Yesterday was the day when King County Elections was supposed to satisfy my public records request of July 5 (which wasn't a new request, but merely a reminder to satisfy weeks-old outstanding requests). There were three main items they promised to deliver. Each of these deliverables was seriously defective. My next step is to Sue Ron Sims. Please hit the tip jar if you want to contribute to the Sue Ron Sims legal fund.
1) I asked for a replacement absentee ballot file, to contain records on all of the absentee ballots issued, including multiple ballots issued per voter, which were missing from the file they gave me on April 15. The new file contains over 1,000 new voter records which were not included in the April 15 file (no explanation why these were excluded from the April 15 file), but only the same 10 multiple issues that were included in the April 15 file. Other records indicate that there were at least 2,500 multiply issued ballots.
2) On April 7 I asked for copies of both the absentee and provisional ballot envelopes for 91 voters who were listed as having returned an absentee ballot but who were credited with voting provisional. These documents were first promised to be delivered on May 18. Yesterday I received 28 provisional copies, no absentees and no indication when the other 154 pages would be delivered.
3) I also asked for copies of the mail ballots from the unregistered overseas and service voters who would not have been included and credited in the database. I also asked for documents showing the precincts where the ballots were tabulated. Only partial precinct information was given. Some of the office staff are working to compile the precinct data and I hope have that later today or tomorrow. But still. It should have been available yesterday as originally promised.
King County Elections has accused Julie Anne Kempf of "theft" for stopping payment on a check for copies of public records. My reflex assumption is that if she did stop a check for public records it was because the set of documents the county delivered was defective. I'm seriously tempted to stop payment on the check that I wrote for yesterday's documents which turned out to be even more defective on close inspection than I realized when I glanced at them in the elections office. But I think I'll sue Ron Sims instead.
Please hit the tip jar if you want to contribute to the Sue Ron Sims legal fund.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 26, 2005 10:53 AM | Email ThisI wonder if they will change procedures.
Nyaah, too much to hope for I must admit.
Posted by: swatter on July 26, 2005 11:22 AMAlso, remember how the MSM had no less than seven different organization working to analyze the 2000 presidential elections after the SCOTUS decision gave the victory to Bush. The ballots were counted and recounted in an attempt to discredit Bush. And of course, he was vindicated every step of the way.
It's understandable that there would be less interest in a gubernatorial election than a presidential one, but it's conspicuous that there's no media rush to examine the absenteee ballots or to get to the bottom of what happened here in WA.
I'm convinced that had the situation been reversed, with Rossi in office now, the MSM in Seattle would be pouring over every record they could find.
As it is, the task if left to the lonely determination of local heroes like Stefan and the few of us that are willing to contribute money, or time.
So much for the pursuit of truth and integrity in the journalism profession.
Posted by: Jeff B. on July 26, 2005 11:26 AMIt doesn't matter which party is in power, or what level of government it is -- they just don't want you to have what you're entitled to see, and they'll do everything they can to bog down the process of giving it to you. Even if a bureaucrat is inclined to believe in the public's right to know, they'll err on the side of not causing any trouble. Much of the stonewalling and foot-dragging on public records requests is simply incompetence or fear on the part of people on the front lines -- not some conspiracy from on high.
They'd love it if you sued, because then they get to make it not only inconvenient but expensive. Very expensive. There's a reason media companies don't sue every time we get this treatment. If we did, we'd be losing money and we'd be spending all our time litigating instead of doing journalism.
Don't even get me started about the widespread abuse of the executive session exemption in the state Open Meetings Act.
If any of you want to learn more about this problem, this is a good place to start:
http://www.washingtoncog.org/
The sad fact is the dreaded MSM you all hate so much are usually the only people fighting this battle. The public doesn't care. And until they do, open government will forever be an empty phrase.
Posted by: Chuck Taylor on July 26, 2005 12:26 PMWithout corruption, Sims can't get election. And, without getting elected, Sims' Swiss bank account can't get filled up with cream skimmed off the light rail debacle.
King County truly is BananaLandia.
Posted by: BananaLand(aka Iguana) on July 26, 2005 01:53 PM"The sad fact is the dreaded MSM you all hate so much are usually the only people fighting this battle."
"this battle" I take is defined as FIO requests, stalling by city, county and state governments, etc.
"this battle" according to me is about a highly questionable election and the details behind he machinations at King County.
Have you filed similar requests such as Stefan's in order to get to the bottom of this mess? If so, how is your progress? If not, why not?
Posted by: jimg on July 26, 2005 02:16 PMThere are those few of us out here that do try to push for records and exposure of the routine wrongdoing occurring in King County, particularly in DOT and DDES. And for the most part, when we take what we've learned to the press, we get no help there at all. There are many issues that the local MSM has no more interest in reporting than Ron Sims and his cabal of corrupt "special interest" servants.
Posted by: Mike on July 26, 2005 03:21 PMIt is a negative contribution to the tune of multiple thousands of dollars.
Posted by: timman on July 26, 2005 04:26 PMCheers
Posted by: swassociates on July 26, 2005 04:47 PMThe PDA (Public Disclosure Act, aka Open Records Act) is a self-enforcing law. (A form of "qui tam" action - a civil war era law that rewards citizens for exposing fraud on the government.)
Penalties paid to the requestor, if suit is brought, are supposed to be the incentive to compensate for the time and effort and risk, etc., to bring matters to light. The law theoretically also allows for legal costs to be awarded to the litigant. Fines are currently $5 to $100 per day per record (which, in my case, morphed into a group of records to reduce the fines, so that the definition of a "record" is subject to a trial judge's discretion ... that's a whole 'nother story). A proposal in the legislature this last session to increase the range to $50 to $500 per day (per request, as I recall, and not per record) didn't make it into the changes that did occur. (I was in Olympia twice during the last session, testifying at one legislator's request, on the various proposals).
By way of history, the original act had no fines, and the response requirement was simply to be "prompt". With agencies stonewalling, the 5 day response requirement and fines were instituted over the years. The current range of $5 to $100 of daily penalties was increased to that level in 1992, before which time the range was $1 to $25, and originally, in 1972, when the law was enacted by a citizen's initiative, nothing.
All the above is the theory. The reality of actually bringing one of these PDA suits is something else. Just look at my case (see: www.ArmenYousoufian.com , and www.Yousoufian.blogspot.com and the posting re: this Thursday morning's court session - round #4). If you want to see "up close and personal" what a PDA suit involves, come to court this Thursday morning and watch, listen, learn.
After 8 years, Sims and King County are still withholding documents from me, and the trial judge in 2001 ruled that any remaining documents I didn't get were "miscellaneous" and that "reasonable disclosure" had been made and, essentially, said that was good enough. So, you can see there is a problem even in my case - and it appears I have been one of the, if not THE, most successful PDA plaintiff ever in this state, and probably the entire country that has sued under any state's open records act. It isn't a pretty picture, it's been over 8 years, I have approximately 4000 hours of my own time invested in this, legal expenses are at $330,000 through the two appeals and the outcome is still uncertain - even a great victory in this next round is subject to appeal by King County - at the public's expense.
Finally, the MSM (it took me a minute to realize you are talking about the mainstream media I gather?) - but not the Seattle Weekly - has largely ignored the evidence I believe I uncovered years ago that several of the sports stadium studies were rigged, that Sims was involved, that he deceived the public, misrepresented what the studies actually said (as if they weren't rigged enough already), and hid the fact that they had been "made as instructed". Just a week before the June 17, 1997 state-wide election, Sims was on KUOW describing a study I didn't know existed, was covered by my request from weeks earlier, and which I didn't see for another 4 years, in 2001 (it was included in over 200 documents Sims' office finally produced after we were over a year past my filing my lawsuit, and on the brink of starting to take depositions) . When I finally did see it, I felt it was obvious it was "rigged", and Sims, in that early June, 1997 radio interview on Steve Scher's program on KUOW, had even exaggerated and distorted its contents and conclusions - to influence the vote. (I've emailed and discussed all this with Steve Scher and feel he has done nothing to expose the use Sims made of him and KUOW - he certainly has not given me any airtime to detail and expose my findings.) Rick Anderson of the Seattle Weekly has written all about it. He and Peter Callaghan of the Tacoma News Tribune are really the only ones exposing this sort of abuse.
Hope this sheds some light on what we are all still up against in this arena.
Armen Yousoufian
Posted by: Armen Yousoufian on July 26, 2005 04:56 PMJust because you dig something up and bring it to my attention doesn't make it newsworthy or a good investment of time for me, too. SW and every other media outlet in town is inundated with news tips and other assorted feedback. Maybe the discoveries you refer to were worth pursuing by MSM -- maybe they weren't. It all depends on good or bad judgment, resources, competence -- a million things. Bear in mind that the media business is full of very smart and very not-so-smart people, just like where you work. Overall, there's no accounting for news judgment, no matter where you're sitting. The fact the Web is now an outlet for the stories no one in MSM was interested in pursuing is good for everybody.
JimG, I could just as well ask you why Stefan isn't pursuing the same stories we are, or going after the same documents. We've covered the election problems in our own way. Meanwhile, why isn't Stefan going after documents in the Boeing tanker scandal, as we are? Why hasn't he dug into Jack Abramoff, as we have? Where's he been while Armen Yousoufian has been battling the county and the courts over access to documents about Paul Allen's billion-dollar stadium scam? (We've been writing about his court fight for years.) Why isn't he filing for intervenor status in First Amendment court cases, as we occasionally do? Those are rhetorical questions, of course. I don't care if he writes about that stuff or not. The fact everyone isn't as obsessed about the election problems as are you and Stefan and the others here is actually a good thing. There are a million problems out there that need exposure, and we're all free to decide what's important.
Posted by: Chuck Taylor on July 26, 2005 08:33 PM