Sound Politics: Mail Ballot Horror Show (IV)

May 15, 2006

Mail Ballot Horror Show (IV)

Bob Edelman has been making records requests for the ballot envelopes and signed poll book pages for a number of possible double voters.

Here is what he received on Alfred T. Birnbaum, a Seattle resident living in Tokyo. It seems there was an error when Birnbaum sent in a registration form to change his mailing address, giving him a duplicate registration with the name Birngaum. Two absentee ballots were mailed, returned and counted. The Birngaum ballot appeared to have been legitimately voted from Tokyo. The Birnbaum ballot appears to have been forged by someone in Seattle.

But wait, that's impossible. We have signature verification!

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 15, 2006 12:45 PM | Email This

Comments

1. IMHO, the proper way to handle absentee ballots would be to require that the envelopes be received early enough to be transported to the voter's polling place by election day. If an absentee voter showed up at the polls, they would be handed their absentee ballot; if they wished to change their vote, they could spoil the old ballot and request a replacement. All ballot handling and counting would be done at the polling place.

Posted by: supercat on May 15, 2006 03:54 PM

2. "But there has been no evidence of fraud in this election."

Riiiiiiight.

Posted by: Michele on May 15, 2006 05:17 PM

3. For just a moment, I thought my old hometown had someone like Logan in charge of elections:

Rat Blamed For Delay In Election Returns
Traps Out, But Rodent Still On The Loose
posted May 15, 2006
A rat is being blamed for about a 30-minute delay in reporting the returns of the May 2 Hamilton County primary election.

Then, I realized they meant rodent when they said rat.

Posted by: Micajah on May 15, 2006 06:03 PM

4. How many times must it be said, Purple Ink. It is a lot more econmical and reliable than a claque of idiots verifying signatures or what ever!

Posted by: Fed Up on May 15, 2006 07:41 PM

5. Please protest KC going to 100% Vote By Mail by changing from absentee voter to poll voter. You do this by writing to the Elections Office.

Here is the link;
http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/absentee.htm

(The information on how to change back to poll voting is on the second to last line in the section called "Voting By Absentee Ballot". Forms are supplied for those who want to go from poll to absentee but apparently not for absentee to poll.)

Here is the address;

King County Elections Office
King County Administration Building
500 Fourth Avenue, Room 553
Seattle, WA 98104

Please indicate your reasons for changing back to poll voting. If you are already a poll voter, I would LOVE IT if you sent a letter to that same address telling KC why you do not want to become an absentee voter.

This is a rather simple straightforward way to protest KC going to 100% VBM. Also, if you can still vote absentee if you really need to. You just have to ask for a one time absentee ballot.

We are going to do this as a group this Wednesday at 12:30 in front of the KC courthouse. Please see Stefan's post for more details.

Remember
POLL VOTING (with paper ballots and not on the evil DIEBOLD machines) is the best and safest way to vote in King County.

Posted by: JP on May 15, 2006 08:02 PM

6. Stefan,
the sad thing about Sam Reed's office and Steve Excell in paerticular, is that even when Bob and I, using the skagit and whatcom county auditors offices and records that absolutely verify a person has voted twice in the past election, Steve Excell stands up and says there were "MO" double votes
He refuses to consider double voters in 2004 as he claims it was the most closely scrutinized election in history.

Jim

Posted by: Jim L on May 15, 2006 09:15 PM

7. Ironic. The correct ballot, with only his Seattle address is signed and mailed from Japan. The incorrect name ballot only had is Japan address and it was signed and mailed in Seattle.

Also note, the signature on the Birngaum ballot is Birnbaum. Pretty tight name control in KCE.

What safeguards have been put in place (statewide) to make sure that address changes do NOT result in duplicate registrations?

What safeguards have been put in place to make sure that typos do NOT result in a duplicate registration?

When the whole state is all-mail, then a ballot will be sent out for EVERY registered voter. If some of the registrations are oncorrectly duplicates, there will be that many more ballots just floating around waiting for mischief to find them.

Posted by: SouthernRoots on May 15, 2006 09:20 PM

8. Y'know, I used to think (back when I was young and foolish) that mail balloting would be a great thing--a marvelous convenience, and certainly secure since (as many Democrats seem to currently believe) that nobody would ever think of cheating the system.
But now, it is apparent to me that we cannot let the hens guard the foxhouse (to twist a metaphor.)
Is this all-mail voting coming to a voting booth near us, or is it a pronouncement from on high?

Posted by: pseudotsuga on May 15, 2006 10:24 PM