In his op-ed in yesterday's Seattle Times, Ron Sims demonstrates that the race card has displaced patriotism as the last refuge of the scoundrel.
The op-ed criticizes the recent Republican challenges to hundreds of voters who were improperly registered at private mail boxes. Sims insinuates that the attempt to clean up the voter rolls (necessitated by Sims' abrogation of his responsibility to do the same) is somehow rooted in racism. "Protect your right to vote"
There has been a resurgence of reprehensible efforts to harass legitimate voters and suppress turnout, an effort that is ultimately intended to weaken the protections that were enshrined in our nation's laws as an outgrowth of the civil-rights movement. ... What recent developments in King County tell us is that the dark legacy of poll taxes and "literacy tests" is not as much a thing of the past as we would like to believe.Emphasis added.
In reality, the Republicans weren't seeking to disenfranchise any legitimate voter, only to prompt people who were registered at unlawful addresses to register at their correct addresses and to weed out any truly ineligible voters. Nobody can be denied their right to vote merely because somebody files a challenge and nobody was denied their right to vote. When the Republicans discovered that some legitimate voters were challenged in error, those challenges were promptly retracted. As it turned out, the members of the canvassing board acknowledged that the vast majority of the challenged voters were probably unlawfully registered, even those whose challenges they rejected due to their subjective interpretation of the standard of proof needed to uphold a challenge. Furthermore, the Elections office screwed up and tabulated ballots from a large percentage of voters whose challenges were upheld (a separate post on this later).
Sims' attempt to equate legitimate attempts to restore integrity to the voter rolls with racist disenfranchisement is perverse. No particular group was targeted for challenge, except those who appeared to be registered at improper addresses. Indeed, every challenged voter who showed up at a challenge hearing that I attended happened to be white. Sims is misappropriating the rhetoric of civil rights to change the subject away from his willful ignorance of illegal registration and his outright complicity in election fraud. This goes beyond garden-variety exploitive use of the race card. It is demagoguery designed to undermine our democracy and it should not be tolerated.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 23, 2005 12:34 PM | Email ThisThe proof that the Republicans did not know the ethnicity is simple - the fact that the Republicans challenged some legitimate voters shows that the Rs had too little information, rather than too much. If they know so much as to be able to know ethnicity of all the challenged voters, they would have known that many were legitimate voters.
Ron Sims is an idiot, at best. Saying that he's merely an 'empty suit' is a slander to empty suits around the world.
Posted by: Larry on December 23, 2005 01:20 PMIf not, then it's another example of the SUPREME ARROGANCE OF THE LIBERAL LEFT!!!!
What can we do to help rid the city of this corruption?
Posted by: dan on December 23, 2005 01:43 PMHowever, the view from the republican side of the house seems to be that challenges are to be filed whenver there is a suspicion that someone may not be eligible to vote and it is up to the voter to prove that their vote should be counted. Saying that nobody was denied their right to vote is disingenuous because if the voter doesn't challenge the challenge, they just have been.
Posted by: Roscha on December 23, 2005 01:43 PMHomework assignment:
Take this segment of his starting sentence,
"Recently, something very troubling has been going on in America: There has been a resurgence of reprehensible efforts to harass legitimate voters and suppress turnout, an effort that is ultimately intended to weaken the protections . . ."
and finish the essay using rational arguments based on reality instead of paranoid delusions of racial inequality.
Posted by: starboardhelm on December 23, 2005 02:22 PM"Saying that nobody was denied their right to vote is disingenuous because if the voter doesn't challenge the challenge, they just have been."
I think that statement is disingenuous - can you provide proof of ANY person in ANY election in the HISTORY of Washington State who was denied the opportunity to cast a ballot?
The only people being denied their right to vote are those whose ballots are disqualified by King County for some reason. And because of ballot secrecy, nobody will ever know who those people are. It could have been you! But nobody has ever been denied their privilege to cast a ballot. Unless you can show us otherwise, that is.
Posted by: Larry on December 23, 2005 02:22 PMBy cleaning up the voter rolls all those nice democratic party secured double and illegal votes would be disenfranchised. Those votes would go to a black man, Ron Sims.
Cleaning up the voters rolls would deny Mr. Sims votes.
That is racist.
See how simple it is.
Posted by: JCM on December 23, 2005 02:25 PMSomeone should point out the rich Rock Star and others who live in marinas that were illegall registered.
As to the complaint in Ohio about the wrong weight of paper. I seem to remember all kinds of good Democrats making sure that state initiatives on various Tim E. stuff has to have the signatures on the "correct size paper and proper weight of paper," but that is a mater of important public policy......
I suspect that the Dem's are getting all up tight is that people are close to uncovering the Nursing home vote fraud scandle problem and at the rate voters are being checked, it won't be long until commercial property nursing homes start getting identified with lots and lots of voters and then wen someone looks into it all the ballot envelope signatures will start to be strangely similar.
At that point true vote fraud with finger prints to a certain healthcare workers union will point back to the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party.
Posted by: Bob on December 23, 2005 02:51 PMhttp://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin041305.php3
Thought it sounded familiar . . .
Posted by: starboardhelm on December 23, 2005 02:52 PMThat's correct, I can definitely cast my ballot. But if my registration is challenged and I don't show up to a hearing to contest that challenge (ie, proving that the person challenging my right to vote is wrong), it won't be counted. That's why the challenges are under the penalty of perjury - the burden of proof should rightly remain on the shoulders of the person making the challenge, not the voter.
Posted by: Roscha on December 23, 2005 02:57 PMYou are incorrect on three points: you do not have to be present to defend your right to vote in a challenge as was made apparent by KCE rejecting the challenges on hundreds of voters who didn't show up almost precisely because they didn't show up. The only thing the RCW says on the issue is that if the challenging party wishes to present counter-evidence of the challenge they have a right to be heard ("The canvassing board shall give the challenged voter the opportunity to present testimony, either in person or by affidavit, and evidence to the canvassing board before making their determination." RCW 29A.08.820). It is, however, required for the challenging party(parties) to show up and defend their charges and they have the burden of proof, and this proof must be clear and convincing. Specifically, the RCW says "The challenging party must prove to the canvassing board by clear and convincing evidence that the challenged voter's registration is improper. If the challenging party fails to meet this burden, the challenged ballot shall be accepted as valid and counted." In other words--you don't have to prove the challenger wrong. It is up to the challenger to prove that he is right as your vote is considered legal unless proven otherwise.
Furthermore, Roscha, RCW 29A.08.840 specifically addresses what happens if you cannot show up in person to defend your right to vote if you believe the challenge is illegitimate: "If either the challenger or the challenged voter is unable to appear in person, he or she may file a reply by means of an affidavit stating under oath the reasons he or she believes the registration to be invalid or valid." The result of the hearing shall not be prejudiced by the absence of the challenged voter, either, even if an affidavit isn't filed: "If either party, or both parties, fail to appear at the meeting or fail to file an affidavit, the county auditor shall determine the status of the registration based on his or her evaluation of the available facts."
In other words, if you are challenged you literally don't have to do anything and you can still vote in the election and have your vote count. You will be leaving the fate of your registration in the hand of the elections board, however, but that is not of issue here. Your statement was that your vote won't be counted if you do not show up to counter what the challenger presents, and that is flat out incorrect.
Posted by: Marc on December 23, 2005 03:37 PMThis, to me, is a place where we need to go through the legislature and rectify what is an unreasonable situation. The KCE position, which I believe is idiotic, is that if a fake registration is done--let's say I register as Santa Claus, for example--using a PO Box, then in order to invalidate my registration someone would have to file a challenge affidavit stating my true known address (this would be difficult as "1 North Pole" probably wouldn't be seen as a real addresses, anyway--probably the reason why I'd use a PO Box when you think about it ;-). Without stronger enforcement at the initial registration (something Logan is loathe to do) there really isn't a way to take my fake Santa Claus registration off the books once it is there. All that would be necessary, according to Logan, is that my Santa signature match what is on the books.
At the end of the day, this is why all-mail balloting is so open to fraud. If I get multiple ballots at my home, all that matters is that I turn down the shades and make sure no one is watching and there is then virtually no way to prove that I have multiplied my right to vote by many times. If we go to all-mail balloting, we need to change the laws to make challenges easier on the challenger in cases of invalid addresses or clearly fake names to keep the roles clean, otherwise we may as well just stop voting for our right to cast a vote will have been so diluted to no longer matter.
Posted by: Marc on December 23, 2005 03:47 PMYour vote is at risk (along with all the rest of us) because Ron Sims and his cronies are playing corrupt games with the system. If you are in favor of our all mail voting system and the many other designed-in potential openings for fraud made possible by the Democrats, then you need to be ready to have your vote challenged-like it or not.
The reality is that the penalty of perjury in this context is a joke because the burden is so slight. There is no way to remedy this—short of simply removing the ability to challenge, and I believe that they will do just that. The best thing that could happen in the next election is for every voter in the state to challenge at least five other voters forcing the system to a halt. You can't prove I don't have the requisite "personal knowledge." They remove our right to challenge, and we counter with Federal Elections Law challenges. When the system becomes a farce, it is no longer respected, and people will kick it to the curb. You have no right to expect voting to be anything other than a royal pain in the a$$ whenever democrats are involved, and you can thank Ron Sims for it.
One thing is certain--it is going to get a lot worse for all of us. We would all have been far better off without Ron Sims, but alas, that’s what you get.
Just look at the shoddy work Stefan has uncovered. Tip of the Iceberg.
Sims will continue to talk about EVERYTHING but problems connected with All Mail-in balloting.
It was just so stupid and ill-constructed! It was like the rantings of a lunatic....I imagine that even those who call themselves "moderate" Democrats are shaking their heads at Sim's latest charges against the Republicans and his denial of the true election problems......
It was just so foolish - it must have been born of extreme anxiety! What a nutcase!.....Yet - why? What stresses can Sims possibly have now? He won his little election, he is attempting to secure future fraudulent elections by way of All mail voting, he seems to be immune to Federal Investigation......Why on earth would he project himself as such a frightened fool?
Posted by: Deborah on December 23, 2005 07:41 PMSims is trying to create an atmosphere of doubt with respect to the Republicans recent voting challenges - in an effort to 'dis those challenges and all other election problems related to All Mail voting and absentee voting... He is doing this "publicly" prior to his launching of All Mail Voting in King County....
He wants the public to believe that there "never was any true problems with illegal absentee voter registration" and to do this he had to write some bogus piece in the newspaper.
He is hoping that people (sheeple) are so stupid and gullible that they blindly accept his elimination of Poll voting in the county! He want's to discredit those who know the serious risks involved with All Mail voting....
It's not going to work. The majority of voters in King County reject All Mail voting...but he doesn't care - he's going to change it anyway...
Posted by: Deborah on December 23, 2005 07:52 PMAnother stupid statement by Ron Sims and local MSM will attempt to give him a pass.
Posted by: KS on December 23, 2005 07:56 PMIf they are living on a boat, they can give the address of the marina followed by a slip number. If they don't wish to have an address shown on their public registration, they could mark a box that they don't wish the address to be published but it would be known by the county auditor.
Posted by: Clean House on December 23, 2005 08:24 PMDid that really make any sense?
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on December 23, 2005 09:27 PMhttp://www.stopabductions.com/
I'm sure your life will improve!
Posted by: starboardhelm on December 23, 2005 10:27 PMIt's disgusting, but it's the philosophy of counting every vote. Nothing matters but counting each and every vote, their legality is besides the point.
Posted by: sgmmac on December 23, 2005 10:31 PM/peaceful progressive Seattlite
If they knew, they would reject his sly ways...
Posted by: Winston Smith on December 24, 2005 12:09 AM"But if both parties succeeded in raising turnout, one party was more successful than the other. Kerry won 16% more votes than Gore did. Bush won 23% more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000. The number of voters for the Democratic nominee increased from 51 million to 59 million. The number of Bush voters increased from 50 million to 62 million." (p. 22)
Maybe I am missing something, but that doesn't look like suppression of votes to me.
By the way, Michael Barone goes on to point out that the Republicans achieved their surge mostly with volunteers, while the Democrats relied on paid workers, mostly funded by George Soros and other leftist millionaires and billionaires. If it weren't for these plutocrats, the Bush victory would have been even larger.
Typical liberal detachment from reality and fact.
Such delusion, such ignorance; since it is Christmas time, all I can express is that you will someday come to your senses and see the world as it is, not as you would like it to be...
Posted by: THS on December 24, 2005 07:05 AMVery nice headlice. Very chic.
Very Democrat.
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 24, 2005 09:07 AMIs it racist to call the Rothchilds Jewish bankers? Is it racist to compare Stefan to a Jewish banker? I guess you'd have to ask Ron Sims--- the man that Stefan has called the Robert Mugabe of King County.
Posted by: Winston Smith on December 24, 2005 10:01 AMI'm a progessive, fully tolerant of all viewpoints except you racist RepubliKKKans!!!! McChimpBushHitler!
/tolerant progressive Seattlite
Posted by: doug on December 24, 2005 10:03 AMWhat does the fact that Stefan or the Rothschilds are Jewish have to do with anything?
"The Rothschilds are incredibly wealthy Jewish bankers who plot and scheme against Germanic Peoples.'
Do you know who you sound like you spout crap like that?
Posted by: Mike H on December 24, 2005 10:12 AMA man once said "It's a wise man who know his limitations". I recognize that I may be a "dimwit" compared to some, but I am an absolute rocket scientist compared the likes of you.
I never have been able to fathom what you may be getting from the SP experience. It isn't just that you fling your sh!t around, it's more like you smear it all over yourself and then go strolling around a crowded room.
Don't you see that everyone, left or right, recoils in complete disgust from you? Even though you reliably vomit the leftist party line, didja ever notice that no one has EVER agreed with ANYTHING you have ever spewed?
If you ever had the possibility of making a point, you lost any chance of anyone ever taking you seriously (even semi-seriously!)?
Do you even make a reflection when you look in a mirror?
If Sims and Co. are able to sufficiently smear Republicans with charges of using challenges to disenfranchise votes, they can obtain enough public approval to eliminate citizen challenges to illegal votes altogether. They will justify it by proposing an institutionalized method of due process challenge and lend it legitimacy by placing the statutory tribunal power in the hands of KC Elections and the SOS's office.
Watch it happen. This elections problem we have here is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. MoveOn, ACORN, and other national communist orgs around America are setting the stage for a national voting coup in the next two elections.
With exception to the power of concerned citizens like you and I and Shark to challenge illegal votes, the rats are as close as they can get here in King County to locking down the elections process as a democrat rubber stamp.
THS: Please point out to me where in my comment I said that I agreed with or supported this rationale for opposing voter-ID laws.
Nonetheless, this is the basis on which a successful suit against Georgia's new voter-ID law was filed earlier this year. I did not and do not agree with it, but that is "the world as it is."
Go back and carefully re-read Doug's comments... he's being tongue-in-cheek (the [/tolerant progressive Seattlite] was the give away).
Posted by: Mike H on December 24, 2005 05:42 PMI grew up in Lynden... hands down the most conservative and religious town in western Washington, and while he wasn't exactly loved, I never saw anywhere even close to the amount of pure blind hate for Clinton or liberals that I see for Bush and conservatives in "tolerant" Seattle. So much for being "open-minded".
Posted by: Mike H on December 24, 2005 10:31 PMThere once were very real problems that blacks faced in our country, and there are still times when they face discrimination. Because of that history and the present, it is cheap and disgusting to minimize that reality of racism by playing the race card for political gain.
I'm happy to vote for a black man, woman, or whatever ... but as soon as a candidate plays that game, they have lost my vote - permanently.
Posted by: BananaLand on December 25, 2005 12:25 AM"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and ,gosh darn it, people like me!"
You know it's true A.S. You are a cipher and a nobody. You don't even know who I am, do you? I am the resister against all odds. Your tactic of isolating me from everyone and saying that I stand alone is a totalitarian brainwashing technique. It may have worked on you, but it won't on me:
"I am a rock.
I am an island."
Paul Simon
Posted by: Winston Smith on December 25, 2005 12:28 PMIf you are not a poll driven commenter, then why not answer the question?
What scientific organization certifies the claims by Al Gore that global warming is caused by the internal combustion engine?
Apparently Al's word alone is good enough for you.
Posted by: Amused by liberal morons on December 25, 2005 03:10 PMKeep this concept in mind as you puzzle through these things. You are looking for major contributing causes of global warming, not THE ONE AND ONLY CAUSE. You think like a totalitarian.
Posted by: Winston Smith on December 26, 2005 07:40 AMwinston could serve as a best case scenario for Peter Singer's notion of retro-active abortions. It certainly wouldn't be missed....
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 26, 2005 08:48 AMThe unbroken chain between Jim Crow and today’s voter suppression efforts (cloaked in the gauzy rhetoric of “voter integrity”) is historically well-documented impossible to refute. Thurmond, Helms, Atwater, Rove, Sotelo, the list goes on ad nauseum. While SS may use a ridiculously expansive definition of “fraud,” the inability the wingnuts to cite ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE of fraudulent voting executed to gain partisan political advantage demonstrates just how cynical and intellectually dishonest these efforts are.
Duhh . . . only a moron . . .
All you ever do is make false claims without any hint that you understand them let alone that you even believe them yourself. I asked you a legitimate question, and you called me a moron because as you say, ”no one attributes global warming to just one cause,” and then you answered the question with bovine flatulence. I didn’t attribute global warming to just one cause. I asked ”What scientific organization certifies the claims by Al Gore that global warming is caused by the internal combustion engine?” ”So who is the *moron* here?”
You suggest I look for major contributing causes of global warming, but in his book Earth in the Balance, (1993), Al Gore insists that all other discreet causes (probably flatulence too) notwithstanding, global warming is caused by the internal combustion engine. So, I ask you once again more expansively, “What scientific organization verifies, officially states, confirms, declares as factual, attests to, supports, or certifies any of Al Gore's claims?”
ONLY MORONS LIKE YOU !
If there was a positive answer to this question, a liberal disseminator of global warming dogma like you could answer it. But you won’t.
Gore also has spoken numerous times of the impending eco-catastrophe confronting the globe (he predicted to occur before the year 2000) and the fact that the internal combustion engine is the single greatest threat to the world—OR—in your parlance, “THE ONE AND ONLY CAUSE.” Given this, in your view, Al Gore thinks like an addle-brained totalitarian *moron*, and since Al's word alone is good enough for you, it is easy for anyone to conclude how you formulate your opinions.
You believe fervently in Al Gore’s shallow baseless, hysterical, alarmist, and simple minded Global Warming theory because it’s easy and doesn’t require logic or rational thought.
Just as the rest of your hot air smacks of bull$hit, when you burble that, ”one major cause of global warming is bovine flatulence,” you are—as always—talking out of you’re a$$.
winston could serve as a best case scenario for Peter Singer's notion of retro-active abortions. It certainly wouldn't be missed....
Just as the rest of your hot air smacks of bull$hit, when you burble that, ”one major cause of global warming is bovine flatulence,” you are—as always—talking out of you’re a$$.
Ah yes. And more of the same from headlice/winston. But what can you expect from someone who eats their own poop?
My Lord, what a clueless screwball.
Is this a website for adults?
Posted by: OR voter on December 26, 2005 09:03 PMIf you don't like it, I would suggest the soothing tones of HorsesPatoot......
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 26, 2005 09:08 PMAm I supposed to understand what you're saying?
Posted by: OR Voter on December 26, 2005 09:34 PMORNo, ORYes.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on December 26, 2005 10:39 PMNormal people would be able to grasp my very plain meaning quite clearly.
It doesn't surprise me that you do not.
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 26, 2005 10:52 PMIs Or Voter NUANCED? (like algore or hillary) WOW.
Watch it.
Thankfully, there is more to life than politics.
Posted by: Gary on December 28, 2005 01:40 PMI agree with you, but . . .
There is only more to life than politics until political interests restrain your life to such an extent that you ARE FORCED to rise up and change them.
We are there now.
The pity is that there is so much ignorance of the truth combined with corruption that liberals are actually able to obtain and consolidate power here in Washington State.
My father said back in the 1960's that laziness and communism was alive and well in our universities and it would spread through schools K through 12, and into our society. Anyone who said such things then was dismissed as a fool, but now the Democrat party is a socialist/communist party and it will only get worse until it is defeated. Socialist Communism administered through the false framework of a representative republic is nothing new to the world. The Communist Chinese have elections, a legislative body, a constitution, and call themselves the Democratic Republic of China. Its all an empty ruse.
The Democratic party is attempting to seize power back through the same sort of empty ruse. The slow “progressive,” dismemberment of fundamental rights from the constitution, seizure of private property from citizens, takings for private use under eminent domain, homosexual marriage, one world government under the U.N., and on and on are all symptoms of the disease.
On a national level we are vulnerable, but on a state level we are fu@ked. In our state, things like a thoroughly corrupt elections system, unaccountable taxation, an impending state income tax, wildly increasing excise taxes, wildly increased license tab fees, death taxes, smoking bans, small business regulation, CAO, seizure of parental rights, refusal to address rational transportation plans, inrestrained speding on social programs, and numerous other issues are poised to explode in 2006.
We are building light rail systems that will fail because they are not economically supportable, bus systems that can only possibly succeed if we are forced out of our cars, and unaccountable taxes that purport to pay for improvement proposals that are neither feasible nor funded until more taxes can be raised. All while ignoring imminent problems of unneccesary lifestyle limitations, increased costs, widely rumored fears of natural disasters and their affects on infrastructures, and commercial insolubility from gridlock.
All of this is going to severely hurt us because it discourages large business, strangles small businesses, punishes individual incentives, and restricts freedom. Who will employ people; the state? Prices will go up, business will leave the area, unemployment will rise, wages will flatten and then decrease vs. cost of living, interest rates will rise, and our state will become a haven for crime. The Washington State Agenda under Gregoire is a recipe for economic and social failure.
Please don't get complacent; we have a battle royal ahead of us and honest people in our state like you need your attention and support.
Thanks.