Back in February I reported on a tip from a reader who wrote that a family member who is legally incompetent and living in a Lynnwood nursing home had voted by mail last November.
we found out my wife's' uncle who is declared 'incompetent' by the State and has a legal guardian, voted and is now a PAV as well. Besides being blind with cerebral palsy he cannot read nor write.I now have documents from the Snohomish County Auditor confirming the reader's story. It strongly suggests that some of the caretakers at the nursing home conspired to fraudulently vote on behalf of individuals who weren't capable of voting.
Wallace Murphy, 77, is the disabled man whose family sent me the tip. This set of documents includes a court filing showing that Mr. Murphy has been declared to be an "incapacitated person" with a guardian, which under current state law means that he's legally ineligible to vote.
Nevertheless, the caretakers at the Manor Care facility in Lynnwood registered him to vote and voted on his behalf. Mr. Murphy's relative stressed that his mental capabilities are diminished and indicated that he was almost certainly taken advantage of
Current events have really no meaning as you might inquire about who is the President and he may say Kennedy or Reagan or whoever you say at the time.This set of documents includes the voter registration forms and absentee ballot outer envelopes for Mr. Murphy and six other Manor Care residents. All of the registration forms were filled out on March 9, 2004 in the same handwriting and by someone who had access to the residents' Social Security and WA state ID numbers.
Take a look at Murphy's registration card (page 1) and his absentee ballot envelope (page 3). His legal name is Wallace J. Murphy, but he was registered as Wally I. Murphy. The "signature" on his registration form (again, he never learned to write) does not match the "signature" on his ballot envelope. The witness was the same for both signatures.
Other interesting aspects of these registrations --
* In most cases, the signatures on the registration forms do not match the signatures on the ballot envelopes.
* Whoever pre-filled the registration forms assumed that the residents didn't have a driver's license, entering "N/A". Somebody went back later and where applicable overwrote this with an ID number. I looked up these numbers at the DOL. None of these are driver's licenses. The few that actually check out are identification cards.
* Some of the signatures purportedly from different individuals look suspiciously similar.
* It's possible that some of the other individuals who were registered on March 9 are otherwise qualified to vote but simply needed a little help with the mechanics, but I doubt that all of them were competent to vote. I tried to call one of them and it was clear he/she didn't have the mental capacity to have a telephone conversation.
* The Snohomish County Auditor was also negligent here. Three of these absentee ballot signatures clearly don't match the registration signatures -- Murphy, Rosen and Erickson -- and the ballots were witnessed by someone from Manor Care. But state law requires that a witnessed absentee ballot have two witnesses to be counted. Nevertheless, these voters were credited and their ballots appear to have been counted.
The state legislature in its paroxysm of "election reform" legislation actually did address the issue of vote fraud by nursing home officials who take advantage of the mentally incapacitated -- they passed a law to ensure that it's going to happen more often than ever before.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 05, 2005 10:36 AM | Email ThisThe Republicans need to take a page from the Democrat playbook and keep pushing these issues and demanding action.
Posted by: Gary A. Preble on July 5, 2005 10:46 AMKeep reporting on all the fraud, Stefan!
Posted by: Michele on July 5, 2005 11:23 AMI'm not painting all nursing home workers with a broad brush, but workers' wages have been a big labor battle in the Legislature for the last few years.
Check Save our Seniors(SOS) and other labor groups (like SEIU) to see who's involved.
Follow the money.
I do think this is a problem and should be taken care of but I'm not about to assume any maligned intent.
I could imagine a circumstance where a kindly nursing home employee wants her charges to still feel like they are part of the community by voting. This person might sign up the entire nursing home and then have voting day as a fun activity for the seniors. I'm envisioning this person guiding all of the patients through the motions of voting with questions like "So Mr. Jenson... I remember you voted all Republican last year... did you want to do the same?" etc. I'd even imagine that some number of these patients are avid talk radio listeners and follow politics closely. The caretaker might not know of the standards for compentency when voting... or may not understand which people are not competent.
Then again it could be some terrible person taking advantage of senior citizens.
All I'm saying is we should look a little deeper before attempting to define what could be an act of kindness as maligned voter fraud.
Posted by: George on July 5, 2005 11:49 AMWhat is amazing is that some of the signatures on the ballot envelope and the ones on the registration card aren't even in the same ball park. I guess the laws around signature validation are, if there is a signature on the reg card and one on the ballot - that's close enough for government work.
I don't like all mail in voting and I am likeing it even less every day.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 5, 2005 11:51 AMIt ranks with the worst kinds of abuse that happen in our society and the people that do it should become convicted felons who cannot have their own voting rights restored.
Posted by: MC on July 5, 2005 12:02 PMGeorge, are you a touchy-feely kinda guy?
Posted by: Son of Liberty on July 5, 2005 12:17 PMI'm not certain if part of your post was meant to be facetious to further emphasize the outrageousness of the Snohomish County Auditor's office action or inaction as the case is here, and if so, please accept my apology in advance but...
Washington Administrative Code (WACs) sections are not "guidelines". All agency rules promulgated by state executive offices/cers through WACs (or any other state's administrative law codes) have full force and effect of law and must be followed with the same diligence as a statute or section of the State Constitution. This is week one of any Administrative Law class in any law school.
The only restriction is that a WAC cannot contradict an existing statute or section of the State Constitution.
So, yes, when Snohomish County accepted witnessed ballots without a valid signature, with only one witness attestation, they broke the law, and in the course of breaking the law, violated the rights of some of the community's most vulnerable citizens.
I certainly hope that if I were ever mentally incapacitated through injury or progressive illness, that my county elections office will exercize due diligence and prevent any ballots from being falsified in my name. I suspect that most responsible voters feel the same way.
I am confused at how disparate provisional ballot acceptance was across the nation. Some areas traditionally only validate 40%-50% whereas Washington validated over 70%. If this nursing home example is a measure of how well we match signatures and follow processes (WACs) I feel we're in for big trouble as the all mail starts to be more "trendy".
By the way, how are provisional ballots done in an all mail in model? Where would someone go to cast a provisional ballot - their polling place, the county auditors office? The auditors office would be very inconvinient, and if the polling place is open for provisional voters, why couldn't we still vote at the polls?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 5, 2005 12:42 PMSlightly OT - but - on the thread re the monorail resignations was a post re the resignations being a scam whereby the remainders cme back in as saviors with a smaller scope and lower price -- SHADES OF THE BALLPARK BS WHEN WE HAD TO PUT UP WITH ALL THE BLUBBERING AND THE LEGISLATURE AND THEIR "EMERGENCY" MEASURE CRAP -- IN JANUARY 1997 THE SCOPE OF THE STADIUM WAS SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED AND WE GOT IT STUFFED DOWN OUR THROATS ANYWAY.
Posted by: Bill on July 5, 2005 12:54 PM"Outrageous -- both the nursing home and our corrupt dem-controlled state legislature!"
The bill Stefan referenced passed the House 96 - 0 and the Senate 39 - 6. I guess the corrupt dems were exercising nearly total mind control that day.
The substance of the bill requires a judicial determination of an alleged incompetent's right to vote, in all incompetency proceedings. I fail to see how one could believe that a judicial determination about whether an individual has the right to vote could make nursing home voter fraud more likely. It seems to me that an explicit determination depriving an individual of the right to vote makes it considerably less likely that that vote would be submitted or counted if it were.
The broader issue, of course, concerns the potential for abuse, intimidation, undue influence of the elderly or infirm, who have not been declared incompetent, by their cagegivers generally, whether in nursing homes, the family home, or elsewhere. By their very nature, many if not most of those people have a much harder time getting to the polls, standing in line, etc. in person than the rest of us. Why shouldn't they be allowed to vote by mail?
Posted by: Northern Coho on July 5, 2005 01:15 PMIf more than a couple turn up, and especially if there are widespread voters who aren't competent. Then see if there is a correlation between this type of voter and unionized nursing homes.
Anyone want to lay money on what a little investigation like that might turn up?
Can anyone say RICO.
Posted by: JCM on July 5, 2005 01:21 PMYour second paragraph re: elderly needing the mail-in vote -- WOW!! -- why in 'ell do you think that the absentee ballot system was set up???? -- elderly, infirm and out-of-the area voters. It certainly wasn't intended to facilitate voting by able bodied but lazy self-important people that can easily get to their local polling place.
Posted by: Bill on July 5, 2005 01:25 PMThey are, NC, they are. But their keepers in the white smocks are not, particularly when they gimmick the signatures as badly as Stefan has pointed out. Your enthusiasm for 'votes' generated by skulking surrogates of the mentally incompetent is unbecoming.
At an incredible stretch you might be able to go with that scenario. But mailing them in? Even if the poor so-and-so is so ignorant that they do not know that their little game is illegal, mailing them in is another subject. Especially when postage is required.
Posted by: fred on July 5, 2005 01:31 PMre the penny ante: -- the really large parts of the fraud - missing votes -1000's of "found" votes -- etc etc was glossed over by the Seattle/W.Wash/UW good-ole-boy legal establishment and they pretended that the small stuff was where it was at -- after all - all they needed was about 175 votes to swing the election over - and then it all got swept under the official rug with a smug 'dare' to the electorate to fix things - if ya can -- speaking of fix -- look what they are trying to do to the gas tax initiative --
You would think this was Aruba -- exactly the same kind of coverup crap - "round up the usual suspects!!"
Posted by: Bill on July 5, 2005 01:48 PMI thought you must be joking, and I was correct (so glad I apologized in advance)! :) I fear for some of our lurkers out there that can't recognize facetiousness if written on a cod and slapped in the face with it, so at times, I add a pedantic clarification. Sorry agin.
The variance rates for provisional ballot acceptance occur for a varety of reasons. The accuracy of the voter registration databases from state to state and county to county is uneven. Some county election offices are more diligent than others, some are grossly negligent, some are just careless, and some are truly underfunded, and understaffed, so mistakes occur due to poor resource allocation by their home counties.
But the single biggest factor is that rules for provisional ballots differ greatly from state to state. For example, in Ohio, a provisional ballot must be cast in the correct home precinct of the voter to be valid. The reasoning is that the purpose of a provisional ballot is to ensure that voters who might be disenfranchised through an election office clerical error (e.g. they were cancelled from the voting rolls in error), will be able to cast a ballot on election day and have it counted after the election office researches the voter's registration. So, in Ohio, since any ballot not cast in the voter's correct precinct is invalid, then the acceptance rate is much lower than here in Washington.
Here in Washington, as of this past year, you can essentially walk into any polling place and ask for a provisional ballot, and if you don't appear on the rolls, will be given one. Of course, the county elections office has to research the ballot to ensure that the person is a registered voter before it can be counted. (Except in King County, where Bill Huennekens admitted on the stand in court that several hundred provisionals were counted without proper research...but I digress)
Last November, a local Seattle radio station, as well as several voter registration drive groups, were telling folks that voters could go to any polling place to vote, and to just cast a provisional if they weren't at their home precinct. This is one of the reasons King County had such a hugely high rate of provisional ballots this year - there were many people who voted a provisional at a random polling place, rather than voting at their correct polling place in their home neighborhood. While their provisional ballot may have been accepted for tabulation, this laziness and irresponsibility on their part caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of additional tax money to be spent on tabulating their vote, rather than the standard amount spent on their neighbors who voted at their correct precinct and didn't cause unnecessary waste of tax dollars.
There are essentially, in my mind, three legitimate reasons for voting a provisional ballot: 1) You don't appear in your correct precinct's voter rolls for some reason, after you have correctly registered. 2) You have an unforseen emergency (not poor planning, but a real emergency), that causes you to be too far away from your own polling place to reach it before the polls close. 3) Your absentee ballot did not arrive, or it was damaged and is unusable for some reason (you spilled coffeee on it, you marked the wrong candidate, etc.), and you need to get another one.
Your question about absentee ballots, and how they would be replaced, comes directly from reason #3. And the answer is, yes, unless the county set up additional locations at which to have a new ballot issued, which is much more difficult than one might imagine due to the many different precincts in the larger counties, the only place that a new absentee/vote-by-mail ballot could be issued would be the county elections office.
All-vote-by-mail elections are a trainwreck waiting to happen. Election officials embrace the concept because they are percieved as easier to manage, and less expensive. They are only less expensive the the combined polls with liberal absentees that we now have. All Vote-by-mail elections are actually MUCH MORE expensive than all poll elections (with absentees only granted for the truly absent, disabled, or frail elderly.)
And administering an all-mail election is easier from a PR standpoint for election administrators, as the process is much less transparent than a poll voting process, election officials can hide mistakes, control information, and the results are much more difficult to challenge.
Posted by: Susan B. Anthony on July 5, 2005 01:48 PMDo they also "help" the people write checks????
Whether the rights are taken away by a court or NOT isn't the point. The point is that legal issues are a guardian's responsibility, not a nursing home employee!
Posted by: sgmmac on July 5, 2005 01:52 PMIf you want to see how far this worm hole goes- start cross checking the PDC database to see which of these outfits have made political contributions to reps and senators as well.
I won't go so far as to suggest they have also been stealing money from the patients too- but I would not rule it out.
Why I believe there is a connection: I was researching candidates in my district to see who is pulling their strings and found that most of the money is coming from out of district. The crazy thing ...the donors are places having names like you are describing here.
Posted by: Andy on July 5, 2005 01:56 PMThe first type, voter registration fraud, could be combatted through the re-instiution of voter registrars, as we had in this state prior to 1993, and elimination of Motor Voter and mail-in registrations.
Prior to 1993 in this state, Official Voter Registrars, in addition to being any member of the elections office staff, also had regular business hours at libraries, fire stations, city and town halls, community centers, police stations, and public schools. Also, community members could volunteer and take the training to become a registrar, so they could conduct voter registration drives.
The political parties and other advocacy groups could still conduct voter registration drives, but they had to get their group members trained as official registrars before they could do so. It also meant that those organizations were in a position where they needed to follow the rules much more than now, as their actions could be traced back to them.
What benefit was this? Well, each voter registration had the name and registrar certification number of the registrar that took the registration. The registrars attested to the fact that they had personally witnessed the voter provide the information. The forms could be traced back to a specific registrar if they were illegible, or had other problems.
The registrar system made for substantially fewer possibilities of vote fraud, and allowed the questions of voters to be answered up front by a person trained by the elections office.
Posted by: Susan B. Anthony on July 5, 2005 02:07 PMProsecute everyone and use this place as the poster boy for reform. Start wit this one. Start here--and we will believe you 'reformers." Threaten to pull their nursing home license. That's where it really hurts them.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on July 5, 2005 02:16 PMOnce again, it's all about balancing the society's interest in encouraging all eligible voters to vote, by making it easy, and society's interest in maintaining the integrity of the vote. I come out to make it easy to vote, but use the deceased, felon, incompetence databases, use the signature checks, and above all else enforce the laws against those individuals who actually commit the fraud. Don't depress (or should I say, suppress) the vote by effectively disenfranchising potentially hundreds of people because one may cheat. If that is the goal of a voting system, pretty soon very few people will be voting.
The counties all seem to want "Vote by Mail." Even the counties run by Republicans. Maybe especially the counties run by Republicans. At the risk of an argumentum ad autoritatum, it appears to me that most of the powers-that-be within the counties believe they can run a more-effective more-secure and more cost-effecitve election by mail than by providing a vast number of in-person polling places staffed by poorly-trained volunteers, partisan and non. Regardless of the occassional cheater.
Posted by: Northern Coho on July 5, 2005 02:26 PMI think voting is a privilege (i.e. I agree felons sholdn't vote) and everyone should have to make some kind of effort to vote. I, for one, believe in standing in line as a sign of my committment.
I know someone in Snohomish County that voted for the dead relative because they didn't their ballots as they were supposed to. They later screamed and got ballots, but their deceased relative also voted.
This fraud isn't a one trick pony.
Posted by: swatter on July 5, 2005 02:39 PMOur problem is that Washington Election law makes it difficult to challenge voter registration....and County Auditors put the burden of proof on the challenger. Who has time to do this??? We need to make time, don't we!!
I asked our County Auditor about name changes. They will occassionally catch someone already registered under a prior name IF the first name remains the same and the birthdate is the same. Otherwise, they have no way of knowing. It's difficult for the Auditors. However, I'll bet KingCo NEVER catches "Name Change double registrations".
The nursing home issue has been raised in close or hotly contested issues before. In our little town, someone noticed their 94 year-old mother's name as well as other patients from the local Alzheimer's Home on an ENDORSEMENT AD. They were outraged. But I don't think anyone took the time to follow-up to see if some then proceeded to actually vote for this poor woman. It was in 1998 so I don't know if I can track it down or not. In this case, the old woman with Alzheimer's was a staunch Conservative her whole life...yet her name wound up on the ad of a staunch LEFTIST PINHEAD!!!
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on July 5, 2005 02:52 PMFirst place to start is to purge the voter rolls and have everyone register with ID, proof of residency, and proof of citizenship.
If you see any election reform proposal with a re-registration component you can be sure they are not really interested in reform.
Also vote by mail is one the mail problems we have, the push to all mail in elections is just going to compound these types of problems. not alleviate them.
Posted by: JCM on July 5, 2005 02:58 PMThis is not a matter of democrat, republican, independent and libertarian, it’s about how society is continuing to spiral down in taking care of other human beings.
We will never know the truth as to which ballots were cast to which candidates. It doesn’t matter. What matters, is how the hell could this happen in the first place. And that those responsible get prosecuted to the fullest the law will allow.
Remember - "Every litter vote hurts!!"
Posted by: Bill on July 5, 2005 03:48 PMWhat's far worse though is the shameless contempt that Democrats in the Legislature continue to show for any kind of meaningful reform that would prevent this kind of fraud in future elections.
Posted by: Jeff B. on July 5, 2005 04:12 PMMy argument did not get much support from King County elections directort Dean Logan -- but I had good reason, as you can see from this post for making it.
Posted by: Jim Miller on July 5, 2005 05:10 PM"I have no such enthisiasm for votes garnered by skulking white smocks" - but you simply fill the air with a fog of questions for others to answer, without one hint of what you yourself would suggest to prevent such fraud. You seem to have even less enthusiasm for practical fraud prevention, say as practiced in Mexico via the voter ID card.
"How about a "friend" assisting an immigrant citizen who speaks and reads English poorly..."
There's a reason for the literacy test for obtaining citizenship in the first place. It's to prevent such 'friends' from manufacturing involuntary votes on the illiteracy of new citizens.
"I come out to make it easy to vote..." and this apparently trumps all common sense measures for fraud prevention as soon as you raise the spectre of "effectively disenfranchising potentially hundreds of people". Loud assertion, not proveable. Your value system tilts toward toleration of vote fraud, up to the point of plausible deniability. Mine doesn't, and you're wrong.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 5, 2005 05:25 PM"First place to start is to purge the voter rolls and have everyone register with ID, proof of residency, and proof of citizenship."
Why? You seek perfection in an inherently imperfect system. All of the illegitimate voters you guys talk about here add up to less than 0.1% of voters (and a lot fewer of registered voters). You would force everybody else to re-register in a quixotic quest for perfection in elections? You're mad! You can pay the bill. No business person in his right mind would undertake the cost, and risk of error, of your proposal to perfect a system already that accurate. Systems exist now or are coming on-line that can make the current set of registrations even more accurate -- felon data base, reporting of deceased voters to auditor, ajudication of voting rights for incompetents -- if properly executed.
Non-citizens -- I have only heard of two non-citizens voting. That is a non-problem.
Felons -- we have a data base -- use it.
Deceased voters -- we have the data and a reporting system -- use it.
Incompetents -- extent of this problem is unknown, but with the statute Stefan referenced we will have a database and could use that.
Severely prosecute those who cheat.
"The substance of the bill requires a judicial determination of an alleged incompetent's right to vote, in all incompetency proceedings. I fail to see how one could believe that a judicial determination about whether an individual has the right to vote could make nursing home voter fraud more likely. It seems to me that an explicit determination depriving an individual of the right to vote makes it considerably less likely that that vote would be submitted or counted if it were."
As in past posts saying the election contest didn't have a chance (which we couldn't believe because the arguments didn't make sense), he is laying out the legal argument that will be made should this nursing home voter abuse issue get to court. Yes, I know his comment is confusing, that's their waay!
About all-mail voting and provisional ballots - those ballots can only come from the county clerk/auditor's office. So, that's one good thing about all-mail voting.
About purging voter rolls - the only way to get this done is to do what we have done in Oregon. Money measures have to pass by with the Yes votes at least half of the registered voters. Get it? The more invalid, bogus, fraudulent, dead and otherwise unqualified voters on the rolls (who are unlikely to vote on money matters, since their primary purpose seems to be to elect candidates), the higher the Yes vote has to be to get over the 50% bar. That was an accident, BTW. Fallout from a voter-approved tax limitation measure from a few years ago. We may have the cleanest voter rolls in the country! (Hope I'm not being too innocent here and missing a big fraud!)
"All of the illegitimate voters you guys talk about here add up to less than 0.1% of voters (and a lot fewer of registered voters)."
129 / 3 million = 0.0043%
As long as we're willing to admit that elections are inherently imperfect, and we don't accept nor validate election results within the margin of error, and we re-vote when the elections are within the margin of error - then all is good, Northern Coho!
But if you want to enforce a 'victory' of 1/250th of one percent while you acknowledge that elections are imperfect, you won't find many followers here!
You've acknowledged that elections are imperfect, and that you want as many people to vote as possible. How do you reconcile that with an election as close as the 2004 Gubernatorial election? Isn't the 129-vote margin of victory 'imperfect', to use your word?
Even if the election can't be perfect, shouldn't the result of the election be valid? If we can't be sure of one, we can still be certain of the other - even if it takes one or maybe two re-votes, right?
Posted by: Larry on July 5, 2005 05:52 PMI do not tolerate voter fraud. If you have read my posts you know that I consistently advocate prosecution of individuals who cheat. I am unwilling, however, to scrap an entire system and start over because of the possibility of fraud or because there exists a very small percentage of cheaters.
I might have more interest in your arguments, I admit, if the Republican party did not so frequently and illegally attempt to supress the vote of legitimate voters around this country.
Posted by: Northern Coho on July 5, 2005 05:53 PMWhen you ask for a revote, you neglect to mention that the same chance exists to get it wrong the second time as existed the first -- perhaps more. So you have the opportunity to compound the uncertainty created by a statistical tie in the first election with the uncertainty of the second, and to throw the election to the party who can scream fraud the loadest -- always the loser in the first vote. And based upon what? A number of fraudulent votes that exceeds the margin of victory, appaently. You don't know if those votes were cast in the governors race and you don't know for whom they were cast. There is no point to doing that, in the absence of provable fraud by the winner, regardless of the margin of victory.
Sometimes you have to live with uncertainty, especially when the proposed remedy is more uncertainty.
Learn to live with uncertainty, Larry. All the rest of us do every day.
Posted by: Northern Coho on July 5, 2005 06:01 PM"I might have more interest in your arguments, I admit, if the Republican party did not so frequently and illegally attempt to supress the vote of legitimate voters around this country."
And you can certainly understand our concern since the Democratic Party so frequently and illegally attempts to encourage illegitimate voters around this country.
In fact, I'd wager that for every REAL occurrence of Republican legal vote suppression, we could come up with TWO occurrences of Democratic illegal vote submission.
You'd probably start in Ohio or Florida, where most of the problems and mistakes were in Democratic precincts, and we'd start in Milwaukee and Seattle, where most of the problems and mistakes were in Democratic precincts. Hmmm...do you see a pattern here?
And remember, it was the mass media that tried to suppress the Republican vote in the Florida panhandle in 2000 by illegally announcing that Gore had won Florida before the polls in the panhandle had closed.
Posted by: Larry on July 5, 2005 06:05 PM1. Elections are inherently imperfect
2. Live with uncertainty
3. Quixotic quest for perfection
4. Accuracy if properly executed
5. Non-citizens, non-problem
To be followed by his next CD entitled 'Let's All Go To The Logical Extreme!' It's urban hip-hop with the flava of a Massachusetts billionaire.
I live with uncertainty every day, Northern Coho - I'm uncertain as to why Gregoire is Governor when Rossi received more votes. But I'll get over it sooner than you'll learn to live with a lifetime of Republican Presidents and Conservative Supreme Court Justices.
Besides, choosing Supreme Court Justices is a PERFECT system - George W. Bush has the ONLY VOTE!
Posted by: Larry on July 5, 2005 06:14 PM"I do not tolerate voter fraud. If you have read my posts you know that I consistently advocate prosecution of individuals who cheat."
Cute. Leaving it up to others to prosecute the cheaters, and knowing very well that 'others' rarely have the time or resources to run rigorous enough investigations to identify same. And while you're at it, advocating the weakest possible measures to prevent same - in other words, you do tolerate conditions which make fraud easier to commit with plausible deniability.
Incompetence, since you ask, is regularly determined by legal authorities, at the request of close relatives who must carry on the business of the individual. No mystery about that.
Per Stefan, "Mr. Murphy has been declared to be an "incapacitated person" with a guardian, which under current state law means that he's legally ineligible to vote. Nevertheless, the caretakers at the Manor Care facility in Lynnwood registered him to vote and voted on his behalf."
You may be fine with that, based on your wish for more votes no matter what the cost to society. But to someone who cares about honest elections, it's screaming evidence of conditions conducive to vote fraud. Since you "do not tolerate voter fraud", let's you propose remedial or punitive measures, as appropriate. The world waits.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 5, 2005 06:31 PMNorthern Coho: Sure, life is imperfect. But, in many things we strive for perfection because to do less is unacceptable. Many people talk about the sanctity of voting and "that the right to vote is a fundamental liberty", why not strive for perfection in that process?
Why not strive to make sure all voters are U.S. citizens?
Why not strive to make sure all voters comply with the residency laws?
Why not strive to make sure all voters comply with the conditions set forth by our constitution and the various election laws and rules created to define and enforce those conditions?
If we strive for perfection and fall short, it's painful but tolerated. If we strive for less than perfection and fall short of that, then what are we really saying about how precious is our right to vote?
The two non citizen voters were "caught" when they turned themselves in. Nothing the government did prior to that mattered one bit.
Why not have our government be more responsible for the enforcement of these laws?
Why not?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 5, 2005 07:13 PMSECTION 3 WHO DISQUALIFIED.
All persons convicted of infamous crime unless restored to their civil rights and all persons while they are judicially declared mentally incompetent are excluded from the elective franchise. [AMENDMENT 83, 1988 House Joint Resolution No. 4231, p 1553. Approved November 8, 1988.]
I wonder how this squares with the revised law?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 5, 2005 07:18 PMI want excellence. I want the electorate to have faith in the results. 'Rats want confusion so as to manipulate the system. Their goal is sloppiness...it yields the results they desire.
NC, it seems as if your answer to all of life's problems is to shrug your shoulders and claim there's nothing we can do about it. Sorry, that is way too lazy an approach for my tastes.
Posted by: Danny on July 5, 2005 07:36 PMYou are trying awfully hard to convince everyone of something.
Do you know what it is?
Posted by: Amused by liberals on July 5, 2005 07:58 PMMaybe someone will set up a SoundInitiatives website that works to create a few reasonable anti-fraud initiatives that can be put on the ballot.
Posted by: VaCSProf on July 5, 2005 09:44 PMSince when is it the responsibility of elected officials to defend a dishonest system that merely supports the status quo? I thought (misguidedly) that these folks were our representatives. Instead, I find they exist to serve only their own selfish ends. What a surprise.
Throw the rascals out, that's what I say!
Posted by: LakewoodTed on July 5, 2005 10:19 PMThe fraud and bullsh*t has been shown over and over.
Let's face it, gang. The damned feds are going to ignore this, the democrat machine has won.
I am disgusted with politics in this state and wait for the inevitable showdown between those that still have moral values and those that don't.
I know which side I'm on. And highly motivated at this point. Thank the founders for the second amendment. I see troubled times ahead.
Posted by: Elmo on July 5, 2005 10:35 PMhttp://www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/Departments/Auditor/Contact/
While I have no faith in Bob T our Auditor doing the right thing, I do think that as a politician, he will do something if he feels enough people are watching him and will not his refusal to act properly.
Posted by: Bob on July 6, 2005 12:12 AMMac, I really like what you were talking about with the 50% pass. Do you have a link to the law or it's exact wording available? I think that may make for a good initiative come next year.
As for the article...
I wish I was still naive enough to believe that these things could never happen, but those days are long gone. Is there any way us little people can counteract this? Is there anyone we can get to help us in this fight? I do not want to have to resort to their tricks and corruption to try to fix things for the better. I mean, a lot of us are awake now, but how can we use the knowledge to fix the system?
On a final note, Northern Coho, while I may not agree with all your views, I appreciate that you are willing to actually debate issues rather than just run rampant with the insults and the slogans. I wish more people would just talk openly, and not hide behind party ideology (Although trying to convey that on Goldy's site went over like a lead balloon...)
DOMO
Posted by: Left Behind by the New Democratic Party on July 6, 2005 01:40 AMYou're right, it is just fine with me. I've accepted that as the better policy for our state. So when a republican wins by a margin less than the number of illegal votes, I promise I won't complain unless I can actually prove those illegal votes threw the election. I know, now you're laughing at my political naivete. That's okay with me.
Larry -- your problem appears to be that you believe Rossi got more votes -- NOT! Also, I was referring to the federal consent decrees to which the republicans are subject, issued in New Jersey and Missouri as a result of illegal vote suppression tactics used by republicans. I am unaware that the democrats are subject to such federal court orders, but please let me know if there are any.
Amused -- that there is another world view that has a legitimate basis. You all spend too much time listening to your own BS on this site. Better for you to know that others have a good line of BS, too.
As for this thread, Stefan's information should be investigated and if the suspicions are well-founded, then a prosecution should be undertaken. If you want to send a message, prosecute those persons who actually cheated in a very aggressive, very public way. Strip them of their right to vote and put them in jail. So, no, to whoever said it, I don't think that advocating prosecution of cheaters is a cop-out. Someone also suggested I was passing the buck to prosecuters. First of all, that's their job. Second, don'f forget to challenge people you think are ineligible. Now I've passed the buck to you.
As for the broader issue of election reform, I realize your masters use the issue primarily to whip up the base, rather than for any real hope of establishing a perfect system. But I'm willing to bet any of you a dollar, which is the most I ever bet, that any perfectly secure system you devise will be absolutely full of loopholes that you haven't even thought of. And that people will take advantage of them. And that it will be both democrats and republicans who cheat. Far better in my opinion, to identify the problems with the existing system and fix them on an incremental approach, which is exactly what is happening now.
But we appear to approach this issue from diametrically opposed directions. I assume that a person is eligible to vote unless I have a good reason to think otherwise. You all appear to assume that no one is eligible unless they can prove it. Your approach has a bad history in this country (and many others). I caution you against it.
Left Behind -- thank you.
Posted by: Northern Coho on July 6, 2005 08:28 AMOf course you "assume that a person is eligible to vote unless I have a good reason to think otherwise." But why should it be YOU who needs the 'good reason'? By your earlier posts, hardly any reason would be good enough.
State statutes and the Constitution spell out clearly who's eligible to vote. What's your problem with each voter confirming compliance with all those requirements (to County election staff, not to you) at each election?
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 6, 2005 09:07 AMI still think democracy is better served if it is not real easy to vote. It is easier to do absentee than to get ice cream from the freezer. Not good.
But, I also believe some people shouldn't vote because they are not informed and just pay attention to the 5 second sound bite.
Posted by: swatter on July 6, 2005 09:27 AM“Argumentum ad autoritatum” and “occassional cheater” aside, when you say you are staunchly “against voter fraud” but for an all mail ballot system in the same breath it makes me laugh because any sensible person recognizes the two are incompatible.
Your "line of B.S." is frantically trying to counter conclusions of your own making, and so-called “world view” presumes to conclude that most of us* (conservatives) think within the limited confines (B.S.) that you assign to us. Besides, your side has already won and Gregoire is the Governor, so why do you care? Everyone here can see the limits and potential problems involved in this nursing home issue, and no one needs you to “splain” it for them, or “fill in the blanks.”
You declare that “encouraging all eligible voters to vote by making voting easier is consistent with maintaining the integrity (reliability, veracity) of the vote.
Gee, how could anyone argue with that!
Coho, if you believe that you are achieving something, fine, but you are only exposing your own lack of sophistication not ours, and it makes you the butt of your own joke.
Next you’ll be telling us that increasing taxes improves citizens’ economic prosperity.
Wise up, or continue to entertain us with your idiotic silliness.
Amusing, but far from persuasive.
Go check the PDC database for how many nursing homes/assisted living places show up as major contributors to your senators and reps.
I don't think this is isolated. In case a certain democrat rep in my district is reading this--- I WILL be checking retirement homes in Eugene, Seattle and Yakima. I find it odd that so much funding of (D) candidates in my district comes from outside of my district.
Actually I don't find it odd- it aligns with every rotten thing they've done. It's just a little more clear to see who is pulling the strings.
Posted by: Andy on July 6, 2005 10:18 AMAmused -- I don't expect to persuade you of anything.
Insufficient -- No one has to persuade me that they are or are not legitimate voters and I don't presume to be the arbiter of that issue -- unlike YOU who apparenlty thinks everyone should have to prove to YOU that they are eligible. As you no doubt recall from your U.S. history classes, forcing voters to confirm they were eligible to vote was the tactic of choice for a hundred years used by democrats to keep republicans from voting in the South. I know you don't need me to 'splain that to you, since that is your very object. I won't confirm anything to you, because your rhetoric makes you untrustworthy, in my judgment.
Posted by: Northern Coho on July 6, 2005 01:24 PMYour reposte to me was the first reasonably intelligent comment you have made yet.
Congratulations, very interesting torture of historical facts by referring to negro slaves as Republicans.
Insufficient says: "State statutes and the Constitution spell out clearly who's eligible to vote. What's your problem with each voter confirming compliance with all those requirements (to County election staff, not to you) at each election?
You say to Insufficient, I won't confirm anything to you, because your rhetoric makes you untrustworthy, in my judgment.
You are proud of that answer?
Posted by: Amused by liberals on July 6, 2005 02:22 PMCan't you read? I wrote that each voter should confirm eligibility to County election staff, and not to either one of us.
And voter fraud, organized or 'spontaneous', is no better than decades-ago registration gimmicks (long since corrected) aimed at excluding black voters.
Please fight this year's battle, it's way more fun than pre-60s brawls.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 6, 2005 02:41 PMI hope that, since he's told us a thing or two, he'll stop carping.....
Posted by: alphabet soup on July 6, 2005 03:22 PMMolan Labe Mofo...
Posted by: alphabet soup on July 7, 2005 07:53 AMEarlier on I asked you: You are trying awfully hard to convince everyone of something. Do you know what it is?
You answered that “there is another world view that has a legitimate basis.”
If you call gratuitous, empty, illogical, stupid, and self deluded bullshit a legitimate basis - you hit the mark.
You covered all of the bases and had your dumb a$$ handed to you time and again by clear thinking SP'ers.
Face it, you are simply a liberal true believer defending the indefensible and though it is pathetic, it is also amusing to the extreme to watch.
Take my advice and wise up silly or SP'ers will taunt and twist you up like a pretzle once again.
Thanks for the entertainment.
"M. Keith Weickel, chief operating officer of HCR Manor Care, a chain of more than 500 nursing homes, is another Bush “Pioneer” .......
Posted by: Piggy on July 7, 2005 03:02 PMBetween you and Coho, you guys have those pesky Republicans on the ropes now.
Shark give up, you're busted, everybody quit, close the website.
Good job.
Posted by: Amused by liberal bacon on July 7, 2005 08:01 PM