Today's Seattle Times editorial in support of mail-only voting is unmistakably Joni Balter: a dumb policy recommendation based on ignorant and illogical arguments, delivered with snotty condescension. "To the mailbox, ye sons of Freedom"The core of her argument is an ad hominem dismissal of the people who have legitimate objections to mail voting --
Traditionalists who like the experience of voting at the polls will not be happy. Many Republicans, still upset over last year's election, will not like it because it could increase the chance of voter misconduct or fraud.Yes, a number of legislators, outside "expert" election review panelists and editorial writers are enamored with all-mail voting. But as far as I can tell, none of these folks have ever actually done any kind of hands-on research into the myriad of ways in which mail-voting undermines the fairness and accuracy of our elections. Apart from these ignorant dreamers, the only people who favor all-mail voting actually seem to want to make it easier to commit election fraud.
Balter's other main argument for mail-only voting is that "70 percent of voters in King County currently vote absentee", implying that the preferences of the other 300,000+ of us should be ignored. (And I thought the Democrats were supposed to pro-choice!)
By Balter's own reasoning, The Seattle Times, which has a weekday readership of 565,500, is unread by 83% of its total regional market of 3,337,300 adults and should be forced out of business. Indeed, Joni Balter's ignorant and insulting thumbsucker editorials may well help drive enough readers away to achieve that outcome.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 27, 2005 12:04 PM | Email ThisDon't let the truth affect your corrupt arrogance Balter.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on December 27, 2005 12:43 PMbut fraud is OK. So is voter misconduct. So is speeding, murder, extortion, abortion, embezzlement,
terrorism.
Hurting someones' feelings is NOT OK.
How can anyone read that sentence in the editorial and not wonder?
Posted by: dan on December 27, 2005 12:57 PMHey, Stefan, I like this reasoning just as much as my analogy I posted the other day about public transportation. Since far less than 10% (I know, I am giving far more credit, but I don't have the exact figure) of the population uses the public transportation, we should forego all funding to public transportation by this reasoning, rather than the current system of bulk of transportation money going to public transportation.
Balter IS and idiot! 'Nuf said.
C.Oh-
I think you added one too many zeros to the end of the Times' daily readership.
Posted by: Jeffro on December 27, 2005 02:17 PMBTW, I still think that abolishing public transportation by this reasoning is a good idea, don't you think?
Posted by: C. Oh on December 27, 2005 02:41 PMWhat do you suppose M means by, "[t]his type of pro-choice sounds right to me!"
Democrat pro active choice of voter misconduct and fraud?
And I haven't seen a recent poll on the question, but some months ago I did see polls that showed that a majority of Washington voters thought Dino Rossi had won. Somehow I don't think the Times would conclude from those polls that Rossi should be residing in Olympia.
Posted by: Jim Miller on December 27, 2005 03:19 PMI laughed at the reasoning comparison, and indeed agree with the analogy.
BTW I was joking about the extra zero, but Stephan, let's not confuse circulation with readership. The Sunday Times is still the cheapest cage liner and in this part of the world, the funny pages ring more true.
Posted by: Jeffro on December 27, 2005 04:22 PMThought that might help.
Posted by: Jeffro on December 27, 2005 04:25 PMNear as I can figure, M's response could have been an attempt at tongue in cheek humor, or, as you say, the choice between fraud and a Democrat in office is a clear one to him.
Posted by: dan on December 27, 2005 04:28 PMWhatever happened to actually reporting what happened?
Well, the bloggers like Stefan will assume the mantle of reporting what is happening, and having the integrity to set their own views aside and just REPORT.
JOANIE forgot that while smoking pot with Queen Christine in a fun little soiree at QC's smug little all white UW sorority in those wonderful foggy days of the late 60s.
NO, NO, nowadays it is all about what JOANIE thinks happened. What JOANIE's wet dreams are all about. How JOANIE wants to relive the 60's, Easy Rider, and free love.
Maybe this is just a spasm of the 1/3 of the baby boomers who are so brutally self absorbed it is impossible to think 3 inches past their own noses. A spasm that will fade just like JOANIE's hair color is fading, like JOANIE's muscle tone is fading.
Good Lord, what vanity, what delusion, what stupidity. How utterly hollow.
Maybe someday JOANIE will wake up and recognize the utter wreckage the self absorbed portion of the baby boomers has bestowed on civilized society since 1965: massive divorce rate, massive drug use, the trashing of Black Americans' pride, the trashing of and now pathically performing public schools, etc etc, why the depressing list goes on and on.
JOANIE, maybe, just maybe, you will grow up before you croak and see what your self absorbed pathetic life has produced: garbage.
From a baby boomer who is utterly ashamed of those baby boomers who want to relive the worst part of the 60s.
Posted by: THS on December 27, 2005 04:49 PMI was sitting in a $buck coffee shop, (I don't normally hang there, but my company is shut down this week and a vendor sent me a gift card) and this in Seattle Least Intelligence caught my eye.
Kwanzaa is living reminder of a faraway culture
I laughed out land, yeah Kwanzaa celebrates the faraway culture of California, of course the article makes no comment that Kwanzaa is not a African Celebration.
The local papers are so out of touch with reality that it like watch ing the inmates at Western State Hospital.
The the democratic power structures speaks, Balter and others bob their little empty spring loaded heads.
Posted by: JCM on December 27, 2005 06:37 PMIt has become critical now to turn this election fraud around.....otherwise our state will become an election fraud loophole heaven for the Democrats. If we can't even make a small dent in this corruption..then we're screwed and we need to know it.
If the Republican party of this state and this country doesn't do something by January 2006 to stop this tide...I will consider them "enablers" of this apparent Socialist-Liberal Democrat robbery of our rights and most precious freedoms..such as our "legitimate" vote.
I will not sit here another year - sitting on my hands - while Stefan exposes the most obvious of criminal activity in and of King County and the State of Washington - and allow myself to be subjected to a daily assault by ultra-liberal trolls....and know that absolutely NOTHING being done to stop any of this...
We need to do something tangible....NOW.
Posted by: Deborah on December 27, 2005 07:12 PMIn particular what are your comments and thoughts about these two late analysis of Oregon mail voting ...
http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/policy-initiatives/vbm/execvbm.htm
.. these 2 reports ...
"Five Years Later: A Re-assessment of Oregon's Vote by Mail Electoral Process," Dr. Priscilla Southwell, Department of Political Science, University of Oregon, 2003
"Ballot Integrity and Voting by Mail: The Oregon Experience," The Early Voting Information Center at Reed College for the Carter Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform,
Is the real problem here (King County) the process (mail-in vs walk-in) or the incompetence or corruption of the officials?
West Seattle
Posted by: FreeRangeAuthor on December 27, 2005 07:14 PMThis is the only reason I can fathom why we have a complete idiot in the White House, conducting an Orwellian war against a noun, with virtually no reaction from the poor slobs who think this is a noble effort and well worth the hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives it has cost.
Meanwhile, back in the provinces, we argue about who is entitled to cast a vote.
Posted by: Unkl Witz on December 27, 2005 07:18 PMThe Anti-Communitarian League (ACL)
http://nord.twu.net/acl/
Yes, indeed, we are all poor slobs in need of another enlightened totalitarian to tell us what to do in every aspect of our lives.
And, perish the thought that democracy is spreading.......perish the thought that local government malfeasance is an issue.
Light up another one, scat for brains........
Posted by: THS on December 27, 2005 08:11 PMhttp://northwet.blogspot.com/
Read all the linked documents. (If you can read something more complex than move-on talking points).
Then you might actually know something that is, instead of so many things that are just not so.
Until then FOXTROT OSCAR
Posted by: JCM on December 27, 2005 08:34 PMTo describe it as a "little pittance" is being very kind. It strikes me more as a regurgitation of right wing talking points, the same ones Sean and Rush check in on before lauching their daily diabribes.
I was particularly amused at your Ronnie Raygun quote about Marx and Lenin. If I were a gambling man, I'd wager a fair amount of money that neither you, nor he, ever cracked a text written by Marx or Lenin.
Now back to the task at hand: how to deal with government misfesance on a grand scale when the loyal opposition is howling about voters registered at PO Boxes.
Posted by: Unkl Witz on December 27, 2005 09:14 PMHe is the same sort of fool that simultaneously thinks that Bush is a mad genius - how else is he able to run rings around all of those "enlightened" liberals?
Mostly he is a one trick phony who, like most degenerates, would allow the whole house to burn in the hopes that Bush would get singed.
What a pathetic POS.......
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 27, 2005 09:24 PMYou continue to crack me up soupy.
Posted by: Unkl Witz on December 27, 2005 09:29 PMAs to the RWR quote. I have had people sit at my dinner table who spent time in Siberian Camps and Cambodian Re-education camps.
I understand communism far too well, and have seen first hand the human wreckage left in it's wake.
The language used by Sims, Logan and crew in running the Elections Department is far too familiar too a true student of history.
I prefer to fight in blogosphere, on the editor page, at the ballot box, in the legislature, and in the courts.
BUT I WILL BE DAMMED if I will let the likes of Sims, Logan and sycophants drag us toward that end.
Which is also why history will record not the intelligence failures, or wire tapping, or the words of Durbin, Pelosi, Murtha or Kerry.
History will record that a President of United States of America Liberated 50 million from tyranny and in less then 3 years set them on a path of self determination.
History will also have the result of this fight in King Co. to borrow a quote... ..."and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"
By allowing our vote to be manipulated, diluted, and disrespected as evidence in the words, actions, inactions, and policies of KCE that is exactly the danger to government of, by and for the people is in.
Posted by: JCM on December 27, 2005 09:36 PMReally? what were their names? how did they happen to end up at your dinner table? Did you ask them how they felt about about our own nation's shameful treatment of prisoners in Iraq, Gitmo, or our clandestine camps around Europe? How do they feel about our government's position that a little torture in pursuit of liberty and democracy is acceptable?
Funny, you didn't bother to refute my assumption that you'd never read any Marx or Lenin. You seem to draw your conclusions about them exclusively from the words of others. Don't feel badly, you're in very extensive company.
Posted by: Unkl Witz on December 27, 2005 09:49 PMWhat drives morons and half witz's mad is their inability to come to grips with what you said - President Bush will be remembered as a liberator, while their "great Left Hope" klintoon will be remembered as a degenerate.
Relish the thought - I know I do ;'}
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 27, 2005 10:12 PMThis is the only reason I can fathom why we nearly voted a complete idiot like Kerry into the White House, who gained fame tarring the entire US military with a broad brush, with virtually no reaction from the poor slobs who think this was a noble effort and well worth the hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives it has cost.
Meanwhile, back in the provinces, we argue about who is entitled to cast a LEGAL vote.
Posted by: Unkl Witzlos on December 27, 2005 10:16 PMSad very sad. Over on my blog I link to hundreds of pages of documents, here on SP Shark has shown hundreds of documents, voters and practices at KCE that are at best questionable, at worst criminal.
And your very best retort is "Really? what were their names? how did they happen to end up at your dinner table?"
The you equate a dozen naked men in a pile for a moment for a idiots ideal of joke photo-op to the 10s of millions DEAD in the Gulags, and other millions in Cambodia and other lovely Socialist Utopias.
That equation sir, places you beneath contempt.
You have never offered a valid, logical, factual argument on this Blog. You have never rebutted a single assertion put forth by Shark. The best you can do when discussing the practices at KCE is GWB is bastard or similar comeback.
The best you can come up with in discussions with me is demanding the names of my dinner guests.
My God have mercy on your pathetic soul.
Posted by: JCM on December 27, 2005 11:12 PMI'm married and live in Kyrgyzstan where I work for the .mil. I've got a few relatives that know a bit about Stalin and relocation, since the Soviet thought this country was so far backward it got left out of the master plan. As such, it ended up as a dumping ground for a lot of 'aristocracy' and the like. Any time you want to see the handiworks of Communism, come on over. I'll even let you stay at my pad.
I suppose the real question that should be asked is this: Have you ever cracked open the works of Engels and Marx? What books of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov) have you read? Have you seen the works of his regime, or Stalin's after him? Have you ever met anyone who remembers being thrown at the Germans without weapons, without proper uniforms, more afraid of their own leaders than the enemy? Someday you can come and meet my wife's grandfather and he can tell you of the wonders of the Soviet Union.
You should read a book called The Black Book of Communism if you want a real eye-opener. You'll see what Marx's theories have played out as.
Posted by: Aaron on December 28, 2005 12:29 AMThat counting every legal vote once, is the primary function for that entity.
If the vote is not secured, NOTHING, is. Not property. Not the Bill of Rights. NOTHING, is secure.
Look at the democratic positions.
It is just peachy to put GPS in everyones' cars to track when and where everyone drives at all times to tax based on road use and time of use. (subtext -- government will know where and when you go always).
But have NEST (Nuclear Emergency Support Team) drive a van by a Mosque and passively look for radiation signatures throws them into near paralytic fits over civil rights. Remember where the '93 WTC bombing was planned? A Mosque.
And they have the gall to talk about hypocrisy. Argghhhh!
Sims and crew in KC run around stealing property (CAO), wasting money (defunct payroll computer), Then when KCE melts down, especially the mail ballot program. They come out hand say everything is okay, then when pressed Sims picks buddies to audit the process and precisely nothing gets fixed (other than the vote).
Then they come out and propose using mail balloting as the solution.
That's like a teenager suggesting the solution to sleeping in late is staying up later.
Lets look at the two system.
Mail in:
KCE mails out the ballots a month before the election.
The ballots come back on election day.
Where have they been?
Who filled them out?
Under what circumstances where they filled out?
Did the person filling out the ballot, only fill out one?
Is the person filling out the ballot a legal voter?
Vs:
Polling place:
Voter walks in and presents voter registration card and photo ID. (If the rolls are clean voter is a legal voter).
Voter signs poll book. (Voter appears once and only once on KCE poll book).
Voter votes.
Vote is tallied.
At the end of the day the number of signatures in the poll book matches the physical number of ballots. (Or there is a accounting until it does).
Now which system on the face of it is more secure?
Is our liberty worth the inconvenience of getting yours, mine and our lazy a**ed butts down to the poll?
Remember it is WE THE PEOPLE who control government, we lose that if the vote is not tallied accurately, legally, honestly and openly.
When WE THE PEOPLE allow individual sovereignty to slip away we will inevitably be on the road travel by millions of Russians, Cambodians, North Koreans and fellow victims of communism.
That is lesson of history for those who would treated the sovereignty of the individual and that individuals inalienable right to control the government lightly.
Posted by: JCM on December 28, 2005 07:43 AMActaully the better strategy is to have about 50,000 extra ballots to offset the Fraud already being committed of extra votes and lost ballots from certain parts of the county.
Go to poll, see id, sign once, vote once bad...rent mailboxes, go to retirement centers, go to apartment buildings, regestier travelers at SeaTac, mail ballots for years from Georgia GOOOODDDDDDD!
Posted by: Col. Hogan on December 28, 2005 09:59 AMWe're not saying that mail balloting won't work.
We are saying that in '04 KCE had more ballots than voters, the distribution of missing mail ballots too excess ballots had a suspicious pattern that defied random distribution in favor of the current democratic power structure. KCE found ballots well after election 9 times again with a suspicious pattern that benefitted the democratic machine.
The democratic machine then inspected the democratic machine and said everything is just peachy.
Now the democratic machine wants to institute mail ballot which has the least amount control on ballots, voters and process.
Tell me again how it is in the democratic machines' interest to release control of the voting process to the inspect and control of the people?
Before you answer consider:
Tammany Hall
Mayor Daley
Until KCE owns up to the well documented mistakes, failures and incompetencies. Then has open corrections put I place. I wouldn't trust Sims or Logan to count change at a kiddies lemonade stand.
We are saying Sims and crowd are not trustworthy. They don't acknowledge the problem, and will not correct it. Then they propose to institute the most error ridden portions of the KCE as the default system.
Tell me how that is even rational?
Posted by: JCM on December 28, 2005 12:48 PMWhat happens is the person signs the blank ballot and them gives the ballot to the union boss to fill out.
After all once the ballot is signed, it is impossible to tell who filled in the bubbles.
Posted by: Gene on December 28, 2005 01:13 PMWitz proves that while he has tried to read Marx and Lenin, he doesn’t understand it. Mortally allergic to facts, witz exhibits the liberal case very well by directly substituting emotionally driven lies, innuendo, and evasion for substance, rational debate, and logical reasoning.
Humorous reading . . . like watching a rat defend a moldy peice of cheese that no one cares about.
Posted by: Amused by half witz on December 28, 2005 01:43 PMGreat website, From the Great North Wet
It’s on my list. Keep it up. witz has done you a great service by slamming it so impudently.
Obviously, he read about as much of your website as he did Marx and Lenin (crib notes).
Witz mock-sagely observes, ” It (JCM’s website, “From the Great North Wet”) strikes me more as a regurgitation of right wing talking points, the same ones Sean and Rush check in on.” Witz makes no observation engaging substance, pro or con, about the content of the website, which is quite good, authoritative, and irrefutable for liberals, but because he refuses to look beyond a Reagan quote, he dismisses it out of hand. Witz cannot deal with facts, and I know you don’t expect an intelligent analysis. Nice job.
Witz says, ” I was particularly amused at your Ronnie Raygun quote about Marx and Lenin. If I were a gambling man, I'd wager a fair amount of money that neither you, nor he, ever cracked a text written by Marx or Lenin.” Witz only proves that while he has tried to read Marx and Lenin, he doesn’t understand it. Don’t bother wagering against witz, he is a democrat—too cowardly and dishonest to pay up.
SHAMELESS CORRUPTION
Witz has a lot in common with Joni Balter including her gender, and her admission that Republicans will not like mail-only voting because as she openly admits, ”it could increase the chance of voter misconduct or fraud.” Facts of any kind are anathema to liberals' whole premise of power at any cost. Voter misconduct or fraud don’t matter because it favors their party.
Thanks again for the substantive input to the thread of discussion.
You're right. I hereby apologize to all women.
Posted by: Amused by ditz on December 28, 2005 03:26 PM