The King County Prosecutor's Office informed me this morning that the Elections office will release copies of the outer envelopes from the uncounted absentee ballots later this week. Thus we'll know exactly which voters didn't get their ballots counted. Rep. Toby Nixon forwarded me this reply he received from Dean Logan in answer to his inquiry as to why the names of the disenfranchised voters have not been released:
On advice of our legal counsel, King County Elections sealed all ballots that were identified as uncounted absentees during the course of responding to the Discovery requests in the recent election contest lawsuit. We followed that advice and no list of the voters associated with those ballots was created. During the course of the legal proceedings, those ballots needed to remain secured pending action by the court.I'm glad they're finally releasing the names. But I still can't understand for the life of me what legitimate reason King County had to keep them under wraps in the first place -- other than their obvious desire to keep the disenfranchised voters from making a stink, when it was still possible to influence the outcome.Now that a final ruling on the lawsuit has been issued, we have been further advised that the uncounted ballots can be unsecured and that the envelopes (or copies of the envelopes) are subject to public disclosure requests. I have directed staff to retrieve the envelopes and produce a full set of copies this week. In doing so, we will be able to directly respond disclosure requests such as the ones your reference.
Thank you again for your inquiry. I apologize for the concern this situation has caused. Please know that significant efforts are underway to investigate the circumstances surrounding the identification of uncounted ballots and corrective actions are being taken to ensure appropriate quality control measures to prevent this occurence in future elections.
In the words of King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips
I was under the absolute impression [that] not only I voted, but followed the instructions correctly," said Phillips, a Democrat. "If it can happen to the King County Council chairman, it can happen to anyone else."Indeed. At least Larry Phillips' ballot was counted in time for it to matter. Not so for the Stansbury family and more than 90 others in suburban King County. But now Larry Phillips derides the election contest lawsuit as nothing more than a "smear campaign aimed at discrediting King County Elections". What a jerk. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 14, 2005 10:35 AM | Email This
The whole lot of them.
Looking forward to seeing your analysis of that list of voters and hopefully finding out who they voted for.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on June 14, 2005 10:41 AMIf you look up partisan hack, elitist, and hypocrite Larry's picture is featured at the top of all three definitions!
It's obvious now that we can't beat them legally - by voting the crooked vote counters out; the only option so-called "judge" bridges has left us with - so we just have to resort to joining them.
If they aren't planning on many, many republicans filling out many, many provisionals, extra absentees, and stuffing provisionals directly into accuvote machines (all deemed totally acceptable, non-punishable behavior by the so-called "judge"), they have another thing coming. They thought this last election was a mess?
Each GOP member can count on at least 15 additional, legally-protected votes from me next time, and many others like me. The time for diplomacy is over.
Posted by: Scott on June 14, 2005 10:50 AMcheck out the June 14 post on my blog - re: Rosie O'Donnell. it'll make you laugh - or cry.
ironically, for lefties, everything comes down to selfishness and power. their lip-service to tolerance and understaning is all just a front.
-nikita demosthenes
In addition who really gave that order? I'm guessing it was filtered down from Sim's office and had nothing to do with any legal reason or the prosecutors office.
Now that the challenge is over they can release the names... How convenient! Cover up complete! Congrats to Logan and Sims on a well executed mission.
Posted by: Joe on June 14, 2005 10:56 AM"We followed that advice and no list of the voters associated with those ballots was created. During the course of the legal proceedings, those ballots needed to remain secured pending action by the court."
There is no reason a list of names on those ballots couldn't be produced. The ballots still would have been "secure" pending any court action, and additionally the list of names could have served as an inventory of the envelopes they had in their vault.
How ridiculous.
Posted by: Joe on June 14, 2005 11:08 AMYou say:
"I'm glad they're finally releasing the names. But I still can't understand for the life of me what legitimate reason King County had to keep them under wraps in the first place -- other than their obvious desire to keep the disenfranchised voters from making a stink, when it was still possible to influence the outcome."
Aren't you being a hypocrite here. I recall when the envelopes were discovered you stated they should remain sealed and shouldn’t be counted or used as evidence in the election contest.
You were happy to speculate that those votes would have favored Rossi, but didn’t want to risk actually having to find out. Just like the GOP strategy in their case in chief. They didn’t want to find out how those felons really voted. Now that those envelopes can’t hurt the GOP’s bogus case you're happy to use them to stir up resentment and fantastic claims of vote fraud - as if election officials would handpick a few GOP absentee envelopes to lose on purpose. Why don't you point out the names of the democratic voters whose absentee ballots were lost?
Posted by: chew2 on June 14, 2005 11:10 AMBut, there is nothing stopping anyone from anywhere around the country - or, heck, from outside the country - registering at City Hall or the KC admin building or the County Court or KC Elections itself and voting.
My guess is, now that the state has made it abundantly clear that this is perfectly legal and in fact encouraged, people from all political walks will be doing that in the next election.
You'll have french nationals voting for Gregoire just for kicks and chileans voting for Rossi and God knows who voting for the Libertarian candidate.
Nobody in state or KC government is addressing this fact because to do so would be to admit that Gregoire won through fraud.
It won't change unless a Republican candidate wins in this manner. Then, things will be cleaned up REAL fast.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on June 14, 2005 11:11 AMNow that I am well onto the fingers of my second hand counting the months since the election -- 7 months - duh --
Are we sure it is only 96??? - wonder how many votes they have successfully laundered outta the system -- ala Brian Suits with the lost in the mail crap - (my ass ate them)
Please see my comment at 8:09am 6/14 on the previous post on this subject -- what info did the dem's get outta the computers that were stolen from the Republican office last year??? -- hummmm???? -- kinda smells a little like Hillary and - what was it?? -- about a thousand missing FBI files -- selected files that is -- still missing I believe -- and the beat goes on
message to dem's: -- It ain't over 'til its over" -- hold on tight - we are expecting turbulance -- heh heh heh
Posted by: Bill on June 14, 2005 11:14 AMWhy bother? KC elections already went on a hunt for all Gregoire votes and made sure they were counted.
That's the point here - KC was selective in which missing ballots it hunted down.
"Chew2", You are fantasizing as usual. I challenge you to find my exact words where I said that. In fact, I sent this public records request to King County asking for those envelopes on April 7.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on June 14, 2005 11:18 AMI've emailed the Elections office asking to be notified when it's available. I'll post their reply upon receipt. If past practice is a guide, the information will be released late Friday afternoon just in time to make the Saturday papers. Also based on past experience, I would expect the information to be incomplete and inconclusive. I hope to be proven wrong.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on June 14, 2005 12:08 PMWhat a scam these people are pushing on us! Why hasn't anyone just considered two weeks of early voting and eliminating mail voting except by those who truly can't get to the polls?
Posted by: sgmmac on June 14, 2005 12:27 PMBut in the end, this will only be more political capital in the bank for Rossi and other Republicans in the future.
Good luck in 2006 and 2008 Dems, you are going to need it big time.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 14, 2005 12:27 PMI don't recall your exact words. LOL! But you stated something to the effect that those ballots should not be counted under any circumstances. Do you deny that?
Posted by: chew2 on June 14, 2005 12:44 PM1) Gloat if your list matches theirs
2) Apologize publicly (with appropriate humility) if your list is off by, say, more than the error rate of King County voting?
No, of course not. 1 is certain. 2 requires substance.
Posted by: Fred Harris on June 14, 2005 01:47 PMI still think Dean Logan, if not fired, should at least be trying to find out where all those voterless ballots came from. They owe us that much.
Posted by: Michele on June 14, 2005 02:19 PMContrary to anonymous troll "chew2"'s incorrect claim, I've been calling since early April for King County to release the names of the voters whose ballots weren't counted.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on June 14, 2005 04:15 PMyou say: "Contrary to anonymous troll "chew2"'s incorrect claim, I've been calling since early April for King County to release the names of the voters whose ballots weren't counted."
I never claimed you didn't ask for the names to be released, although I don't recall that you ever did so on this blog until now, but maybe I missed something. Do you want to prove me wrong on that?
I did claim the following: "Aren't you being a hypocrite here. I recall when the envelopes were discovered you stated they should remain sealed and shouldn’t be counted or used as evidence in the election contest. You were happy to speculate that those votes would have favored Rossi, but didn’t want to risk actually having to find out."
This was in response to your claim that:
"But I still can't understand for the life of me what legitimate reason King County had to keep them under wraps in the first place -- other than their obvious desire to keep the disenfranchised voters from making a stink, when it was still possible to influence the outcome."
And it seems I was pretty much correct. As Bill pointed out, you did state that you didn't want the those votes to be counted.
And you also haven't come out against the fantastic wacko claim that somehow election workers fraudulently picked out a disproportionate number of GOP absentee ballots to misplace and not be counted.
Posted by: chew2 on June 14, 2005 05:20 PMStefan said the 96 ballots shouldn't be counted in order to be added to the election totals. He never said they shouldn't be counted ever by anyone, that they shouldn't be used for any purpose, or that no one should ever look at them, period.
He certainly never said they shouldn't be looked at for indications of election tampering, either as part of the trial or not.
I seem to remember in some other contested election, journalists went through the ballots and counted them again after the election, not to officially change the totals, but just to satisfy the public's curiousity. Stefan's limited statement does not preclude being in favor of that same action here.
Posted by: California Dreamer on June 16, 2005 10:04 AM