May 07, 2006
The Ongoing Work to Restore Vaporize Public Confidence in King County Elections
Larry Phillips wants you to believe that
The King County Council continues its ongoing work to restore public confidence in the elections process this coming Monday, May 8, with a briefing on an election “Action Plan” and creation of an ongoing Citizens' Elections Oversight Committee.
Larry Phillips and the Council might think it's been restoring public confidence, but the only approach has been to sweep all problems under the rug -- there was that
$300,000 fraudulent audit that refused to look at evidence of serious mistakes and misconduct; there was also the Mickey Mouse Citizens Elections Oversight Committee. It's purpose was to "investigate and report on problems identified in the 2004 general election", but it was stacked with government insiders and magically
managed not to "investigate and report on problems identified in the 2004 general election". The more official bodies avoid investigating the actual problems, the more public confidence evaporates.
The Council's next major step to vaporize public confidence in elections -- rubber-stamp Deanron's plan for mail-only voting -- even though the technology is incapable of accounting for ballots [more on this to come]
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 07, 2006
10:43 PM | Email This
1. Test
2. Oh goodie I've not been banned... Stop this fear-mongering already! Martin Luther King County is the best county in America and is clean from all corruption except for overblown fear-mongering articles by Stefan Sharkansky and his right-wing fear-mongering ilk. How many 1000s of posts on this tired old non-subject?
3. I saw nothing in that action plan that will actually do anything significant. Except maybe the "Hire expert to clean up voter rolls."
But hey--doesn't that imply that Dean Logan doesn't know how to do that? And shouldn't he know how to?? And doesn't it imply that the voters rolls are NOT clean, as has been alleged here for months now??
4. When you have corrupt and incompetent government officials who gain office by fraud and hold it illegimately, any kind of "official investigation" or government-appointed "commission" will have only one purpose: to whitewash any kind of wrongdoing and make every effort to legitimize a corrupt and fraudlent system. I said this was the case right after the '04 fraud, when Fraudoire appointed that sham of a "Blue Ribbon Commission" and got that doddering old useful idiot Sam Reed to be its principle Commissar. Then Fraudoire followed that up with the infamous "Heeling Tour". The people of SayWA need to understand that all these scumbags are doing is putting lipstick on pigs. When the system itself is corrupt, almost anything born of it is suspect, especially any kind of "official investigation".
5. Wake up, Manco_Dollars. A good start would be pulling your head out of the sand!
6. Manco.....Do you actually believe what you typed? KC is best county in AMERICA? KC is clean from CORRUPTION?
Wake up and smell the coffee!! Those are pretty broad statements.....At least what stefan has posted is the truth, and if you truly read (follow the link) the council's Action Plan, it could have been written by any HS Senior, and furthermore, all it states is that the council will "pass the buck".
No corruption here......BTW, wasn't Larry Phillips ballot FOUND in a Batch that was "misplaced" with like 700 other ballots after the first count in 2004 general???
7. Even were they to follow through on their stated objective, they're still off-base: a proper objective would be not to "restore public confidence in the elections process," but to "repair and ensure the integrity of the elections process."
Reminds me of George Stephanopoulos & Co. when they were in the White House, saying in televised interviews, "Our strategy will be to spin this story in this particular way to make people think..." Never mind reality, just fix the perception.
8. Whew! I can rest easy now Manco says all is well at KCE, I know I can trust someone who blogs with a phony email address.
Shark has only documented hundreds of problems in the last 2 1/2 years. I so glad I can put it behind me now.
If you don't mind Manco, please respond specifically to Sharks posts on the problems, violations of law at KCE, procedural errors etc.. Not that I don't trust you or anything, it just such a big relief to have some come forward and say everything is peachy. Since my friends and I would like to put all this partisan nastiness behind us some, oh, say proof that no problems at KCE exists would go a long way.
Thank you for your wonderful fact filled and enlightening post.
9. Hey, if they just put democratic candidates on the ballot in KC, you don't have to worry about all those nasty verification and counting details!
Public confidence won't be a problem.
10. Ron Sims leads a parade of illegal voters(immigrants). And you want me to have confidence in the voting process of KC. No way Jose.
11. I wonder if the King County Council, who is meeting today at 1:30 to discuss asking our Congressional Delegatation to adopt a fast track for Amnesty for illegal aliens to become legal, support services and guest worker programs will ask any of the illegals testifying if they are registered to vote in King County? Or the State of Washington for that matter.
12. Ongoing work to vaporize confidence? For me it's not "ongoing", they've fully succeeded.
13. I have no confidence in KC elections now & I don't expect to have any in the future unless & until meaningful reform is made so that the military voters are not disenfranchised by late ballots, so that felons cann't vote, so that there is no double voting or dead voters, so that there is a clean paper trail, etc., etc. etc.
The current system is too easy to scam & is rife with fraud. Everyone needs to show proof of citizenship, proof of residency, & proof of registration. Then I might think that the election could be honest.
14. It cracks me up how morons like manco (who are so confident of their illegitimacy of thought that they automatically expect censorship!) can take such a complete departure from reality (
"King County is the best county in America and is clean from all corruption except for overblown fear-mongering articles by Stefan Sharkansky and his right-wing fear-mongering ilk.")
How would you know manco? Hasn't it been years since you poked yer head out of yer mama's basement?!!
15. Does this mean that Phillips admits the public has lost confidence in KCE?
This has to be some kind of milestone.
16. The picture of Sims leading a band of alleged illegal immigrants holding up the banner during last Monday's pro-illegal immigration march should be the poster for all literature for Republican candidates that is sent out in King County for November's campaign- Hello - GOP are you listening ?
17. County Choice I932.
get petitions, fill them out.
Freedom from King County!
YesOnCountyChoice.com
18. I went to this meeting. Gossett and Phillips asked some good questions. Phillips expressed concern about having 3 different consulting groups to make the "continuous improvements" in our elections. What were their rolls and responsibilities? The three groups are the citizen's oversight committee (more on that later) a consultant group to make the elections section staff more efficient and moralized, and a third consulting group to keep track of all the demands and requirements from the federal, state and local governments. Gosset (or Phillips) asked if these groups going to have overlap and (implied) interfere with each other? Gossett asked 3 very good questions. How much would these 2 out of 3 groups cost(CEOC is all volunteer), would we have to keep them (on the payroll) and the kicker, what would the director do if the hired consultants were doing all this work?
I have big concerns about the council basing their decisions on the citizen's oversight committee and the Election Center report. I understand that only 7 out of 13 people on the CEOC voted for going VBM. And I might add that these people are called "representatives" but how can they be anything more than just members of particular groups? Has anyone noticed any surveys or opinion polls or anything? I have met only one member, Tim Borders, and even though he is a swell guy, I wouldn't assume that he represents my interests as I am a registered Democrat (okay, don't shoot me please) Also, I understand that the Election Center group of 3 did not actually recommend VBM, they simply recommended that it be considered. So saying that going to VBM is something the voters want is making a HUGE assumption. I think it is taking us in the direction of less election integrity, not more.
Bob Ferguson mentioned that they are trying to keep track and impliment all the recommendations from the various groups they consulted. I recommend that he and Julia Patterson take going VBM off the list of changes to make to our elections.