on the job training" and it was on the fly training that wasn't very thorough, and very rushed based on the circumstance. Some knew the proper procedures some did not.
There were approx. 15 people who had worked on the canvass crew in prior elections, and about another 10 who were new. The rookies received "on the job training" and it was on the fly training that wasn't very thorough, and very rushed based on the circumstance. Some knew the proper procedures some did not.
IF you are for real (Internet ID please), then please tell me, who authorized the opening of ballots PRIOR to tabulation? I am talking about the "Resealed With Tape" ballots! HOW CAN ANYONE JUSTIFY THAT?? Are there ballots that didn't need resealing because they were Rossi votes and would never be counted anyway? WHO OPENED THE BALLOTS?
Deposition:
Q Do you remember generally whether we're talking more than a hundred, more than a thousand?
A The number that's in my head, although I have to tell you that there are so many numbers associated with the work that I do on a daily basis, that I don't know how meaningful this is, but I believe that it was somewhere in the range of 258.
Oh.. I forgot.. they didn't look at who the vote was for.. Yeah right!
Posted by: Splatter on April 26, 2005 01:54 PMAnd they thought they it would all blow over in a month or two, with everyone forgetting and moving on with their lives.
THANKS SHARK! For keeping this baby alive. (my guess is you'll be a proud papa come this November!)
EricR
Posted by: EricR on April 26, 2005 01:54 PMBut imagine if your work was called into question, in a court of law no less, and you answered "Well, I'm not sure if it happened that way or if I'm confusing that with the way we did things at my prior job." WHAT? There are far too many "maybes", "I don't knows", "could have beens", and "may be meaningless" statements in this transcript to satisfy any non-partisan person.
He didn't at least pick up a poll book and review the procedures for which he is responsible before the deposition? How brain dead is he?
You posted before:
"Logan had to have known the number of unverified thru accu-vote was in the hundreds. My direct supervisor (Sanchez) as well as her supervisor (Hunnekens, who reports to Logan) knew that the number was significant per reports from myself and other canvass crew members. The numbers were not only reported to them, but were also documented! I'll put it this way, there was no secret in the office that the problem had occurred and the amount was fairly significant!"
This is very important because the canvassing statute states that it is a crime to delay certification of the returns when it is ***reasonably possible*** to ascertain the results.
It does not say anything about failing to certify if it is not possible to reasonably ascertain the returns.
Since Logan certified without delay, he must MUST save his skin by saying he did not know the specific number of unverified provisional ballets. Else he knows he would be charged with a crime. He is trying to stay out of jail.
HS education notwithstanding, he is following some's legal instructions to cover himself and others.
This is why a prosecutor is needed. A prosecutor could offer leniency in exchange for truth-telling.
Your post above is very important. You should contact the State Republican Party asap.
Dean didn't attend college, so he was not indoctrinated in the "Know how to lie correctly 101" freshman level course.
It is curious that Norm Maleng is taking a laissez-faire attitude toward this. Why is that Norm? I know someone from your staph (spelled correctly) is reading this.
Micajah, I understand your question. How many of these so called reconciliations do you feel have occurred? Are they in adjacent precincts, or politically disparate ones? If the former, then they probably sat in a room and tried to get them level set after the fact. But no can do!!! If the latter, then they have their cojones (co-ho-nis) dangling from a hook for a real coverup!!!
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on April 26, 2005 02:55 PMNelson, Y A W N, you are so wrong!!! Your own boy is cooking your cojones.
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on April 26, 2005 03:24 PMSP readers knew in January that the King County Citizens Elections Oversight Committee made that suggestion.
Posted by: ScottM on April 26, 2005 03:42 PMI think you've answered my question, in the sense that you didn't get any instructions on the canvassing crew to make the discrepancy between the numbers of voters and ballots appear to be reconciled.
Here's an example -- Bothell Regional Library. The canvassing crew member's notes on the poll book cover sheet make it plain that 31 provisional ballots were unlawfully inserted into the ballot box through the Accuvote machine, thereby explaining where 31 of the 32 extra ballots in the box came from.
If someone decided that a discrepancy of that size didn't need to be brought to the attention of the canvassing board, I'm wondering who it was that made the decision. (Denny Terrace polling place was similar, with 32 provisional ballots inserted into the Accuvote machine.)
If anything was said to the canvassing board about the reconciliation of polling place ballots -- prior to the (almost but not quite) certification of their returns on Nov. 17 -- I'm wondering if someone decided to tell the board that the polling places had been reconciled to within +/-2. That couldn't have been said, unless they used the measure of accuracy that Logan and Triplett stated to the County Council on March 14, namely, take the total of all poll book signatures -- for both regular and provisional ballots -- and compare that to the number of ballots in the box and the number of provisional ballots properly sealed into envelopes. In short, make the discrepancy involving illegitimate ballots in the box appear to go away.
Perhaps there was something said at a canvassing board meeting, but maybe not. During his deposition, Logan denied knowing before Nov. 17 how large the discrepancy was, and only admitted knowing that it was "an issue." There may be nothing on record to explain how that "issue" came to be concealed from the public until the first week of January 2005.
Now we have this scandal and Dean Logan proves once and for all that Democrats are undereducated and can't even do their jobs right. It's going to be easy to get Republicans in charge of this county once again, because people are going to be looking for competent candidates who are capable. Now we need to find people who are republican, capable, and live in King County to replace King Sims and his court of thieves.
I can't wait til we can breath that sigh of relief because we have capable people in power again.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on April 26, 2005 04:13 PMThere is a lot of capable people running around without a college degree who deserve more then we are dishing out right now. Unbridled opportunity is what America is all about. With Logan’s education you would think he should be considered unqualified for his position no doubt. Why not ask what the KC job requirements are for that position. Did Sims circumvent the county hiring requirements for Logan? What are the education requirements for that position? Let Simms and company squirm if they played games with county hiring requirements.
The job requirement for the job should require an audtiing background, possibly some information technology experience, a minimum of a bachelors degree, and significant elections experience.
And the job should be non partisan.
Hmmm, can any HRO people here tell me if this is illegal. If I recall right, an exemption made in hiring someone must also be made to all other candidates otherwise it could be due to discrimination. Is it possible the other candidates for his position were discriminated against?
Posted by: Mark Beyer on April 26, 2005 04:54 PMPudster
Posted by: Puddybud on April 26, 2005 05:16 PMWay to go Shark!
Posted by: Clean House on April 26, 2005 05:30 PMBeing politically active in the Democratic Party since he was a boy didn't hurt his chances. (The time he and Huennekens spent in the Elections Division of the SecState's office was also a big boost.)
Before the mess made of King County's general election became obvious, there was an admiring article about Logan in The Sun.
Here are a couple of excerpts:
Living the political life 365 days a year
• Kitsap-native Dean Logan got his start here and now runs the elections office in King County.
By Chris Henry, Sun Staff
November 10, 2004
Dean Logan was just 11 years old when he first dipped his toe in political waters. It wasn't long before he dived in. Now that he's director of Elections and Licensing Services for Washington's largest county, King, the Olalla resident is riding a nationwide revolution in the running of elections.
...
Former Kitsap County Treasurer Sharon Shrader claims some of the credit, along with other members of the Democratic Women's Club of Kitsap County, for Logan's political baptism. She met him when he was 12. The club was active in the church he and his parents attended, and Logan began attending club meetings.
"He kind of grew up around us old ladies in the Democratic Women's Club," Shrader said. "We've always been interested in his career."
A year earlier, when Logan was in sixth grade in 1978, he began his political life with sign waving and stamp licking in the campaign office of Sherril Huff (now Huff-Menees) during her run for Kitsap County commissioner. Drawn in through his parents and a family friend, he stayed stuck on politics after the campaign ended.
"It sparked my interest," he said. "I was bitten by the political bug. I enjoyed the whole activity of campaigning."
Logan, who was raised in Bremerton, was active in politics throughout high school.
Posted by: Micajah on April 26, 2005 05:59 PMYou're probably right. Plenty of college graduates take jobs in a bureaucracy and then neglect to learn the rules they are hired to implement. Attitude and effort are at least as important as ability, whether that ability is enhanced by post-secondary education or not.
I suspect that Logan is an example of what was often called the Peter Principle some years ago.
Peter Principle
NOUN: The theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent.
Perhaps in Logan's case, this mess will negate the applicability of the last part of that definition -- the part about remaining. It depends on how the chips fall.
He might have gained a comprehensive knowledge of the legal, and particularly accounting, requirements of the job in his former incarnations in other counties. That could be pretty well tested by tough questioning under oath, and I hope it was.
If he was simply appointed as a reward for being a good ol' Democrat, without owning that comprehensive knowledge, he deserves everything he gets. And so does the bloke who appointed him.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on April 26, 2005 07:13 PMI did find it fascinating how focused the Dem lawyer was (understandably so) on providing plausible excuses for the abomination that was the general election in KC.
Bring on the Huennekens deposition!
Posted by: Danny on April 26, 2005 07:57 PMI think Logan is pretty worried about a bit different Peter Principle and that is how in the heck he gets his peter out of the ringer that is squishing it to death!
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on April 26, 2005 07:58 PMHe's no victim here....He's a master at spinning state election laws!
Posted by: Deborah on April 26, 2005 08:17 PMIs there anything on those canvassing board meeting tapes that even hints at the problem of provisional ballots being put into the Accuvote machines?
I'm wondering if Logan trotted out his so-called reconciliation theory before Nov. 17. On March 14, he and Triplett advocated a theory to the county council that the accuracy of the process should be measured by counting the ballots of both kinds -- those in the box and those in provisional ballot envelopes -- then comparing that total to all the signatures in the poll books -- both those for regular ballots and those for provisional ballots.
Using that theory, they claimed that the ballots and voters at polling places could be reconciled to less than the goal of +/-2 per polling place. (Of course, the theory is hogwash, since the provisional ballots didn't belong in the ballot boxes.)
I'm wondering if the canvassing board was ever told that the polling places were reconciled to any "/-" figure.
Posted by: Micajah on April 26, 2005 08:59 PMMaybe someone can answer this question for me. How many "blank ballots are packaged in a bundle? Are they all "shrink wrapped" in a single brown box or (as I suspect) are they wrapped and stacked like bricks inside the box?
My guess it the "shrink wrapped blank ballots" are in stacks of 500 or 1000. How many would be in a box? 10 thousand?
This is really bugging me. If there was a massive dump of fraudulent votes into the system, it might correlate to the count in a box or stack of "blank ballots".
Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: Splatter on April 26, 2005 09:13 PMIn reading Micajah's comment above with the article about Logan, it's clear that he went straight from his parent's wing to the indoctrination of adult political groups. The guy never learned to think for himself and that there are other ideas beyond the ones that he picked up from adults he trusted while in high school.
It's no surpise that Logan is so partisan. It's pretty disgusting that the Kitsap County Women's Club foisted its Democrat ideas on a young mind rather than allowing him to form his own opinions. There's nothing more cowardly than adults who abuse the trust of a child to indoctrinate them instead of teaching them that they must ultimately learn to make their own choices.
..I'm just sayin
Posted by: Splatter on April 26, 2005 09:41 PMIn this article from the King county journal ,
‘Egan, however, pointed out that Logan is a nationally recognized expert in running elections.’
From the deposition,
MR. HAMILTON: Object to the form of the question, calls for speculation from a nonexpert witness who is not really qualified.
So far in the tapes I've transcribed - there was discussion about provisional ballots found in precinct 4532. Here 's a snippet from that transcript:
"I move on 142 - group 142 with four ballots that have no signature but it may be possible for staff to locate the precinct poll book.. ….I don’t know how you’re going to do it - there’s no name on it?"
"Well its in.. in precinct 4532.… that’s the only provisional - or all the 8 other provisionals are counted for and that one isn’t.. well then…then we’ll know"
That is one exchange over Provisionals...
On another tape there is discussion about a bundle of provisional ballots that were sent from elections staff in Oklahoma....that Logan thought should be counted...
And another discussion about a group of blank provisional ballots - no information on the ballots or envelopes - Logan said his staff brought them to him that day.....He also said he'd looked at them before...
Someone asked him if they could check them against the poll book..and Logan said no -that his staff had brought them to him today and there's no way to determine....?
So I haven't transcribed more on provisonals yet and I haven't checked through the other's transcripts....So there may be additional info in there...
I totally agree. Someone please help me understand what happened on John Carlson's show this afternoon when he interviewed SOS Sam Reed regarding the deposition of Dean Logan. Something did not ring true. Before it was over I had a strong gut feeling that someone has their thumb on Sam Reed.
It reminded me of when John Gibson was guest hosting a number of weeks ago. Gibson was clearly uninformed about the depth of detailed information possessed by his audience, and he was making glib comments that minimalized the seriousness of the mounting evidence that an election had been stolen. That's how Sam Reed came across today. He sounded like he was unaware of the facts that have been disclosed on Stefan's BLOG and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation website during these past months. He sounded "spacey", as if his attention was elsewhere. His replies sounded scripted. He came across as not being in touch with the connection between his responsibilities as Secretary of State, and the repeated disregard for state and federal election laws, by himself, and by others in positions of responsibility.
Sam Reed has a strange way of interpreting election law. Of particular concern is his repeated refusal to acknowledge his job description as defined by law. Bob Williams at EFF challenged the SOS with a list of 18 points of non compliance with laws and regulations. http://www.effwa.org/vip/SOS%20Side%20by%20Side.PDF To each point, the SOS has responded with the same sort of "scripted" spin that he mouthed on radio today. Bob Williams came back and challenged each and every one of the replies of the SOS with documented arguments to support Williams's position that the SOS is out of compliance in regard to the duties of his elected position. Yet, Sam Reed still clings to the position that by law he "has no authority to . . ."
My question to that is, if not he, then who the heck does have the authority to ensure that Washington elections are run by the current laws and guidelines. It has even come out that the Dems attorneys were allowed to get away with arguing their case for "re-canvassing" of rejected ballots between the initial count and the first recount by using laws that are out dated, instead of the current ones which forbid this. Even the judge got away with making a decision based on "old" laws.
Chelion
SPLATTER,
The canvass crew was not responsible for the verification of the provisional ballots. So I have no direct knowledge of ballots being opened pre-tabulation. We sent all of the provisionals to another section to be verified upon removing them from the material returned from the pollsites.
MICHAEL,
The state republican party, Rossi legal team, some of the county council and I have already been in contact. I have shared all the information in these posts with them.