Ron Sims' Indpendent Task Force on Elections released its recommendations Wednesday afternoon. I'm curious to read the full report, which should be available mid-day Thursday. But based on the group's Cover Letter to Ron Sims , news reports and an op-ed in Thursday's Times, the task force fell somewhat short of its stated goal to "restore public trust and confidence in King County's elections system".
Two recommendations made sense -- (a) bring in an outside turnaround team to take over the elections department, and (b) in the future, put the department under a separately elected auditor. Unfortunately, most of the other recommendations were irrelevant to the core issues that undermined confidence in the first place, namely inadequate standards, controls and transparency to ensure a fair election and an accurate and trusted outcome. Some of the recommendations, such as a move to all-mail voting, were simply irresponsible and if implemented, would only further undermine integrity and erode public confidence.
Ron Sims and Dean Logan both responded with public statements of their own Sims here, Logan here. Neither one seems to grasp that the recommendations for a turnaround team and an elected auditor are a message to Sims and Logan to get out of the elections business. Confidence in King County Elections will only start to return if and when Sims and Logan get lost.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 28, 2005 01:13 AM | Email ThisDean--Do you know what a scapegoat is??
Your career is toast.
Sims will cut you off at the knees and set you adrift soon. So much for loyalty. However, the LEFTIST PINHEADS will find you a new position as Election Director in France.
And good old Ron Sims, the gutless weenie whose leadership in this matter has resulted in his decision to let Logan decide on his own future, has got to be so happy with his hand-picked commission. How many more Democrat votes will these changes squeeze out of those felons and the additional fraud made possible by an all mail election?
The foxes are guarding the henhouse, and Republicans just handed Sims another 4 years by failing to put up a real challenger.
There's 2 filing days left for November. Isn't there a champion of conservative issues and concern for the people above special interests that is out there to knock Sims off of his thrown? Is the non-Seattle majority in King County going to just wait until November to realize that they blew an opportunity to take King County back from this corrupt cabal?
Posted by: Mike on July 28, 2005 06:41 AMSnohomish County just elected a young kid with a lot of charisma as County Exec. Why can't King County?
Posted by: swatter on July 28, 2005 07:18 AM We anchored all our deliberations on the powerful ideal that
every vote does indeed count.
We counted every "vote" last time. Every felon, dead person, multiple vote counted.
We need to count every Legal Vote.
Posted by: JCM on July 28, 2005 07:43 AM"Conduct only one manual recount when a recount is necessary"
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure 99% of the folks doing the manual recount were honest and upstanding folks, but they still make more mistakes than a machine. Then there is that other 1%...
Posted by: Mike H on July 28, 2005 07:58 AMAnd while there seems to be no shortage of incompetence in that department, I think they have overplayed that card as a defense mechanism. This election was boldly and unapologetically stolen.
The only real incompetence they displayed was that they had to "find" votes close to a dozen times to put them over the top. And even then, they weren't sure. On their third and final opportunity, they waited to be last to send in their numbers. And still had to falsify their reports.
Logan is holding the mother of all political IOU's right now. And as long as King Ron keeps his throne, he is safe. At best, he will keep his job. At worst, he will "resign" and be given an obscure, highly-compensated consulting gig after the standard cooling off period.
Can you imagine; their solution to the illegal felon vote is to make felons legal voters. I suppose their solution to illegal non-citizen voting would be to make non-citizens legal voters. I suppose their solution of illegal multiple voters would be to allow anyone to vote as many times as they could.
But "they cannot cheat if it is not close".
Posted by: Robert W on July 28, 2005 08:35 AMCommercial says - 40 million checks processed per day. 1 error in a million is unacceptable. That would have been 3.6 errors in our last election (state wide).
Ron - the bank just defined what would make them proud - you lose.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 28, 2005 08:39 AMAlmost no liberal would argue that a felon should be automatically allowed to posess firearms after release. They don't mind depriving ex-felons of certain constitutionally protected rights. However, denying an ex-felon of their voting rights, is just not acceptable to most democratic party hacks and liberal.
It is clear to me that ex-felons are not full citizens and if they are not entitled to the full rights of citizenship, then not being able to vote is just fine with me. We have an "instant check" firearms purchasing systems so figuring out way to keep track of voting should not be too hard.
Posted by: Bob on July 28, 2005 09:15 AM
Why does that sound familiar?
"It's time for me to get back to working for the American People." (I did not have...)
I think it's interesting that while they interviewed the elected official, KC Elections employees, and representatives of business, labor, education, civic organizations, and the media...they didn't bother to talk to real people - a critical flaw that makes this report worthless.
Posted by: Darth Dogbert on July 28, 2005 10:22 AM...Except military and Republican votes, which had they been counted would have kicked the Dems' asses off this planet the last election.
Posted by: ERNurse on July 28, 2005 10:37 AMRight on point. Powerful ideal indeed - especially when "liberally" applied.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on July 28, 2005 11:05 AMAll I’m hearing is double talk, nonsense and gibberish, hogwash from the claptraps of two KC officials who could care less about “cleaning up” the mess they created. On the other hand, they may want felons voting rights automatically restored because they are crooks themselves.
Posted by: kim in vancouver on July 28, 2005 11:29 AMNo felon votes. Why do I want a child molester or car thief to affect my taxes and my property rights? They have already demonstrated their contempt for society. Why illegal aliens are even IN the discussion is a travesty. Be careful, America--illegals are getting 'creeping' rights--first, an education here, then a free medical ER visit there, school lunches--ENOUGH is ENOUGH! Who the #$^&**# are they anyway?
Clean house at the next voting opportunity--now or never--time for jerking around with academic theories is over. Too much at stake--terrorism, land rights, taxes and our lifestyles. Don't give these baboons power over the entire jungle.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on July 29, 2005 09:41 AM