Sound Politics: Democrats Help Prove Rossi's Case (Update)

May 06, 2005

Democrats Help Prove Rossi's Case (Update)

More on the Democrats' "smoking gun" claim that

they found 1,939 improperly counted provisional ballots in counties other than King. All but three of those counties went for Rossi in the manual recount.

As I mentioned yesterday, the county auditors in both Stevens and Whitman counties (the two with the largest number of so-called "improperly counted" provisionals) told me that it was much ado about nothing, although Whitman's 785 provisionals were overwhelmingly from Gregoire precincts in Pullman near WSU. Here is the full article from the Whitman County Gazette, at the blog of reporter Thinh Nguyen.

Also, I spoke today with Walla Walla Auditor Karen Martin, in whose county the Democrats claimed there were 331 mishandled provisionals. She also told me that the provisionals were properly verified for registration details, including signature. Not only that, but the vast majority were cast at a dedicated provisional ballot table at a single polling place in Walla Walla, where the election officials, including the Auditor herself, were checking the provisional voters' ID. Only 1 unverified provisional ballot in the entire county was believed to have been prematurely inserted into a tabulator.

In Whatcom County (which went for Gregoire) the Democrats claimed that 17 unverified provisionals were counted. Auditor Shirley Forslof told me that of the 17, 16 were later verified. Only 1 could not be tied to a registered voter.

Sounds to me like the Democrats are getting more than a little desperate.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 06, 2005 12:52 PM | Email This

Comments

1. The signature verification requirement was added to WAC 434-253-047 in the emergency rules issued by SecState in August 2004: "A provisional ballot cannot be counted unless the voter's name, signature and the date of birth, if available, matches a voter registration record."

The article in the Whitman County Gazette reports this explanation by the Whitman County elections supervisor:

"Because the procedure was already part of the WAC, it wasn't spelled out in the emergency elections procedures issued by the secretary of state's office this year for the changes in the fall elections, Hooper said, so staff continued to treat provisionals as it had in the past."

If the August 2004 emergency rules weren't part of whatever "emergency elections procedures" the SecState reminded auditors about, that would be odd.

As an aside, does anyone want to bet that Logan or Huennekens will try to excuse their own failure to verify signatures when the situation was "NSOF" for a provisional ballot by construing the sentence in the WAC to mean it's only necessary to verify the signature "if available" in the voter's file?

Posted by: Micajah on May 6, 2005 01:40 PM

2. Micajah....

That would be Logan's style! To purposely misinterpret the WAC....

One has to wonder why Reed would place that particular qualifier "if available" in there at all? It appears that our election laws are riddled with these potential loopholes!

Changing these WAC's and RCW's to eliminate the potential loopholes and/or terms that can lead to misinterpretation should be a high priority for Rossi and the State!

Posted by: Deborah on May 6, 2005 04:43 PM

3. Sounds to me like the Democrats are getting more than a little desperate.

Sorry Stefan, "getting" is present tense. you probably should have just left that word out.

Posted by: Snake on May 6, 2005 06:04 PM

4. Based on the transcript of Judge Bridge's ruling - how much effect will this have on the outcome of the trial ? Micajah did not see much hope there, so therefore I posed the above question.

The R's lawyers sound like they need to be pointed in a different direction and get their act more together before May 23, based on this transcript. Rather astounding the turn of events since Monday - for an 85% ruling in favor of the Rossi camp and the remainder a tossup - the prognosis changed abruptly for the morbid continuation of status quo - yet this post expresses promise. So, Micajah - if you would be so insightful to link this analysis with the Judge Bridges ruling on Monday - how could this affect the case ?

Posted by: KS on May 6, 2005 10:06 PM

5. The reason that Whitman county had a high number of provisionals is that serious election reforms were handled during the summer when students were away, among these reforms were the closing of precinct polling locations. Election mail is not forwarded, so students at WSU had to vote provisionally if they didn't re-register for absentee ballots. The way the change was done in the summer increased election confusion and since there was not an adequate plan to notify students by the county, polling places in pullman were flooded with people, some waiting over 2 hours to be told there ballot would not count so don't even bother. The turnout was predominately democratic, and if the election was conducted correctly, there wouldn't have needed to be recounts to have gregoire as governor.

Posted by: Patrick (WSU grad) on June 22, 2005 02:08 PM