The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat had a good loud rant in his column yesterday: "Shame on GOP for trial sham"
Now that I've seen the evidence, there's no doubt in my mind Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves.I'll deal with the question of "mistakes" as opposed to conspiracy to violate election laws and cover-up in a later post. Westneat's main complaint is that the Republicans based the accusation of fraud on nothing more than a handful of cherry-picked precincts with extreme discrepancies between ballot and voters, which he derided as aThey've shown plenty of evidence that this election was badly marred by mistakes. But they should retract their bogus fraud allegation, immediately and publicly.
such leaps of logic that it never should have been presented in courtHe rhetorically asks the Republicans:
Maybe because you saw only what you wanted to see?Actually, it appears that Danny Westneast is the one who only saw what he wanted to see. He selectively ignored the scattergram exhibit that showed all precincts with significant over/under discrepancies, which shows a clear bias for Gregoire [the pro-Gregoire precincts in the scattergram are the dots to the left of 50]. There is also an even deeper systematic bias in the unexplained surplus ballots. If anybody at the Seattle Times other than the lone Keith Ervin had done any kind of investigative reporting into King County Elections, they might have done a precinct-by-precinct discrepancy analysis. They could have started by looking at the precinct-level discrepancy spreadsheet that I posted here and also sent to several reporters. It's not that hard to see that there's a pattern of bias in the discrepancies.
Take a look at this table which I derived from the precinct discrepancies.
| Quintile | Net Discrepancy | % of Discrepancy | Margin | Imputed Votes | Even Imputed |
| Top Gregoire |
243
|
30%
|
60.5%
|
144
|
98
|
| 2nd |
232
|
29%
|
36.4%
|
84
|
58
|
| 3rd |
161
|
20%
|
14.5%
|
23
|
23
|
| 4th |
88
|
11%
|
(1.2%)
|
(1)
|
(2)
|
| Top Rossi |
84
|
10%
|
(17.6%)
|
(14)
|
(29)
|
| Total |
808
|
100%
|
18.5%
|
236
|
150
|
That's a pretty significant unexplained systematic bias in the extra ballots, especially since the polling place and provisional ballots showed a similar if less pronounced bias favoring Gregoire. This is certainly very curious. Westneat jumped to the conclusion that there's no sensible explanation involving tampering with mail ballots. But he overlooks the fact that mail ballots are batched and processed by legislative district and that all ballots were recounted by precinct. If somebody wanted to, say, help Gregoire's odds in a recount, it wouldn't be unthinkable to juice up a pile in an already heavily Democratic district. Neither the Republican legal team nor I have any proof this is what happened nor do I know of anybody who alleges with certainty that this is what happened. On the other hand, I think there are enough unknowns that it's premature to assert with certainty, as Westneat does, that's it's so implausible a scenario as to be worthy of ridicule. What I can say with certainty is that if King County had followed the law on ballot reconciliation then we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.
Danny Westneat is obviously a skeptical person and that's a good trait in a reporter. He would serve his readers better if he applied his skepticism towards King County government with the same fervor that he is skeptical of those of who are skeptical of King County government and have discovered a lot more of its problems than he has.
Explanation of the table -- I ranked the precincts by percentage of the absentee vote for Gregoire v Rossi and divided them into quintiles Most heavily Gregoire in quintile 1. Each quintile contains a roughly equal number of voters (about 113,000, rounded to whole precincts) What this shows is that the top 40% of the most Gregoire precincts had 59% of the net discrepancy between ballots and voters. On the other hand, the 40% most Rossi precincts had only 21% of the excess of ballots to voters. This breakdown imputes a net gain of 236 votes to Gregoire (251 more to Gregoire, 15 more to Rossi). If however, the discrepancies had been distributed evenly, it would have imputed a net gain of 150 to Gregoire (179 more to Gregoire, 31 to Rossi) [rounded to whole numbers]. The "Margin" is the spread between the Gregoire and Rossi vote, (e.g. the overall county margin of 18.5% means a total of roughly 58% Gregoire - 39.5% Rossi, with the remainder undervote, overvote,write-in or Libertarian) The discrepancy between credits and voters is an imperfect measure. Some of the shortfall of fewer ballots to voters may be innocently attributable to some voters who forgot to enclose their ballot in their envelope. Some of the surplus of ballots over voters is legitimately attributable to Address Confidentiailty Program voters and federal write-ins, but there's no reason to believe there's a pro-Gregoire bias in the distribution of these voters.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 28, 2005
10:26 AM | Email This
Circumstancial or not, the possibility that this is due to random chance so improbable that it needs to be considered impossible.
Posted by: Dogbert on May 28, 2005 10:53 AMThe average newspaper reporter or King County voter is very likely to simply recoil from such a demonstration. Their reaction to explicit numerical analysis is the mirror image of ours to the tendentious verbiage spewed by the Democrat apologists for the King County election administration.
Serious work needs to be invested into presenting the facts evidenced by these statistics in lay terms, immediately comprehensible to a 7th grade teacher. Otherwise, we get paragons of journalism like Westneat covering their incomprehension by emitting such canards as he does.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on May 28, 2005 11:11 AMI agree with your general point, but to me the table in the body of the post is glaring. All statistics require thinking to understand and not be led astray, but at some point, you can't make it any plainer. The table is screaming FRAUD at me. The scattergram takes a little longer to see what is going on. That is why presentation is so important. But, I don't know how much plainer it can be than that table.
That is also why the question needs to be posed to the "experts": What are the odds that this can be attributed to random chance? That is a clear question with a definate answer, that anyone can understand.
Posted by: Dogbert on May 28, 2005 11:19 AMShame.
Posted by: Doc on May 28, 2005 11:20 AMWhy don't you go peddle your snake oil elsewhere.
Posted by: Adriel on May 28, 2005 11:36 AMYou know, just as I do, something happened during the voting, tabulation, reconciliation and certifying of the 2004 election that raised red flags everywhere. Every citizen in this state deserves to know who really won this election. The republicans absolutely had to take this to court. The republicans have no reason to apologize.
Posted by: cc on May 28, 2005 11:41 AMSome red flags that procedures need be changed, but that is it. You have fallin' victim to a well orchestrated campaign designed to sow unrest.
Rise above it.
Posted by: Doc on May 28, 2005 11:47 AMTime to take the blinders off.
Posted by: Miriam on May 28, 2005 11:52 AMOn the right, (and even among those in the middle) there are frequent sound bite comments about stupidity, deliberate obfuscations, dishonesty, and even cupidity or caprice on the part of the left that would let a stolen election remain in place. I believe that the disconnect between the left and right is even more fundamental than this.
The natural reaction of someone interested in "fair" and accurate elections in response to this is likely to result in either a "See, see...they did it," or a "reality and the dems cannot occupy the same space at the same time" observation.
I think that the problem is more of a cultural world view problem on the left, where facts are fluid and open to subjective interpretation, and where accountability to rational facts, logic, laws and justice take a backseat to a subjective "what ought to be true."
In this alternate universe, what we think of as accountability and responsibility and the paying of consequences is seen as a form of "cruel and unusual" punishment. It is seen as inappropriate, as it is inconsistent with the overriding cultural imperative of the collectivization of society. There is a fundamental rejection of the beliefs and mores of the system that produces that rule of law, and so the laws produced by that system are deemed inconsequential. Rebellion (and even illegal rebellion) is often lionized, not condemned, when directed against the traditional system.
The elites of the left, and elements of hoi polloi within the left can see that, despite the "Robin Hood" element of the James Gang attacks on the railroads, they really were bandits (criminals) at heart. While they represented the hands by which robber barons received their comeuppance, they really did commit crimes of their own.
When it comes to their own various "James Gang(s)" the left is fundamentally unable to see the impartial truth of their actions. It is part of the sweep of historic tectonic shifts, rather than violations of the rule of law. They see themselves more a the historic heirs of our revolutionary heroes than Cromwell as he dissolved parliament and had the king executed.
Communication with those that operate in a fundamentally different universe and reality is always going to be problematic, and if there can be no agreement on such fundamental things such as right and wrong and a consensus of “the good of society,” prosaic things such as rule of law will never be effectively addressed. One person’s revolutionary hero is another’s criminal.
In reality, either he doesn't know that much about statistics, or he didn't spend much time looking at the data. The bias in the scattergram is far from random.
It would be interesting if you could provide the probability that the bias in the scattergarm would appear give a randam distribution. Just eyeballing the data, I'd say it is at least less than 5%.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on May 28, 2005 12:58 PMOl' Doc here is suffering from wilful blindness, much like Westneat. Statistics ARE facts - in this case hundreds of facts. The smoke and magic is emitted by ill-educated wishful thinkers who present loud allegations as the truth, regardless of the facts.
Due to the conditions created by King County's wilful refusal to follow better-than-Enron accounting practices, as mandated by the RCWs, the ballot count and the voter count don't match, by inexcusably large numbers. MOST of the unexplained surplus ballots appeared in heavy Gregoire precincts and MOST of the unexplained missing ballots disappeared in heavy Rossi precincts.
Those facts would lead a reasonable human being to conclude that some sort of wilful tampering occurred.
Statistical tools put numbers on the counting of the votes and the voters, and allow analyses such as Stefan has presented. If Doc is so well endowed intellectually, let him show how the analysis is wrong.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on May 28, 2005 01:21 PMThe vertical line should be drawn down through 40%, the percentage of votes Rossi garnered in King County. Dots to the right of 40% would be 'pro-Rossi' precincts, dots to the left would be 'pro-Gregoire' precincts.
Of the precincts that lost votes, six were pro-Rossi, six were pro-Gregoire, and one is straddling the line. Makes perfect sense.
Of the precincts that gained votes, 11 were pro-Rossi and 32 were pro-Gregoire. That makes no sense all.
The precincts that lost ballots were evenly distributed, but the precincts that 'found' ballots went 3-1 for Gregoire, while taking into consideration the 58%-40% vote ratio.
Posted by: Larry on May 28, 2005 01:45 PMWow. I think the bigger story is that the PI actually allowed this to be printed.
They author can't bring himself to declare fraud, and I can't fault him for that, but at least he makes it clear that King County failed the voters and that the winner of the election was never determined.
Posted by: Eyago on May 28, 2005 02:31 PMHe is NOT a reporter. He calls himself a colunmist.
He does NOT write about facts; he writes about his opinion(s).
And the Seattle Democrat Times CHOOSES to print his column in the NEWS section of the paper. As if his opinion(s) were facts.
He justifies his column being printed in the News section of the paper by comparing himself to Steve Kelly who is printed in the Sports section.
Posted by: JC Bob on May 28, 2005 02:47 PMI didn't realize that when I got my Math degree we were just learning about fictional and slanted formulas and theory that didn't involve facts. Glad you set me straight after all of these years.
Kind of interesting that when the numbers aren't what you want or hope them to be, you're just like Danny - Maybe because you only see what you want to see?
Posted by: Bubbasaurus on May 28, 2005 03:08 PMIts just ironic, not proof that Republicans support double standards.
Posted by: Dave D on May 28, 2005 03:41 PMDo you recall that it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who went to court first in Florida? It was the Gore campaign, not the Bush campaign, that challenged the vote count. These are not obscure facts, Dave. With all respect, you're not contributing anything to the conversation.
Posted by: jsa on May 28, 2005 03:57 PMI've had some e-mail conversations with Westneat, too. He once told me, in almost these words, that I need to understand that what he writes is an opinion column, and that in an opinion column you are not burdened with having to support your arguments with evidence. So I'm not surprised to hear of your experience with him.
Posted by: jsa on May 28, 2005 04:02 PMThis old woman told me and some others that, "I wouldn't believe the preacher cheated on his wife IF I SAW HIM DOING IT ON THE CHURCH LAWN." It is impossible to reason with someone like that. People like that can't be helped. (Doc, Nelson, brainless, David D, danw...who'm I leavin' out?)
Posted by: Danny on May 28, 2005 04:06 PMMost that I know waited patiently (and with bated-breath), knowing the propensity for demo cheating and general mayhem.
And they were right to do so. The 'rat bass turds did their best to steal the election in 2000. When they got slapped down I saw some of the passion go out of their step.
They've been boisterous ever since, but they're just not the same. It must be disheartening to be a ship without a rudder. To have no idea who you are, what you stand for, and where you're going.
It must be equally frustrating (at least for the "normal" ones) to be associated with those who are stuck in the perpetual mode of the obstructionist, the disruptor, and the holder of the anti-American views. What a conundrum! To deny your party, or deny your country!
I think how embarrassing it must be to have to look up to losers like Reid, Dean, Kerry, Kennedy (urp!), Pelosi, (etc ad nauseum!) for your "inspiration" and your marching orders!
I almost feel sorry for ya (almost!).
Another tellingly weak statement. You are right that we cannot be certain that this scenario didn't occur. But Westneat pointed out that there was no reason for potentially fraudulent votes (of which there is not the slightest evidence) to be in D-leaning precincts. You provide no argument to the contrary, and I can't think of one.
Posted by: Bruce on May 28, 2005 06:19 PMThe limits of your and Westneat's respective imaginations are not the issue. The issue is that King County violated state laws and the public trust by failing to properly reconcile and account for the ballots. Accordingly, any bias in the resulting discrepancies is worthy of suspicion.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on May 28, 2005 06:37 PMDanny Westneat: Trial unlikely to settle debate over who won...
huh? What a benign teaser of Westneats liberal spin job!! Westneat himself began his column with : No Sign of Proof Amid the Pomp
This is false advertising! They purposely avoided printing any hint of Westneats venom on the front page teaser - so they could con the public into thinking they were *fair and balanced*...until you get to Westneats blather!
Then the Seattle Times runs yet another story in the same edition - E-Mails cite absentee mess By David Postman
This story details King County election officials worry -weeks before the election - about a new computer system for tracking absentee ballots....and how the workers couldn't tell how many had been sent to voters....
The movie "Cybil" comes to mind with the Seattle Times....I know I've accused them of being Bi-Polar in the past...but now I'm thinking their condition is a lot worse!
Posted by: Deborah on May 28, 2005 08:22 PMDanny Westneat can write what he wants, and is entitled to his opinion.
And why should you care anyway - you cancelled your subscription, so the Seattle Times owes you nothing.
Posted by: Daniel K on May 28, 2005 11:05 PMOh No he can't. Not when his audience is the public and his opinion is based on bias and lies.
His column was no different than any op-ed letters written by looney liberals from Freemont - except his letter recieved it's own column!
One would think the Seattle Times cares about integrity....but evidently....they don't - at least when it comes to their columnists.....
Posted by: Deborah on May 28, 2005 11:51 PMYou could tell Westnut to put that probability in his pipe and smoke it.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on May 28, 2005 11:58 PMDeborah: he did, so he obviously can, and what he wrote is his opinion.
Posted by: Daniel K on May 29, 2005 12:11 AMThey owe nothing of the sort. Anybody who reads a newspaper clearly understands that when they put a photo of the columnist next to the column, it is an opinion piece, whether it be in the Sports section, the Opinions section, or a News section. The fact that he is labeled a "columnist" on his articles is also a clue.
Contrast that with news items written by someone like David Postman, which do not show his mug.
This isn't deceit. You know Westneat is a columnist, and anybody who reads him does too.
In our small newspaper we have standing heads with a huge 6 pt rule above to emphasize the fact this type of story is an "opinion" or "guest column" or "my two cents." We do not wish to have even the slightest appearance of deceit.
Having a mug beside the piece is not a clear indication it is an opinion. I did not know this was an opinion until JC Bob pointed it out. I feel it is deceit to run opinion pieces on regular news pages.
Shall we agree to disagree?
He's willing to go along with it, and even champion it, because (at the moment) it supports his point of view.
Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it, or under whatever circumstances.
But I'll accept the challenge of Denial K. and his ilk, and respond by educating people at every opportunity of the bias and partisanship of these rags.
Is there any wonder that the circulation of our regions two major papers is tanking?
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 29, 2005 08:52 AMThe good news here is, that by the end of next week, when the judge dismisses this case, the media and PR advgantage will shift to the Democrats. While I know the illiterati who comprise the GOP base will still be screaming "fraud," the swing voters won't tolerate being lied to by the GOP, who promised they could deliver proof of fraud when none existed. You are revealed for what you are. Ron Sims wins easily, Cantwell retains her seat, and the Dems gain in the legislature. Too bad, so sad. And poor Dino Rossi, he'll be back to selling real estate, if any buyer will believe anything he has to say. Maybe Melvin Heidi is looking for an associate again . . . .
Posted by: Northern Coho on May 29, 2005 09:21 AMDoncha know that stuff will rot yer brain?!!
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 29, 2005 10:12 AMElection laws are predicated upon the notion that trust in the election results should not require trust of one party's election officials. This is why there are chain-of-custody procedures to ensure that members of both parties can supervise everything that goes on with the ballots.
In the case of many of the "found" ballots, however, this all goes out the window. If a stack of ballots is mysteriously "found" in a place that was not under the supervision of both parties, what reason is there to believe that the ballots were cast by legitimate voters during the election (as opposed to having been cast by some partisan hack the day before they were "found")? Perhaps there's some authentication method I don't know about, but I certainly can't imagine any.
Posted by: supercat on May 29, 2005 10:19 AMNorthern Coho,
I read your entire post and am more than willing to listen to your side of this debate but you lose my attention when you attack all Republicans.
Take a look at any Westneat column. His photo is below the heading, under that is his name, and under that are the words "Seattle Times staff columnist". The same is true for the column as printed online.
Seems clear enough to me.
Posted by: Daniel K on May 29, 2005 12:39 PMThe hypocrisy, and misplaced revolutionizing of this statement is quite laughable. But, feel free to go after that dirty rotten scoundrel Westneat and his dirty rotten newspaper the Seattle Times - whatever floats your boat soup.
Posted by: Daniel K on May 29, 2005 12:48 PMBesides, we really got sidetracked here. It's not how this was deceitful of the editors of the Seattle Times to play this like a "regular" news item. It's what Westneat said. He is misleading the public into believing this trial is a sham. The trial isn’t over.
Oh please. You may spend your time around a lot of ignorant people, but that statement is just hooey and you know it.
cc also wrote, "It's deceitful and you know it."
Then cc wrote, "It's not how this was deceitful of the editors of the Seattle Times to play this like a "regular" news item."
Which is it cc? You're just tying yourself in all kinds of knots trying to make a point that makes no sense. Give it up.
Posted by: Daniel K on May 29, 2005 04:07 PM"It's not how this was deceitful of the editors of the Seattle Times to play this like a "regular" news item."
Read that sentence again very very slowly. Then go back and read the sentence before it. I forgive ya if you missed that one. Maybe you are dyslexic?
That's OK, sometimes I indulge in it myself;'} Like this sad pathetic toilet-drinking liberal who can't think beyond swallowing the party line (and has the calluses on his adenoids to prove it).
Have you heard of or read George Lakoff? (rhymes with jack-off) He is the patron saint of leftist double-speak. Although he would probably prefer to be recognized for his more "serious" works, he is most notable for his demo coloring book called "Don’t Think of an Elephant" (forward by howierd dean!).
The crux of his thinking is, if you can't win an honest argument, baffle 'em with bullsh!t. His phrase du jour is "reframe the argument" as in playing semantical games with the elements of the debate. Lakoff (rhymes with jack-off) is the self-described "master of the metaphor".
I suppose it should be flattering that he attributes conservative political successes to this tactic (if it were true), but he fails to understand what is most liberals' Achilles' heel - the profound lack of ideas. Their old crap has been so widely discredited, and they haven't had an original idea in decades. Consequently, they are usually reduced to playing these juvenile word games.
If you're gonna get close to the trolls, I'd suggest you "wear protection". Read up on Lakoff (rhymes with jack-off). There is some interesting stuff in there. It's kinda fun when dealing with witless fools and dogmatic adherents to know their tactics.
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 29, 2005 06:18 PMThen you yourself have been deceived by those that would make such an accusation.
If you haven't seen it Robert then you're relying on what people here are writing about Westneat and the Times. And if this is where you get your info, then you should verify what is being said by looking for a Westneat column yourself (it is printed in the Wednesday and Friday Seattle Times - or online).
Nowhere is there a characterization that Westneat writes anything but a column. Only here in this world of SP spin would anyone make such a suggestion, and they are wrong.
Posted by: Daniel K on May 29, 2005 08:03 PMBTW Robert-in-Tacoma, totally OT. Tacoma is a lovely city. We spent many years attending State A tournaments there.
Posted by: cc on May 29, 2005 08:26 PMWhen you misstate the question, the verbose answer is irrelevant.
Posted by: Dogbert on May 30, 2005 10:04 AMThe Rossi team has had three distinct arguments all along:
1. There were illegal ballots (absentee, provisional, dead, felon, and unknown voters) added to the count;
2. The willful neglect of King County Elections officials allowed these illegal ballots to be submitted and counted;
3. The illegal ballots show circumstantial evidence of fraud.
You have made a decision as to your opinion about #3, that they are mistaken, and you've applied your opinion to the first two arguments. This is a logical fallacy on your part.
I've long thought that if Seattle had and REAL media, any true investigative journalists who were worth their salt, they could have uncovered this story long ago before the trial. We could have had some real answers and known the truth some time ago. Alas, it was the GOP that had to bring all the ugliness to light, as the media was perpetually out to lunch.
Your indignance would be better expressed to King County. And if you want to see what caused this mess - please look in the mirror. You're part of the problem, and I remembered this when I read the faux anger and arrogance of your column.
If not the fraud, look at everything else Stefan, the GOP, Rossi, the BIAW, etc., HAVE discovered. What's been your contribution? What has the Seattle Times brought to light? Zip, zilch, and nada.
Opportunity knocked, Danny, and you didn't answer. The Pulitzer Committee won't be taking your calls at this point. Maybe after the trial is over you can start writing a gossip column in Seattle - if you wish your writing to have an even greater effect on the community than it does currently.
Posted by: Larry on May 31, 2005 10:22 AMI'm aware that your article has your spin, but this election is so questionable, there is little room for letting it slide or making excuses.
John Fund's election book suggests it's unlikely that anyone is ever caught red-handed stuffing ballots. But even a village idiot can see so many "irregularities" here that it screams for reform and justice. We are not alone. Hawaii, Louisiana and other states have their voting corruption. Why be "just another sloppy system?" I want reform. I want people held responsible. Enough slop. Enough excuses. Enough hair-splitting arguments like a debate team.
This extensive, sloppy chain of events & excuses would NEVER last long at your paper nor any other company.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on May 31, 2005 11:44 AM
Now how would Danny know how many kink county ballots were lost and in which precinct when kink county doesn't even know how many they sent out?
Posted by: 4woodenboats on May 31, 2005 07:23 PM