This morning's Seattle Times has a great piece by Keith Ervin discussing the mysterious absence of Dean Logan, and his staffers' attempts to explain his whereabouts.
Where was elections chief Dean Logan on Monday when the Metropolitan King County Council debated a historic proposal to conduct elections by mail? His staff at first said he was attending a statewide election administrators conference in Spokane. Then they said he was working, somewhere, on something. He was actually out of town on vacation, as Logan confirmed by e-mail Wednesday.
Ervin cites me as the source of a tip that the conference didn't start until the day after the council meeting, but the credit should go to Mr. Cynical, who first mentioned the discrepancy.
The important point is not where Logan was, but the fact he didn't feel it was necessary to be at the meeting. A Sim's spokesperson offered an excuse for Logan: "There wasn't any intent of his ducking being there or anything of that nature," Kaushik said. "I think the assumption was the presentation [on mail voting] had been made at an earlier session and that Monday might be something more of a formality." Logan did make a presentation on May 15, but it was very general (only a 16-slide Powerpoint). Did he just assume councilmembers wouldn't need addtional clarification as they made their decision? Logan wasn't present when vote-by-mail was considered at the May 22 Committee-of-the-Whole meeting either.
This incident, plus the 20% vacancies in staff, are just the most recent indications of the lack of leadership in King County Elections.
Posted by Jonathan Bechtle at June 08, 2006 09:06 AM | Email ThisWhy couldn't they simply say "He's on vacation"? That would have been the easiest thing to do. This is not an elections department that the County can trust.
Posted by: Misty on June 8, 2006 08:51 AMIt's also nice to see some real transparent journalism. I was actually shocked to see Ervin's piece. Not that Ervin has not been one of the only credible voices in the Mainstream Media since 11/2004. But still, to actually print an article that asks critical questions of King County Elections, when a critical new elections process is being debated is bordering on miraculous. This kind of critical reporting should be as mundane as the reporting of car accidents.
But it's not.
Thanks Keith Ervin. Thanks Stefan, Jonathan, Bob and th rest of the team at EFF, Micajah and all the rest of the tireless defenders and advocates for restoring integrity to our elections.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 8, 2006 09:00 AMIt was widely known that Monday's meeting was going to be an important forum for public discussion of Logan's new VBM plans. Why did Logan feel that he was not required to debate the public on the merits of his proposed VBM plan? And why would Logan not have felt it important to be there in order to answer any questions that arose from either the council or the public?
Logan ducked out on a key meeting that is part of his core job requirement. A serious lapse in judgement indeed.
Logan has had a huge credibility gap with folks that believe in free, fair elections.
His gap is now a chasm.
He must resign or be fired.
At this stage, if they are serious about ABM, why would any normal questions stump the staff? Shouldn't they be up to speed on what is going on? Is Dean Logan the only one that knows what steps are being taken? If the staff was not empowered to answer the questions, why were they there?
The mail ballot report from 11-2005 was only marginally better than the 11-2004 report. This still shows poor accountability practices for mail ballots. Wirh a staffing shortage of 20%, how does KCE intend to fix the issues, interview, hire and train new staff, AND switch to all mail balloting?
And some wonder why confidence is low....
"There wasn't any intent of his ducking being there or anything of that nature," Kaushik said. "I think the assumption was the presentation [on mail voting] had been made at an earlier session and that Monday might be something more of a formality."
Kinda confirms that Sims, Logan and company assumed that the vote by mail issue was a done deal. Did they underestimate just how much opposition there is to not just vote by mail, but also to Dean Logan's continued employment in his current position?
Hopefully the opposition to the whole matter will get more publicity and vote by mail will be scuttled. Thank you to all who have worked so hard to promote true election reform in King County.
Posted by: Gary on June 8, 2006 09:52 AMHow about calling the state supreme court and ask if anything unusual happened between the afternoon oral arguments on June 6, 2006?
It's amazing that a guy can't even get arrested in that courtroom for threating the chief justice of the state supreme court. They aren't going to arrest me because there would be a trial and the justices, McKenna, Greoire and about 100 others do not want to be forced to answer questions from me under oath.
If they weren't afraid that I can prove all of my criminal allegations, I'd have been arrested on Tuesday.
The reality is, they know I can prove them.
Anybody else want to call the state SC; the number is 360-357-2077.
Don
Posted by: Don on June 8, 2006 09:55 AMHere's a link which may provide some assistance while the rest of us stay on the thread topic.
Posted by: Former DJ on June 8, 2006 10:32 AMI find the top elections official for the county misrepresenting his whereabouts during critical testimony on something related to his job as offensive and as for Mr. Logan he should become irrelevant.
Would any one of you reading this get away with that crap at your place of employment?
Posted by: MSRedneck on June 8, 2006 11:53 AM"But the changing stories about the reasons for Logan's absence appeared to undermine the credibility that he had rebuilt since the problem-plagued 2004 gubernatorial election."
Hmmm, what credibility would that be?
Good article otherwise. Hopefully we'll see more in this vein from Ervin.
Posted by: ewaggin on June 8, 2006 08:37 PM