The AP reported this week that an Evergreen Freedom Foundation affiliate is filing an initiative to clean up the Washington voter rolls by requiring all state voters to reregister with proof of citizenship. As it turns out, the EFF hasn't filed or released the ballot title yet, as it hasn't even been finalized. I'll wait to comment on the initiative until the text is actually available for review. (As could be expected, the unhinged lefty blogs, who are seldom contrained by actual facts, are already howling their objections to this initiative they haven't read yet)
But the main point of this post is to express dismay with the Secretary of State's Office, which also disputes the EFF's initiative it hasn't read yet. The AP article quotes Assistant Secretary of State Steve Excell, who changes the subject from the EFF's push for citizenship verification, to tout the statewide database (which has no citizenship verification) and to make the astonishing claim that investigators using the database
had not found any evidence of illegal votesWhoa. Here is a spreadsheet of 238 possible double voters identified by querying the statewide database. The spreadsheet was compiled by Bob Edelman, using a number of different queries for pairs of voters with closely matching names, birthdates and addresses, both of whom have the same "last date of voting" --
And because the public release of the statewide database contains only the last date that a voter voted, these queries miss the cases where a doubly registered voter voted twice in previous elections. (e.g. Sakina/Sakima Salaam, who is still doubly registered even though her two voted absentee ballot envelopes from Nov. 2004 have been found and publicized, and has since voted in subsequent elections under both registrations). I would expect that a number of the interesting examples in Edelman's spreadsheet will turn out to be explained by data errors. And a few of the matching names at different addresses will certainly turn out to different people. So I stress that I am not, at this time, accusing any of these individuals listed in the spreadsheet of committing a crime. But I have found enough pairs of ballot envelopes cast by the same individual in the same election, that I find it hard to believe that none of the people on this list voted twice in the same election. There's enough in the spreadsheet to suggest that at least some people have illegally voted twice, and it seems misleading to suggest the opposite to the press.
I emailed Excell on Friday with a similar but smaller spreadsheet of possible double voters that I compiled and I posed the following questions:
Your office and the county auditors have much more information than I do, so your statement that "investigators had not found any evidence of illegal votes" makes me wonder --Election officials would have more credibility if, instead of making implausible claims downplaying the number of errors and illegal votes, they simply tell us the truth about the number of errors and illegal votes, explain what they're doing to prevent these incidents and demonstrate that the number of such problems declines over time. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 26, 2006 11:49 AM | Email This* are investigators looking for evidence of illegal votes?
* what are they doing to look for such evidence?
* have all the cases of potential double voting, including the ones in the attached spreadsheet, been investigated and dismissed as data errors?
* have investigators concluded that some double voting has occurred, but they are reluctant to characterize it as illegal? How many cases of double voting have been identified?
The Election Officials have a "club" where they circle the wagons and protect each other. Sam Reed is obviously the ringleader....with Logan his "Poster-Boy" of success.
You perserverance will ultimately win the day Stefan...it has already resulted in major improvements. These Erection KLOWNS would simply like to say this is now "good enough"....as if striving to have precise elections is not reasonable. As if admitting past problems is somehow sacreligious.
The LEFTIST PINHEADED bloggers are pretty pathetic. They are the same crowd that would like to see kids that cannot multiply double-digit numbers get a high school diploma! The KLOWNS love to see the bar lowered. They can cheat....and they can create a constituency of losers beholding to the LEFTIST generosity....FREE EVERYTHING!!
Karl Marx would be proud of KLOWNstein and his ilk.
It's time to bring in the fraud auditors and "let the chips fall where they may."
Too bad SOX (Sarbanes Oxley only applies to publicly traded companies and not to county and state government. The elected officials and appointed employees would be less cavalier if they had to personally sign off on the accuracy of the election results.
Posted by: Green Lake Mark on February 26, 2006 01:08 PMVote early Vote often! The story of the King County Elections database.
Posted by: GS on February 26, 2006 01:16 PMWhen the Republicans get the Governors Mansion in '08 you will be the one screaming for election reform and the Governor will use your bogus election reforms against YOU. That is, unless your buddies Bankrupt the State before that.
Posted by: Mac's Daddy on February 26, 2006 03:58 PMThanks for underscoring the missing reality quotient in the EFF's base of support:
"...your party controls the elections process in this state and as long as they feel they can manipulate the outcome they will never clean up the process."
Since I've never joined any political party, I can only wonder what this means. Are Secretary Reed and Governor Gregoire in the same party?
While we're on the topic, Judge Bridges' ruling implies that most of the felons who voted in the 2004 election, did so for Mr. Rossi. Care to confirm that? Or do you not believe what Republicans say about our elections?
I will not let anyone like you control whether or not I can vote.
Posted by: Paddy Mac on February 26, 2006 04:21 PM
While we're on the topic, Judge Bridges' ruling implies that most of the felons who voted in the 2004 election, did so for Mr. Rossi. Care to confirm that? Or do you not believe what Republicans say about our elections?
The fact that Judge Bridges adjusted the election results by four votes based solely on affidavits signed by four convicted felons who nobody disputed voted illegally says more about Judge Bridges than it does about the election results.
Posted by: huckleberry on February 26, 2006 04:34 PMI would never attempt to control whether or not you can vote little Paddy, I and every other American that cares about honesty and integrity in the electoral process wants to insure that both your vote and mine are not cancelled out by someone not legally qualified to participate.
Posted by: Mac's Daddy on February 26, 2006 04:44 PMThen do your freaking job! It is already too late! Unless of course you can put Dino in like should be or that Sims should be out! DAMN!
If you would have done your job in the first place things wouldn't have been in the mess they are now! Can you say job security in the Government I know you can!!!
Bridges also set an impossible standard for overturning an election.
Not only did you have to identify individual illegal voters, you then have to get them to testify under oath that they voted illegally and who they voted for.
First we have secret ballots you cannot tie a particular ballot back to a particular voter. Second even if you could id a voter, they do have to testify because of the 5th amendment.
By that standard overturning the '04 election would have required specifically identifying 130 voters who had voted for QG and then getting them to waive their 5th amendment rights.
Bridges in essence by his ruling "legalized" distributed vote fraud.
But what foolish analysis. The assumption is that the vast majority of voters don't think for themselves. The progressives insist that in concluding that the election was poorly conducted and that there are major flaws in the KCE system most must only have been guided by what they read from Republicans and folks like Stefan. Nevermind that this site, even with great impact certainly has not been viewed by every Washingtonian, or that a large majority of Democrats don't have any fatih in KCE. Nevermind that the vast majority of media sources that voters read skew left and were unabashed in their support for Dean Logan and KCE.
It's a telling revelation that Goldstein views most people as not having that capacity to think for themselves and that explains his progressive, statist mindset, but let's think about what is really going on with the polls. It is really not at all hard to see that the KCE system is a faith based system. The entire premise of voter registration rests on the notion that citizens as a whole should be trusted to be honest about who they say they are, that they are legitimate, of age, non-felon, US citizens living at the residence they list on the form. And this entire system is authenticated by almost nothing beyond simple checks to make sure the address is valid. Many elections officials, from Reed on down have often said that they have no authority to refuse any person a vote. Even though the RCW makes it very clear that they do indeed have this authority, the whole mindset is that voting is a right of such divine origin, that is must never be questioned, even when it is suspect.
I don't buy that, you don't buy that and neither do the vast majority of the WA voters. That's why vetting the voter database for citizenship, proof of residence, proof of identification, etc. all seem like very reasonable and obvious preventetive measures to any rational person, but produce virulent opposition from the left.
Look at the 238 doubles that Stefan and the EFF have found using basic searches of the voter DB, nd that the SOS office should already have conducted, before posting even a first draft of the database. Do Dems like Goldstein have any credibility in crying wolf in light of such findings? Do Dems like Goldstein really believe that they can convince the majority of Washtingtonions that a database rife with such error and a system with little or no authentication did not effect the outcome of past close elections? I guess so.
That's the lunacy of progressivism, it does a great job of fooling itself. People like Goldstein and Paddy Mac have convinced themselves that they can defy the laws of economics and that they can go against human nature. Is there any wonder why conservativism has been growing across this nation for decades?
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 26, 2006 07:16 PMWell Said!
Posted by: GS on February 26, 2006 07:24 PMI have to renew my Washington State driver's license every 5 years. Why not do the same for voter registration? It is clear that the voter registration records in Washington State (and King County in particular) are full of errors. Shouldn't we value our votes enough to accept the occasional inconvenience of keeping the data up-to-date? And, if citizenship and residence are legal requirements to vote, doesn't it make sense to require some proof of both when registering to vote?
Posted by: Patrick on February 26, 2006 10:22 PMHe just posted his crap and ran back to HA
Posted by: GS on February 26, 2006 11:42 PMWho knew???
Certainly no one in this state's government...It's interesting that the DoD (Dept of Defense) Fraud examination certification site provides a link to the ACFE! Maybe we can side step our liberal regional Feds and have the DoD run an audit of our elections?....Heheh.....I would LOVE to see that!
Posted by: Deborah on February 27, 2006 12:33 AM"As you know, we Republicans believe that Dino Rossi won the 2004 Gubernatorial election. You Democrats believe that Christine Gregoire rightfully won. As a result, we Republicans believe that the votes were counted incorrectly at least once, in the final recount. But you Democrats believe that the votes were counted incorrectly - TWICE!! Who have you held accountable for incorrectly counting the votes twice thereby costing our state's taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars and making Seattle and King County the laughingstock of the entire country?"
If any of you can find a 'progressive' who'll actually answer my question, please let me know. I always get silence and dirty looks.
Posted by: Larry on February 27, 2006 10:19 AM1) What type of status is "IM"? A is active, I is inactive (43 of them), but 6 people (4 in Lewis and 2 in Jefferson) have "IM" status.
2) How did Sarah G. Ramon manage to register AND vote on the same day? (08NOV2005) There is a minimum 15 day wait according to state law.
3) Would it be possible to get a ledger of what each county uses for their absentee ballot types? "P" is pretty obvious, and you have stated "V" is vote-by mail, but there are three other types listed (A, U, and N).
4) Why are there so many double registrations in which both registrations were filed on the same day? Of the 15 earliest registrations, there are four pairs of such registrations, dating as far back as 1948. (FWIW, none of these really old pairs is from King County, which indicates that in the past there was someone competent running the elections there.)
5) There are three blank birthdates, including a pair in which the registrations (same person) date back to July 1934 (not the same day, but less than a month apart). Wasn't that supposed to be corrected already?
6) There are eight counties with no errors, and 8 more with no duplicates within the counties (probably people who have moved from one county to another and didn't let the registrar know). They are not all tiny counties, although none are major metropolitan counties.
Posted by: timekeeper on February 27, 2006 10:32 AMHow is this a democrat or republican issue? Does anyone claim to know how these folks voted?
Why is this work not being done by our government?
My ultimate test is to turn the tables - How would the left be acting if this were a republican state? I imagine there would be marches on the SoS and the auditors, so I think this is pretty fair of SS to keep bringing to the light.
Now if the electeds would just act on it.
Posted by: lemming on February 27, 2006 11:34 AMIn response to your questions:
1. There is very little information available on the database. The Secretary of State has yet to respond to a request for internal descriptive documentation. They did provide some coding information. According to that release, IM means inactive and so does I. This indicates either a lack of standards for data or that the coding information provided was incomplete.
2. I don't know. More than 800 people registered before they were born so I guess anything is possible.
3. The SoS provided key is P=Permanent, T=Temporary, N=Not Absentee, U=Unknown(!), and V=Vote by Mail. There is no A code.
4. I can only guess. I believe that most double registration are caused by errors in the auditor's office. With the massive amount of duplicate registrations (30,000 to 40,000) a small percentage will take advantage of getting two or more ballots. I estimate from 1% to !.5%. That's larger then the margin of victory in many statewide races.
5. Birthdates weren't required prior to 1992. The SoS is sending out requests to get birth dates voluntarily. However, 337 people who registered after the effective date of the law have blank birth dates.
6. All counties have errors in the statewide database. About 15% of the records have some type of error. (Most are problems with state database, not the county.) The spreadsheet is "likely double voters" and only indicates where some of the illegal votes are cast.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. I estimate that 2% of registrants are non-citizens based on data from other states scaled to our alien population. That's over 60,000 people who committed a federal crime by registering and may be committing additional crimes by voting. That may explain why the Federal government refuses to help identify non-citizens.
Posted by: Bob Edelman on February 27, 2006 11:59 AMProblem is, once we gather this information, who wants to do anything with it.
F*cking Nobody! That's who.
Posted by: huckleberry on February 27, 2006 12:25 PMThe simple question is: what's the big deal in vetting the DB a bit? Cleaning it up, requiring proof of ID, proof of citizenship? Answer: It is no big deal, unless you believe that there is some advantage in maintaining a database with a bit of error and continuing the honor system where accuracy is traded for the absolute right of anyone to cast a ballot with very little authentication.
Progressives are deathly afraid of a little accountability. Look how hard they fought I-901. Look how hard the teacher's unions fight any sort of testing and or competition introduced into the education system. If you believe that government is the answer to most problems, then you are absolutely unwilling to allow government to be challenged. The progressives are circling the wagons on the basis that they have always been able to manipulate the uniformed and uneducated.
We live in a new world. The internet will continue to inform more and more, and the progressives will be in clear daylight.
My prediction, and I know this is hard for most to imagine is that in the not too distant future, even traditionally blue states like WA, CA and NY, will be turning red. It's only a matter of time, which is on our side.
[Voting is a right, not a privilege.]
Yes, voting is a right, not a privilege. I agree wholeheartedly.
But with my right to vote, comes a right to vote in a system that has checks in place to ensure there is no corruption of the voting mechanism, regardless of whether that corruption is from faulty procedures, bad equipment, or irresponsible people.
[ The 2004 election was the most heavily scrutinized in all of this state's history, and a Republican judge in a Republican county found no evidence of fraud.]
There does not necessarily have to be fraud for the system to be broken. Fraud is defined as “something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage”. There may be no fraud, but the system could still be broken.
[Even if anyone had found any real evidence of fraud, I did not commit fraud, and so I do should not have to re-register.]
Nice sentiment, but again, there may be no fraud, but if the system is broken, and the voter database contaminated, how do we clean it up? You’ll excuse me if I say I no longer trust the election officials to do the job.
[Throwing millions of law-abiding citizens off of the voting rolls on the mere suspicion of fraud by a very few, shows nothing more than the desperation of this state's hard-right wing. If the EFF files such garbage, I will consider a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all law-abiding voters. If EFF has to pay each of us just $100 for attempted violation of our fundamental rights, we can put that group out of business permanently.]
Again, the issue not limited to “suspicion of fraud” alone, in my opinion. The greater question is whether there is evidence that the voting mechanism is corrupted. In the absence of evidence of corruption of the voting mechanism, it would certainly make sense to be opposed to passing more laws to clean up the voting system. But the way I see it, that is not the case here.
Mr. Sharkansky has provided, on his blog alone, sufficient evidence (not hearsay, but documented evidence) that the voting system has lost its integrity, and is in need of repair. Even if we assume there is no evidence of intentional fraud, the system is clearly in need of repair.
Of even greater concern than the broken voting system itself, is the uncooperative (even adversarial in my opinion) behavior of the public officials involved with respect to public disclosure of records.
If the system is in such good shape, and not in need of an overhaul, then why all the stalling and resistance by election officials to requests for public disclosure? One would think elections officials would be eager to disclose records that would prove the voting system is not broken, has not lost its integrity, and that they are doing their jobs.
Frankly, after all this, I don’t trust the election system, or the elections officials anymore - at all.
So a broad based cleanup, as proposed by EFF makes sense to me. I have nothing to hide, and nothing to loose from a cleanup of the elections system and voter database.
Posted by: MB on February 27, 2006 03:39 PM“The fact that Judge Bridges adjusted the election results by four votes based solely on affidavits signed by four convicted felons who nobody disputed voted illegally says more about Judge Bridges than it does about the election results.”
Yes, Huckleberry, Judge Bridges did deduct four illegal votes from Mr. Rossi’s total, but based on much more than their own admisssions of fealty to the Republican Party. (According to Jack Abramoff, those felons have lots of company.) Judge Bridges set a high standard for demonstrating that felons had voted, and the intervenors met it. The petitioners, despite blowing hard on the topic for six long months, did not. (How did they fail to produce a even a single felon who’d voted for a sitting Attorney Gen-- oh, never mind.)
And, Huckleberry, I wasn’t referring to the felons who did vote for Rossi. I referred to Judge Bridges’ claim that gender would predict a voter’s choice better than a criminal record would. In plain English, men voted for Rossi in greater proportion than did women, and most felons are men.
Hey Dad,
“I cannot help but think that the 5 felons the Dem's (not YOUR party right just doing your bidding) found are perhaps skewed from the average. What else was IMPLIED buy Bridges ruling? That everything else was "just fine" down at KCE?”
Judge Bridges had very harsh words for KCE, and my taxpayer dollars have gone to fix the mess there. Despite some last-minute, felonious tampering by one Lori Sotelo, the 2005 elections went well. Since you care so much about clean elections, you will call for her prosecution, right?
Judge Bridges did note that felons have different voting patterns than their neighbors. He did so whilst eviscerating the petitioners’ (and SoundPolitics’) “unscientific” claim for proportional deduction, which he also called a “fallacy”.
GS,
“Puddy Mac, if you had bothered to look at the spreadsheet Stephan has posted in this link, and cannot find any reason for concern, then I have nothing more to say to you except crawl back in your hole. We have important work to do here and we will do it!”
Why should I waste my time with more of SoundPolitics’ unscientific fallacies? If your “work” involves tampering with my franchise, I’ll prevent you from doing it!
JCM,
“Bridges also set an impossible standard for overturning an election.
Not only did you have to identify individual illegal voters, you then have to get them to testify under oath that they voted illegally and who they voted for.
First we have secret ballots you cannot tie a particular ballot back to a particular voter. Second even if you could id a voter, they do have to testify because of the 5th amendment.
By that standard overturning the '04 election would have required specifically identifying 130 voters who had voted for QG and then getting them to waive their 5th amendment rights.
Bridges in essence by his ruling ‘legalized’ distributed vote fraud.”
Judge Bridges, to use his proper title, followed the state’s law on elections. Setting aside an election requires much more than showing a few irregularities. Dale Forman promised to show evidence of fraud, and utterly failed to provide any. Either he didn’t know what he was talking about, or he didn’t mind lying to a judge in a courtroom. (Yet, he was morally and intellectually qualified to lead the Republican majority in the 1990’s. Go figure.)
As previously rebutted, Judge Bridges required evidence far beyond the say-so of a felon. One such piece of evidence was a signed photo of President G.W. Bush, thanking the crook in question for a monetary donation. (Insert joke about “restoring integrity to the Oval Office” here.)
If the intervenors could find five such persons, why could the plaintiffs find none? Or did they investigate, and quickly discover that felons voted for Rossi in overwhelming numbers?
Judge Bridges dismissed a frivilous lawsuit-- with prejudice. He upheld our state’s laws.
Dear Namesake,
“I have to renew my Washington State driver's license every 5 years. Why not do the same for voter registration? It is clear that the voter registration records in Washington State (and King County in particular) are full of errors. Shouldn't we value our votes enough to accept the occasional inconvenience of keeping the data up-to-date? And, if citizenship and residence are legal requirements to vote, doesn't it make sense to require some proof of both when registering to vote?”
Driving a motor vehicle on a public road involves public safety. The state has an interest in keeping unqualified persons from driving. It tests applicants on both genetic factors, like eyesight, and also on behavior, such as intoxication.
Voting is a federal right, and a state may not place undue burdens on a citizen’s franchise. I have a birth certificate, issued by one of the states, and I have a legal residence in Washington. Therefore, I have the right to vote in Washington state, and anyone who wants to challenge that had better prepare to face a very high standard of proof.
If you liked Judge Bridges’ ruling, you’ll love what a federal court would do if a state tried to throw millions of voters off of the rolls for any reason-- let alone the flimsy suspicion that a few hundred may have voted illegally.
Misty,
“My, my. What WILL the lefty blog and sam Reed's office say WHEN the people of WA pass that initiative overwhelmingly??? Bet they'll be at loss for words....”
As mentioned, they’ll defeat it in court. I so hope for punitive damages against the Ever-Free-from-Fact crowd, too. Perhaps enough to put them out of our misery.
pseudo-whateva,
“Purging the books isn't disenfranchisement if you are a legal voter...”
Purging the books is the DEFINITION of disenfranchisement, you conservative!
Dear Larry,
“Who have you held accountable for incorrectly counting the votes twice thereby costing our state's taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars and making Seattle and King County the laughingstock of the entire country?”
Most elections get decided by far more than the margin of error, and so recounts don’t usually happen. Therefore, we, the voters, who divided so evenly, bear most of the responsibility for the expensive recount.
If you look at statewide elections in 1991 (I-120) and 2000 (Cantwell defeated Gorton), you’ll see that the absentee ballots from King County decided the issue in each case. Each recount brought the issue into clearer focus. Rossi lost, even with the illegal votes from felons to bolster his case, and we voters required several counts to prove it. So, you can give me a dirty look-- if I can give you one!
MB,
“So a broad based cleanup, as proposed by EFF makes sense to me. I have nothing to hide, and nothing to loose from a cleanup of the elections system and voter database.”
If you want to re-file every election cycle, go right ahead. If your tinkering causes you to lose a vote, don’t come crying to me. Nothing that I have ever done requires me to register again, and you shall not compel it. If you want me off of the rolls, convict me of a felony. (And we all know how well the last court case went.)
Well, have fun reading the Fourteenth Amendment, and have a good vote!
Posted by: Paddy Mac on February 27, 2006 10:18 PMSoundpolitics unscientific fallacies? This is coming straight out of the King County Voter Database. The one you are telling us to rely on.
Tell you what, at least do your F'n homework, before you come back and spew your BS, we have!
And we will continue to do so!
Posted by: GS on February 27, 2006 10:53 PMThe Republican Party's contributors paid Ms. Tebelius good money to prove that Mr. Rossi's complaint had no value. How can you deny her good work?
You can have my voter registration card when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. And not a moment before that!
Posted by: Paddy Mac on February 27, 2006 11:08 PM"If you want to re-file every election cycle, go right ahead. If your tinkering causes you to lose a vote, don’t come crying to me. Nothing that I have ever done requires me to register again, and you shall not compel it. If you want me off of the rolls, convict me of a felony. (And we all know how well the last court case went.)"
I never said anything about re-filing every election vote - where did that come from?
The central issue to me is the the damaged elctions system integrity, supported by hard evidence presented here on this website, and loss of confidence in those whose duty it is to protect that same elections system.
How do we clean-up a contaminated voter database, and how do we prevent future problems of this nature?
Yes it is your right to vote, and I'm happy for you that you have not done anything that requires you to register again.
Now that that is settled, what's your solution to address the issue of the the contaminated voter database and the integrity impaired elections system? Do you have one? Or do you just dislike the proposal by EFF to fix the problem?
Do you believe the elections officials have acted properly at all times during this whole mess?
How will I, as an American voter, be assured, after all that has gone on since the gonvernor's election, that the system is not broken, and the elctions are clean?
It's a fair question...
Posted by: MB on February 28, 2006 12:27 AM
As a proud member of the loony left, you have to admit that it was an easy mistake to make. The EFF (via Grassroots Washington) has asked for a redo before. It was easy to assume this was more of the same. The media accounts also were incorrect. Most importantly, people don't know the arcane distinction between "inactive" and "reregistering". Even your post says "reregister" vs "update registrations".
Like you said, we'll have to wait to see the language of the initiative. If it merely says marking everyone "inactive", even though I'm not yet sold on its administrative benefits, I won't have a problem with it.
Cheers, Jason
I'm sure you think that Al Gore won the last election too - even though all the people CONVICTED of various types of vote fraud surrounding that election were members of the democrat party. That must be just fine with you,though, because at least no one disenfranchised them.
I think you should consider administering yourself a strong purgative.
Vote legally Once - You and I have that right
Vote Illegally - everyone in this state has the Right and obligation to prosecute that illegal voter, and remove them from the voter rolls, and we will!
“Well, I guess has an issue with ANYONE reviewing any portion of the electoral process that doesn't have DNC branded on their forehead... [blah blah blah]”
In the 2004 election, felons voted-- for Dino Rossi. Four of them were caught, and their votes were disqualified. According to Judge Bridges’ ruling, hundreds more felons probably also voted for Rossi-- enough to supply Rossi’s entire illusory margin of victory on election night. Every felon’s vote for Rossi canceled my own, legal vote for Gregoire. The Secretary of State’s Office had the responsibility for informing county auditors about disenfranchised felons, and the Secretary of State’s Office abjectly failed to do so. (Said Office has had exclusively Republican occupants for the last dozen years.) The idea that I would WANT felons to cancel my vote is utter garbage, just like every word of that asinine comment, quoted above.
So long as we have voting, we will have the chance of mischief. The most intensely scrutinized election in the history of this state showed just how clean our elections are. Judge Bridges found no evidence of fraud, no evidence of rigging the election, no evidence of ill intent on the part of elections officials. He found nothing that could even remotely justify setting aside the election results. He stated these findings in the strongest legal language imaginable. And yet, we’re supposed to take outlandish-- and un-Constitutional-- efforts to stop that which has not happened. Fraud is simply not a problem in our elections, and even if it was, throwing us legal voters off of the rolls would not solve it.
Rossi lost, fair and square. (Just as every Republican had before him, for twenty years.) None of Soundpolitics’ obsession with public records will change that, and no silly, ad hominem attacks on us members of the reality-based community will change that, either. Of course I want King County’s elections office to work better-- if they hadn’t misplaced a stack of ballots, Rossi’s “lead” would not have existed in the first place! Look at how well the 2005 elections went-- even after Ms. Sotelo’s perjurious abuse of the challenge statute. That demonstrated the willingness, and ability, of King County to improve upon previous performance.
My right to vote does not depend on the whims of anyone else. If the Republicans want to defend the integrity of our elections, they can stop taking money from felons, and stop abusing our challenge statutes. After they do that, I'll consider giving credit to their claims.
Voting Happily,
As for taking money from Felons, you would have to talk to Bill Clinton about Mark Rich's contribution to his Library fund just prior to granting Rich an executive pardon. And because you are not a Democrat you would have no problem pointing out that little indiscretion as well correct? Keep on voting and everyone else on this blog will keep working toward accuracy and accountability in the elections process.
Posted by: Mac's Daddy on March 1, 2006 06:40 AMAnd you and your man Ron Sims can have my rural King County property rights when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers. And not a moment before that!
Posted by: GS on March 1, 2006 08:22 AMI need no lectures on how the Secretary of State’s Office utterly failed to prevent felons from voting. I repeatedly voted for Ralph Munro, who bears all of the responsibilty for1 that failure. I repeatedly voted for Ron Sims, who failed to supervise Dean Logan properly. While the system did finally work, it did so at a lower level than even fallible humans can achieve, and I expect improvement. (Said failures allowed Mr. Rossi to claim a ‘lead’ that never really existed, and his more deluded followers still cling to that story.) Munro’s successor and County Executive Sims have started the process of fixing these problems, and their initial results look good. The 2005 elections in King County went well, despite the illegal sabotage by Ms. Sotello. The staewide voter database, which then-Secretary Munro should have completed at least a dozen years ago, now shows signs of future adequacy.
A number of commenters on this thread wrongly assumed that I was a Democrat or a socialist, based on my strident defense of our civil rights. What does that erroneous assumption say about your own beliefs? Just askin’.
Dad, you agree with me that we need better enforcement of the voting laws. Do you agree with the EFF’s suggested disenfranchisement of us? If our voter-registration process needs fixing already, then how would suddenly enrolling millions of new voters help? The resultant chaos and confusion would make the current situation look great, by comparison.
You raise a good and timely point about abuse of executive power. It lies beyond the scope of this comment thread. The proprietors of this blog normally stick to local issues, and I will respect their judgement. Perhaps we can discuss this elsewhere.
Posted by: Paddy Mac on March 3, 2006 12:07 AMGo back to your cell.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on March 3, 2006 02:09 PM