Sound Politics: Absentee Ballot Curiosity (I)

September 14, 2005

Absentee Ballot Curiosity (I)

The first in an ongoing series of reports on curiosities and irregularities I've discovered in the mountain of last November's absentee ballot envelopes.

This voter, whose ballots I photographed and link below, is registered twice. Reigstration #1 has his "residence" at the King County Administration Building, 500 4th Ave and a mailing address at private mail box service Pike Place Parcels, 1916 Pike Pl in Seattle. Registration #2 has both residence and mailing address at Pike Place Parcels.

He returned a ballot for each registration. Fortunately for the rest of us, he signed and mailed both ballots on November 5, three days after the election. Neither ballot was counted. Nevertheless, by signing the Oath "I have not voted another ballot", he committed a felony. This example illustrates how easy it is to pull off such a vote fraud. If the ballots were mailed on time, they would most likely have ended up in different batches and eluded detection. There are thousands of multiply registered voters in King County. It should be a high priority for the Elections office to eliminate multiple voters and revise procedures to prevent multiple registrants in the first place.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 14, 2005 10:07 AM | Email This

Comments

1. SUPPOSEDLY there are 2 reconciliation procedures now in place. It will be interesting to do an autopsy on this Primary immediately following it to see which County's are precisely following these procedures.
You have given KingCo fair warning. They know many of us are watching. They cannot afford screw-ups, especially if there is another close race.
Plus, I believe other County's (like Jefferson), that have reconciled votes and voters for many years will continue to set the standard of what can be accomplished. I think the Assoc. of County Auditors are likely to lead others to raising the bar....especially if we have a concerned public demanding such accountability.
Stefan...you are a true Patriot. God Bless You!

Posted by: Mr. Cynical on September 14, 2005 10:35 AM

2. Maybe you have a point about mail in ballots. At any rate, they wont work if the elections office can't or will not make sure that their is only one absentee ballot per legal voter.

Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on September 14, 2005 11:36 AM

3. It would be interesting to see if Mr Sehlin paid for his own mailbox, or if it was paid for by ... I don't know ... Paul Berendt?

For that matter, some research on how many people use private mailbox services as their voting or ballot mailing addresses, and then see who owns those services, and see if they can be tied to anyone like ... I don't know ... Paul Berendt?

Posted by: Legast on September 14, 2005 11:40 AM

4. The guy voted twice. Doesn't matter that they weren't counted. He should be convicted.

Posted by: cc on September 14, 2005 11:45 AM

5. Right, because with at best a 129 vote margin in a close election, there are easily enough votes in question to throw the whole result of the elcection to doubt.

Luckily for the Democrats, they were in control of the counting and were able to make sure they were in a chair when the music stopped.

Posted by: Jeff B. on September 14, 2005 11:51 AM

6. And Jeff, they also didn't release this information till after the trial. Any attempt to get this information was called a 'fishing' expedition.

Posted by: swatter on September 14, 2005 12:19 PM

7. Any reform is meaningless without purging the voter rolls and having everyone re-register.

Period.

Posted by: JCM on September 14, 2005 12:49 PM

8. The penalty for vote fraud needs to be increased and the law needs to be enforced aggressivly instead of ignored.

In addition to the current fines and penaltys, we need to add "Permanent Disqualification from Voting".

Posted by: Right Wing Wacko on September 14, 2005 02:24 PM

9. Talk about short-term memory loss! Is this what they mean when they say.."count every vote"?

Posted by: Susu on September 14, 2005 04:42 PM

10. JCM,
Ditto.

Posted by: cc on September 14, 2005 06:14 PM

11. It is becoming very clear that King County just doesn't care about fair and honest elections.

Personally, I have no faith in any King County of State Election result.

Unless, King County and the state get serious about vote fraud reform, which it is becoming abundantly clear that they are not, legitimate government by elected officials in this state will start to melt down.

Even though the initiative process is still based on counting real ballots and fraudulent ballots, it will gain in appeal.

I also see a trend in local control and moving away from state wide solutions. This will be very hard for the party bosses and elite to handle.

Posted by: Bob on September 15, 2005 07:47 AM

12. I'm sure they'll address it...after Sims wins another election. Maybe a new building in a different part of town...

Posted by: South County on September 15, 2005 08:33 AM

13. I suppose they haven't bothered to prosecute this guy. People do this stuff because they know KCE couldn't care less if people vote twice.

Posted by: Realist on September 16, 2005 05:26 PM

14. I suppose they haven't bothered to prosecute this guy. People do this stuff because they know KCE couldn't care less if people try to vote twice.

Posted by: Realist on September 16, 2005 05:26 PM