The Times David Postman ended yesterday's live coverage with the headline "Day Two closes with no smoking gun"
Testimony by Bill Huennekens, King County's elections superintendent, took up most of the day. There was no drama, and no smoking gun was revealed.Postman seems to buy into the Democrats' theory that any discrepancy between ballots and voters is merely a result of routine administrative errors that are inevitable in any election and that's its unremarkable for an elections department not to know how many people voted.
Even if you give King County Elections the benefit of the doubt that there were only a bunch of innocent mistakes (and that's a highly generous assumption), these mistakes have to be placed in context. We went through two recounts with the stated objective of improving the accuracy of the vote tally. The state's elections establishment led us to believe that the final answer of a 129-vote margin was reasonably accurate enough to accept the outcome.
Had they simply been honest before certification about the existence and scope of the "errors", it's unimaginable that the 129-vote result would have been allowed to stand as definitive without additional corrections. The smoking gun was Huennekens' admission that he couldn't vouch for his work product. The public was defrauded.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 25, 2005 07:30 AM | Email ThisNo self respecting Washingtonian should stand for the garbage produced in King County elections. Even if we forget about the outcome, the product was indeed so shoddy that our tax dollars were very poorly spent.
I expect some big turnover in KC Elections before November.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 25, 2005 07:58 AMIt really was a waste of time, my view of the majority of KC Democrat Party faithful was cemented after listening to their response to the WTO riots.
Posted by: JDH on May 25, 2005 08:09 AMI have no problem laughing at myself and my foibles - something that dems should learn (quickly!)
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 25, 2005 08:27 AMJason, what they seem to be arguing for is the ability to manipulate the outcome when a close election happens to come along. They are arguing for the right to cover over such manipulations with the excuse of "administrative errors" and "human failings". The lamestream media is aiding in this effort because it gets the candidates they favor elected (Rats). The whole 'Rat argument in this case reminds me of the "it is only about sex, not criminality" gambit that Clinton played, only here, the refrain is, "it isn't about fraud, it's about incompetence and stupidity". Pretty sad when the whole defense of your case comes down to the need to prove in a court of law and in full view of the public that you are stupid, lazy, and incompetent.
Well, I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. And even if it were true, assuring honest and accurate elections is too important a job in a system of representative government to countenance shoddy and incompetent work. In any other job where the quality of the work product is important, if there is evidence of shoddiness and poor quality, you toss it out and re-make the product. A simple principle of good business practice that seems to be incomprehensible to certain WA state elected officials.
Why don't they just admit that they have no clue how votes went? This tactic of covering it up and then saying the error is not meaningful is getting REALLY repetitive.
Posted by: Andy on May 25, 2005 09:03 AMNot only do you toss the product, but the people that were responsible for it, especially when their only rational is that "We're sorry. We are just too stupid to do better, and anyway mistakes happen". Chances of that happening in KCE?
OT. It reminds be of FL 2000. Everyone was so eager to get on TV to announce how stupid they were for not understanding the ballot (how they knew that they voted "wrong" is a different issue), and how everyone was clamoring for these votes. "They are so stupid they don't know how to vote, but they wanted to vote for me." I would love to have morons as my base!?
Posted by: Fred on May 25, 2005 09:05 AMBut not before this trial is over -- that we be too much like admitting their "errors" were something beyond the "acceptable margin".
Posted by: starboardhelm on May 25, 2005 09:08 AMAnd all those ballots without voters? Why how mean-spirited are you? Those poor ballots! Their orphans! And besides they might have been cast by those in the witness-protection program and we know that they are oppressed by mean, rightwing males!! Those ballots stand for all the unknown people who long to be free!! Better than those cast by grubby self-serving rabble who claim they are better than others because they are citizens! How narrowminded and oppressive! Why we should count those voterless ballots twice! Or Three times! They are better than the rest of us.
But now all those wonderful people that tried to assure that we have the perfect leadership of Sims, Gregoire, Cantwell and Murray are being singled out and presecuted! They try to give us goverment officials unfettered by actual people who voted for them and what do we do? We act as if they're accountable to the voters! "Correcting" our mistakes and having officials ellected by voterless ballots was an attempt to give us unaccountable people in office to manage and spend that money we have no right to! We should be thankful! Yes!
Could be time for another RE-Vote rally!!
So that the truth will be known!!
"No smoking gun?" Hell--the whole place looks like a civil war battfield--clouds of smoke. Sure--standing inside the muzzle of a huge cannon, you see no gun, you liberal Dufus.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on May 25, 2005 10:28 AM