I walked along N 45th St. in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood yesterday to visit some of the more creative locations where people are registered to vote.
Chevron gas station / minimart, 1420 N 45th St.
The rest of the travelogue follows --
Lotus Thai Restaurant, 2101 N 45th St.
Olympia Pizza, 4501 Interlake Ave N
Lincoln High School, 4400 Interlake Ave N
A few of the other commercial addresses in the area that I looked at do appear to have attached apartments. I could be wrong, but none of the above buildings seem to have attached residences.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 07, 2005 11:39 AM | Email ThisI hope your walk was fun, did you catch a cold?
Here's a little tidbit, that may mean your whole program of voter antagonization is stalking at its best:
My voter registration card lists a PO Box!
However, when you check the records, it indeed lists my physical address for precincting purposes. I'm 100% legally registered.
But, if YOU called up a list of voters with a PO Box, you'd find me listed. And you'd probably come knocking at my door. I hope you do, I'll sue for harassment!
I'm sorry to hear that you think it's okay to ignore the law.
Quick question: Do you ever get FedEx/UPS deliveries? In my experience they don't deliver to PO Boxes, so what address do you give to people shipping you things?
...just curious
Posted by: Jeremy on December 7, 2005 12:06 PM1) Glad to see you're registered "legally"
2) You can get your mail anywhere, but your voting and driver's license has to list a physical address where you live.
3) The Olympic Pizza II in Wallinford has good pizza, but it is now overpriced w/ the new owner from 1998.
None of the voter registration challenges, not a single one, was of someone like you, who listed both their residential and mailing addresses on their voter registration.
What you did was legal. What the challenged voters did was illegal - listing a mailing address as the residential address.
Now that you understand the difference, are you in favor of people obeying the law when they register to vote, or not?
Posted by: ewaggin on December 7, 2005 12:27 PMA list of registered voters would NOT show you registered at a PO Box simply because your mailing address is a PO Box, and your mailing address is what is printed on your voter card. Otherwise, your voter card could not be mailed to your mailing address.
A voter is only listed on the rolls as registered at a PO Box, if in fact, they have circumvented the law and chosen to improperly register at an address that is not their physical residence.
For decades, King County Elections had a procedure by which business addresses were permanently flagged, and when a voter attempted to improperly register at one of these addresses, a letter was sent to inform the voter of the status of the address.
In rare cases, the voter was an artist or shopkeeper who really was living in a small apartment space within the business address. In those cases, the voter was allowed to register at the business address, as they could demonstrate to the elections office that the business really was their legal, physical residence.
In the other cases, those of honest confusion about the requirements, and more often, of scofflaws who wanted to make up their own rules about where they could register, they were caught and corrected before ever being permanently assigned to the voter rolls - also well before an election as the process of cleaning these up was ongoing.
Dean Logan has openly admitted that he removed this process of keeping the rolls clean when he came on board. Despite the fact that the RCW DIRECTS (not asks or suggests) the auditor (chief elections official) to perform such due diligence (or delegate to staff) as registrations are received.
Never mind the bungled mess that was the 2004 Gubernatorial election - Dean Logan should be terminated for this action alone. A Chief Elections Official who removes checks and balances designed to keep the voting process fair, open, and honest does not deserve the trust of the public, and should be removed.
And before you get your panties in a bunch, Bamajenk, I'm a lifelong Democrat - a tree-huggin', hybrid-drivin', Happy Holidays-wishin', gay-lovin', Wal-Mart-hatin', Bush-bashin' DEMOCRAT.
I just happen to feel that fair and honest elections are not a partisan issue.
Stefan has taken a great deal of care to check his facts over the course of the past year with actual elections experts, inlcuding some currently working in election offices (as opposed to other blogs that just simply seem to make things up as they go along or accept the spin offered by the governement officials covering their butts), and thus, I support his efforts in this arena.
Had the Gubernatorial race ended with the votes reversed, and Rossi won, the Democrats would have been yelling just as loudly about the problems with the King County Election Office as the Republicans are now. It would have been same play, different cast.
It's regrettable that the two parties don't see this as a joint problem, and the Democratic leadership seems only capable of casting partisan stones.
Posted by: Insider on December 7, 2005 12:28 PMGood job Insider, you ARE correct! I'm glad someone around here knows what's going on. A well deserved handle, Insider!
However, if I were to take my voter registration card to the precinct where Stefan was the judge/jury on legal voting (Stefan wrote about his actions back on election day), I would be willing to place a large bet that he would tell me that I was registered/voting illegally.
At least, that's what I would expect, given his history that he has reported.
For all else on this board, I posted my opinions about voter registration and the political realities in the "Illegal voter registrations: it's not just for mail boxes anymore" post...down around message 85 or so.
Bamajenk, legal voter.
Posted by: bamajenk on December 7, 2005 12:43 PMYou have a raging paranoic imagination. The poll books contain the voters' residence addresses. If the poll books showed you were registered at a valid address you would be allowed to vote, no questions asked. I have never suggested I have or would do anything else. If a voter were registered, but I had some reason to suspect their qualifications (and in your case I have no idea who you are, or any reason to suspect you), I would have ask them to vote a challenged ballot to be adjudicated by the canvassing board, as required by law. The only incident I discussed here was one where the voter volunteered the information that he did not live in the state long enough to vote this election, and was clearly not eligible to vote -- a situation for which the Elections office gave poll workers no reasonable instructions for handling.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on December 7, 2005 12:52 PMDo you ever tire of being incorrect all the time? Do you ever tire of being corrected by people of whom you make fun?
You wrote:
"However, if I were to take my voter registration card to the precinct where Stefan was the judge/jury on legal voting (Stefan wrote about his actions back on election day), I would be willing to place a large bet that he would tell me that I was registered/voting illegally.
At least, that's what I would expect, given his history that he has reported."
Once again, you have no idea what you're writing about. The person who Stefan spoke to that day was a man who admitted that he had moved into the precinct after the deadline to be able to vote in the election (within the past 90 days, I think, but I can't remember exactly). It had nothing to do with being registered at an improper address - that gentleman had not been registered at that address long enough.
I'm still waiting for your reply to my smackdown of you a few days ago, when you claimed that only four votes were found to be illegal in the court case last year. You crack me up.
You'd be a broken clock - if you were right at least twice a day. I haven't seen it yet, however.
Posted by: Larry on December 7, 2005 12:53 PMThe pollworkers know and are trained (or at least were, before things went to hell in prettily decorated handcart under Logan) that the voter registration cards have the mailing address, but that a recent voter card does demonstrate that that voter was registered somewhere in the county, and that the voter should be allowed a provisional ballot.
Further, Stefan understands the difference between mailing address and physical address, apparently better than most hypocritically outraged critics of his do.
Stefan followed the state law on the matter on election day - he did not attempt to dissuade a voter with a voter card form voting a provisional ballot, he attempted to discourage a man who firmly acknowledged that he was not registered to vote. Stefan did encourage him to fill out a voter registration form.
As a member of the precinct election board on the day of the election, Stefan was fulfilling his statutory obigation, to serve as facilitator for qualified voters, and the gatekeeper to prevent unqualified votes. THIS MAN ADMITTED HE WAS NOT QUALIFED TO VOTE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.
The instructions given from the Elections Office regarding this individual were flawed. Stefan was right, and had he been working the polls in any of the three decades preceding 2003, he would have been commended for his attention to detail.
Stefan is simply trying, as a layman, to weed out ILLEGALLY registered voters. I'm very glad you're not one of them.
Posted by: dan on December 7, 2005 01:01 PM
You refuse to answer the only question that matters, which is "Should people obey the law when they register to vote?".
You did not answer this question in your post on the other thread, as you stated in your post above.
Indeed, that post contained the most jaw-droppingly foolish proposal I have yet read on this subject - that there should be no laws or rules relating to voting, and we should simply rely on our fellow citizens to do the right thing.
Posted by: ewaggin on December 7, 2005 01:07 PMMany people on this blog have said the same thing as you did, but bamajenk refuses to see it.
Nobody has called for registrations to be cancelled. What we are asking for is that all registrations be LEGAL. If this activity reduces the rolls because SOME of the registrations were fraudulent, then so much the better.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on December 7, 2005 01:07 PM"None of the voter registration challenges, not a single one, was of someone like you, who listed both their residential and mailing addresses on their voter registration."
Ewaggin, you are a liar. That is spelled L-I-A-R. I had half a dozen in my District alone. And I have their names.
Reasonable people can disagree on what the law says, or how it should be applied. I am confident that these issues eventually will be worked out to most people's satisfaction. But there are enough misstatements on this blog without you adding to them.
We already know you are a sanctimonious hypocrite. At least refrain from making stuff up.
Posted by: Ivan on December 7, 2005 01:20 PMOut of curiosity, were any of the people you contacted actually registered at a place other than their residence? Were there actually any people on the list from your district that were registered at a private mailbox (that you may not have contacted)?
Also, how many people were on the list from your district and how many of those did you get a hold of?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on December 7, 2005 01:37 PMI contacted six people among those who were challenged in my District whose registration forms had their physical addresses on them -- and had for years. There well might have been more, but I am citing only those who I talked to personally.
The stupid, incompetent, disingenuous Republicans challenged them anyway -- in the name of their "voter integrity" project.
Even if we assume, for the sake of discussion, that the motive was pure (which I, for one, certainly do not believe), the execution was so shoddy, and so inept, that the King County GOP has given us a club to beat them with for years to come. Their motives will always be suspect.
I'm not saying anything here that hasn't already been said on this blog.
Posted by: Ivan on December 7, 2005 01:57 PMI can only presume you are talking about the challenges that were withdrawn. As they were withdrawn, they are no longer challenges, and thus not a part of this discussion.
What you are is a thug, and a bully, who supports a broken KC Elections system because it allows people who think like you to disenfranchise legal voters by registering and voting more than once.
And I hope that you're not pretending to be one of the "reasonable people" you mention above, when you still refuse to accept that even a single instance of multiple voting occurred, despite voluminous evidence of same.
I challenge you to find one instance where I have "refused to accept that even a single instance of multiple voting occurred." I would not say such a thing because I don't know it to be true.
I will not respond to you any further. You are a lying piece of trash.
Posted by: i on December 7, 2005 02:27 PMPlease e-mail Stefan with the names of those 6 people you claim to have talked to so he can attempt to validate your claim.
Oooooops, what happened Ivan you CLOWN, did you conveniently forget all 6 of those names????
TIME TO PUT UP IVAN!!!! Posted by: Mr. Cynical on December 7, 2005 02:35 PM
I don't answer to Stefan, or to you. I gave the names to David McDonald. You know who he is. Deal with him. He will bill you if you do.
Posted by: Ivan on December 7, 2005 02:49 PMI contacted six people among those who were challenged in my District whose registration forms had their physical addresses on them -- and had for years. There well might have been more, but I am citing only those who I talked to personally.
The stupid, incompetent, disingenuous Republicans challenged them anyway -- in the name of their "voter integrity" project.
Even if we assume, for the sake of discussion, that the motive was pure (which I, for one, certainly do not believe), the execution was so shoddy, and so inept, that the King County GOP has given us a club to beat them with for years to come. Their motives will always be suspect.
And then Ivan says
I'm not saying anything here that hasn't already been said on this blog.
Actually Ivan, you don't seem to be saying anything at all. For example, what was the stated reason for challenging these six voters?
Dan says:
So Ivan, what do you have to say about the c. 100,000 dead and illegal voters that dean logan purged from the rolls as of june of this year. Could they be there because of stupidity, incompetence, and disingenuousness in the first place? Perhaps the names were on the rolls owing to "integrity"?
Be careful here Dan, the voter roll cleanup was begun in June. Nobody knows when is was completed.
Posted by: huckleberry on December 7, 2005 02:54 PM"None of the voter registration challenges, not a single one, was of someone like you, who listed both their residential and mailing addresses on their voter registration."
Then Ivan replied:
"Ewaggin, you are a liar. That is spelled L-I-A-R. I had half a dozen in my District alone. And I have their names... We already know you are a sanctimonious hypocrite. At least refrain from making stuff up."
You are quick to jump to conclusions, Ivan--did Ewaggin lie (i.e. know the truth and say something else), or just ignorant (i.e. not knowing the truth but saying what you think the truth is)? They aren't the same thing, you know. If you can show where he did deliberately lie, that's fine,and I'll join you in your accusation. If you can't, then aren't you the liar?
Ivan continues, in another post:
"I contacted six people among those who were challenged in my District whose registration forms had their physical addresses on them...
The stupid, incompetent, disingenuous Republicans challenged them anyway -- in the name of their "voter integrity" project."
So, in other words, because these people went ahead and checked ALL the names on their list, trying to be complete (or even to be partisan, if you want to attribute evil motivation to them), they were stupid, incompetent and disingenuous? I guess they should have consulted you first, Ivan. Or perhaps they had only the database records to check, instead of personal knowledge of these people, and thus had to make certain the information on it was true.
How is that stupid, incompetent or disingenuous, exactly?
Ivan continued, "Even if we assume, for the sake of discussion, that the motive was pure (which I, for one, certainly do not believe), the execution was so shoddy, and so inept, that the King County GOP has given us a club to beat them with for years to come. Their motives will always be suspect."
You give these people the back-handed compliment of saying that they may have been pure in motive (but you know they weren't), and then point out that their actions were so "inept" that they shot themselves in the foot (largely, of course, because your prejudice doesn't allow them the benefit of the doubt).
I agree partially with you--where you cite actions, saying it was clumsy and hurt their reputations--but where you branch off into interpretations and supposition, you move away from arguing into partisan talking points.
"I'm not saying anything here that hasn't already been said on this blog."
This clumsy action has been discussed here, true, but where you can't claim that you are merely repeating what has been said here is where you attribute a less than savory motivation to these actions.
Yes, it's true! I'm now a member of the "It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there first" party! Not because of their ideology, of course. No sane person would go anywhere near that cesspool!
No, it's because of the creative approach that democraps take to promoting their advocacy that, unfettered by the (self-imposed) limitations of truth and intellectual honesty that people on the right are stuck with, liberals can present a more compelling position (lie).
Now, I know that I'm gonna be called "DINO" (and worse) by leftists, and traitor by the right, but that's OK. You see, unlike virtually every liberal, I'm not thin-skinned. There's never been a liberal that has laid a glove on me (and I daresay there never will ;'} And I'm only doing this because (for the moment) liberals have the juice in the entirely F'd up state of Washington. Just as soon as the political winds shift, I'll do the democrap-tic thing and abandon my fellow democraps, leaving them twisting in the breeze.
You see, I really like ivan, with his casual acquaintance with the truth. If a porcine piece of putrescence like ivan can lie through his teeth with impunity, and not get the living shiite kicked out of him, why shouldn't I? I mean, after all, it's all about validating our feeeeeelings, isn't it? And haven't they taught us that, "It's not the weight of evidence, but the importance of the accusation" that's of paramount importance?
So, right-on ivan! You go, democrap brother! Don't let the rethuglicans (isn't that the dim-witted insult we're using these days?) make you "toe the line"!
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 7, 2005 03:24 PMIt never occurs to them that many people have abused the very weak security of our elections to vote improperly, some intentional and some unintentional. But there are very real reasons for tying voters to addresses. And there is justified frustration when a close result in a majojr race is thrown into doubt by the number of obviously flawed and illegitimate votes such as those who are improperly registered at PO Boxes and Commercial addresses. Many of these votes may have even been legitimate, single votes in the governors race, but given their actual residence (hint to liberals, this is where you keep most of your clothes,) illegitimate single votes in local races in which they were not legally qualified to vote.
That's why we tie registrations to addresses. There has to be a line in the sand. And there is no provision in the law for legitimate single votes, tied to illegitimate addreses. Or on the flipside, a perfectly reasonable challenge.
But for Bamajenk and the other irrationals, it's easy to reject the whole issue of ballot security as a "wing-nut" conspiracy. That's all you need to know to skip over the comments from "Bamajenk" when reading this blog.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 7, 2005 03:29 PMDid any of them (or someone on their behalf) contact Lori Setolo and inform her of errors with the challenge before the hearing? Were any of those challenges rescinded? Did those individuals attempt to vote? Were they prevented from voting? Were their votes counted?
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on December 7, 2005 04:03 PM
Oh, I think it has occurred to them. I think they count on it to keep people who share their views in power. They know that if the voter rolls were cleaned and only legal voters were allowed to vote, they'd lose.
From what they told me (and I have not verified it independently), the answers are, respectively, no, yes, yes, no, and yes.
Nobody called Sotelo. Who would call her? Besides, she wasn't answering her phone anyway. They called KCE at my urging. It appears that their addresses were confused with similar addresses in other parts of the city that might have been mailbox outlets.
The bottom line is that these particular voters were challenged in the first place, and never should have been. I do not think they were all Democrats, but from what they told me, they are cutting the GOP NO slack for "good faith," as Norm Maleng has done.
Certainly I will stipulate that there were legitimate challenges. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while. No one has tried to claim otherwise, despite one poster's lame attempt to attribute such a claim to me.
Posted by: Ivan on December 7, 2005 04:29 PMIvan won't answer any of your questions because he is simply making this up!!
Since Ivan clearly stated he talked with 6 specific people, you would think Ivan could remember their names....OR AT LEAST 1!!!
These LEFTIST PINHEADED CLOWNS live most of their lives in LA-LA Land. They love making up "anecdotal" examples and floating them out there.
Take what Ivan says with a BLOCK OF SALT!! Posted by: Mr. Cynical on December 7, 2005 04:30 PM
Ivan answers Stefan's question and Ivan's "Big Deal" turns out to be much ado about NOTHING as usual. They didn't try to contact Sotelo. Challenges were rescinded, they tried to vote, they were not prevented from voting and their votes counted!!!!
Ivan...you moron! Posted by: Mr. Cynical on December 7, 2005 04:34 PM
Your job is to persuade those voters who your party challenged improperly that your associates were acting in "good faith." Good luck with that.
Send Cynical out to tell them what CLOWNS we are. That ought to win you a whole bunch of converts. See you next thread.
Posted by: Ivan on December 7, 2005 05:12 PMEveryone knows you're just using it as a tool to squelch the vote because when everyone votes, you lose! Whoda thunk it?
Posted by: Apache Fog on December 7, 2005 05:35 PM"Send Cynical out to tell them what CLOWNS we are. That ought to win you a whole bunch of converts.
Posted by Ivan at December 7, 2005 05:12 PM"
Ivan, I don't need to tell anyone what a CLOWN you are since you have done a more than adequate job of that all by yourself!!!
Besides, all that white pancake make-up on your face plus thick red lipstick, red rubber nose, orange yarn hair and your floppy size 32 shoes (on your petite size 5 barely a man feet) are a dead giveaway!
"Well, Stefan, I am an out-front partisan hack, and I am going to use it to beat you guys like a cheap drum. So you know why *I* keep pis-ing and whining."
Those of us who are always RIGHT appreciate you being here Ivan. You are the Howard Dean of SoundPolitics!! Nothing makes me happier than to read your increasingly more moronic posts!!! Keep 'em coming CLOWN! Posted by: Mr. Cynical on December 7, 2005 07:08 PM
So he admits that his side can't win unless EVERYONE votes. Including felons, little tiny mailbox dwellers, workaholics that live at their workplace, clones, illegal aliens, martians, infants, dead people, and people in persistent vegetative states (like Washington).
I agree with him! YES -- If all these people vote -- we all lose!!
On another thread, I outlined the absolutely clear-cut case of double voting that every honest person can agree on: the woman who registered twice, and voted two absentee ballots in each of the last four elections.
Why clear-cut? Because even KCE admits it, so there is no need to "prove it in a court of law", as you demanded.
I then asked you if you had a problem with this.
You never answered. Until now, I was inclined to believe this was because you hadn't read the post, but after reading your posts above, I think it was because you couldn't answer.
Ivan, you can't have it both ways - either you agree that illegal voting occurred and that there are problems at KCE that need to be fixed, or you believe that things are fine the way they are.
If the former, you have some credibility, and are welcome to argue the extent of the problems (none of which, incidentally, would be an issue, if Logan would follow the law and do his job, instead of leaving it to us citizens).
If the latter...well, I already covered that.
Posted by: ewaggin on December 7, 2005 08:14 PMYou're right, and while we're at it, why not a tour of illegal deer hunting locations? Or folks defruading welfare? Or folks flying without a license? Or folks who really believe the sky is green?
Because they have nothing to do with the subject at hand, you idiot!
Posted by: Mike H on December 7, 2005 08:25 PMGreat pics!
I wonder if any of our voters live in cemetaries? I know King County has numerous "dead" voters...but I wonder if any "live" voters are registered with their residences at cemetary addresses?
And how long have these illegal mail box, restaurant, grocery store, etc.. voters been registered to vote? Was this a 2004 thing? Or has this been going on for years?
Posted by: Deborah on December 7, 2005 09:00 PMThat would be Patricia A. Levesque if my memory serves me tonight. The burning question is did they count her double vote again????? I'm sure Stefan will tell us.
Bamajenk, If you want to bet on Stefan's integrity, honesty and the quality of his research, I will match you. I live in Lacey so arranging the bet shouldn't be hard.
Posted by: sgmmac on December 7, 2005 11:35 PMThank you for your determination. Obviously, from the whinning of the Trolls, you are onto something.
I suspect that many of the "independently adopted" policy changes implemented by Logan, were discussed at some hard-core social activist meetings and potential ways to swing precints or City and County votes were identified and implementation plans were drawn up.
I sense that the bikerbarry and the others are screaming so loudly is because you are getting very close to finding the thread that will lead a competent investigation into an organized electrion fraud finding. My personal feeling is that some union or activist group will have their fingerprints on the organized election fraud when it finally is exposed. At this rate, I suspect that it is only a matter of time.
Personally, I think that the attorneys at the Salmon Bay office should have someone collect the facts on the use of their office as a voter residence and submit a disciplinary complaint to the State Bar regarding their aiding a Class C felony. That might break the fraud investigation loose in a hurry.
Keep up the good work, from the loudness of the screams you are getting close.
Posted by: Bob on December 8, 2005 08:04 AMhow many times do you have to be told and how many ways? Posted by: dan on December 8, 2005 08:49 AM
You are saying that you are not trying to squelch legal voters, that you are only concerned with obeying the law . That is the overriding Rep. interest here with the voter challenges. I am saying that is not true because there is a huge problem with false income tax deductions and although that is against the law , you are not concerned with it. So, what I am saying is that I have proved that you are not concerned only with enforcing the laws , but your overzealous approach to enforcing this law shows you are not interested in enforcing laws per-se, but you have a hidden agenda, which is to illegally squelch the vote.
In other words, you are lying about your motives with the voter registrations. That should be clear enough. You are a liar.
Posted by: Apache Fog on December 8, 2005 09:25 AMLet's examine his statement:
Who is 'You'? We'll assume Apatchy means all posters on this board that disagree with his position. Apatchy does not know us in any way except through our comments on this board.
So -- How can Apatchy 'know' our secret motives, as opposed to those we have openly expressed here? Why -- he must be a mind reader! And not a very good one.
Don't quit your day job, Apatchy.
We have been looking for a new poster child over at DSHS. You being Native American AND Bi-Polar should be a shoe-in! Give me a call at the office.
Posted by: Christine on December 8, 2005 03:31 PMJust because you believe something to be true, doesn't make it true.
Posted by: starboardhelm on December 8, 2005 04:41 PMUmmmm... actually, it is off topic. Most folks here are probably against illegal tax deductions, but that isn't the topic being discussed here. You are changing the subject, and your logic that it isn't is absolutely assinine. By that warped logic, we should also be discussing poaching or folks flying without a license. Both are illegal... but have nothing to do with illegally registered voters.
Posted by: Mike H on December 8, 2005 05:14 PM*** tinfoil war bonnet on crooked ***
Cracked me up!
Thanks
Posted by: Amused by liberals on December 14, 2005 11:57 AM