Oops. When the Democrat majority on the King County Council approved mail-only voting last week, they were nominally relying on Ron Sims' representations that the Elections section had produced a plan for the transition. But responses from Elections and the Council now indicate that there never has been a plan other than a glossy brochure that was written in January. It appears that the Council Democrats didn't perform proper due diligence to verify the details of the plan that they approved and for which they appropriated $1.6 million. This can only make one wonder where else Ron Sims is substituting vaporware for planning and where else the Council majority is failing to exercise even minimal oversight on the Executive --
Sims on KUOW Weekday, June 15:
We do have a very good plan. And Dean has really put together a very, very good plan[audio clip of quote. complete exchange online at KUOW starts at 5:28]
On June 19 immediately after the Council voted on a party-line 5 Democrats vs. 4 Republicans to approve Sims' "very, very good plan", Sims reiterated in a press release that " We have a strong plan to transition to a vote-by-mail system". That claim inspired me to send a formal public records request to Sims' office to obtain the plan. Late Friday I received this response from Dean Logan, in which he claims his office needs four weeks to produce a copy of the plan (curiously, the July 20 deadline is several days after Logan's July 14th departure). This suggests that the purported plan either does not exist or if it does exist as multiple scattered documents, it has never been compiled into a convenient deliverable. Specifically this implies that the County Council never received, let alone examined, the entire plan before the vote.
Indeed, Republicans on the Council confirm that the only vote-by-mail "plan" document they received was Logan's glossy presentation, dated January 31. I also checked with Council Democrats. One staffer said he wasn't familiar with any plan documents. Julia Patterson's chief-of-staff, Jon Scholes, refused to answer my inquiry about the plan documents that his office reviewed, saying only "I don't spend my time talking to people like you", before he hung up on me. [I'm following up with a written public records request]. But Logan's January document, which Sims handed out at his February 8 press conference, isn't really a plan as much as it is a marketing brochure. A lot of details are left as an exercise to the Elections section. And if they made any progress on the plan in the ensuing four months, I've seen no indication that their work product was presented to the Council for review. Furthermore, there are other indications that no serious planning took place. A person with inside knowledge of the Elections section e-mailed this heads-up to Council staff last Monday, but not in time to get attention before the vote:
On June 12 Dean announced his resignation and last Thursday I heard Sims on the radio telling people Dean had created a plan for the VBM transition. [presumably referring to the KUOW segment mentioned above ]Immediately after approving the apparently non-existent plan, the Council voted on yet another party-line 5-4 vote to appropriate $1.6 million to implement the "plan". Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 26, 2006 11:52 AM | Email ThisThe lie was more than I could tolerate. ... I support the transition, but as a taxpayer I would have been extremely offended if Council had voted to fund it based on the 'plan' REALS has presented ...
There was NO PLAN! Just after New Years Day last year, the Executive announced his intention to switch to VBM and demanded that Elections prepare a plan before the end of January to execute the transition--in either 2006 or 2007. It was impossible to prepare an executable plan for a project of that scope in only 3 weeks, so at the end of January, the Executive was given a Plan-for-a-Plan. It includes lists of stakeholders, issues to consider and timelines to follow for the creation of a real project plan and a switch to VBM in 2007 (2006 was determined to be completely out of the question.)
The Plan-for-a-Plan to switch to VBM is what the Executive presented to Council early this year and it has SAT ON A SHELF at Elections since! Dean & more importantly Sheril [Sherril Huff-Menees], his Deputy who is supposed to be his operations person, have not made the first move toward making a plan to carry out that immense project.
VBM is the right way to go, but large amounts of money will be wasted if Council fails to demand a detailed project analysis from the Elections department BEFORE you fund it.
What a waste.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on June 26, 2006 12:08 PM"I don't spend my time talking to people like you"
Interesting.
This is from the supposed party of tolerance, diversity, and non-dis-enfranchisement?
What are they afriad of? The truth?
Posted by: MB on June 26, 2006 12:17 PMThe important thing is that they got their victory while holding the majority on the Council with a party-line vote on a totally partisan change opposed by nearly everyone outside county Democrat leaders. And now it's only a matter of time before the failures and fraud of 2004 can be spread across the entire King County electorate.
As for Sherril Huff-Menees, remember that name. She was Dean Logan's mentor and it was her campaign in Kitsap County for Commissioner in 1978 that was Dean Logan's first Democrat campaign at age 11. Losing Logan to Los Angeles will mean nothing if Huff-Menees and his other subordinates are left to pick up right where he left off.
Posted by: MJC on June 26, 2006 12:26 PM1) If the election is close, stall for time. Cite some statistic that breaks a record and use that as cover for why Elections Staff are taking more time to release results. For future VBM elections, I predict they will duck for cover by saying that VBM elections are brand new and they need time to work out the kinks.
2) Wait just long enough for all of the other counties to certify their results. Now Ron knows the total he has to work towards. If the Democrat is ahead, plan is finished, if not, go to step 3.
3) Go to the mail ballot pile. Specifically, the reject pile where ballots were deemed invalid because of unmatched signatures, incorrect postal date stamp, etc. Harvest enough questionable ballots so that the total will break along the percentages of the rest of the mail in ballots, and put the candidate of Ron's choosing over the top.
4) Certify Results. If recounts are requested, all the better to stall for time. Tabulation is not the tricky part, it's registration and authentication of incoming ballots where Ron has the advantage.
Now that this process has been time tested by Logan and team, there's no really need to worry about who the next director is as long as they follow the plan.
In short, Ron has a plan and it's been working great. What more do you need to know?
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 26, 2006 12:50 PM"Vaporware" is correct diction
Since Logan says he needs 4 weeks to produce a copy of the plan, it is obvious the plan does Not exist
ssdd
Posted by: Gus on June 26, 2006 01:04 PMIt would certainly help reduce the cost of elections....
Posted by: SouthernRoots on June 26, 2006 03:09 PMRE Pager: You might want ot look at the other councilmembers before you criticize Patterson for having 4 staff members. Lambert has 5, Dunn also has 4, Riechbauer and Hague each have 3. from what I understand each councilmember is given a certain amount of money for their office budget. They can spend it as they wish.
Odd that they accept and applaud that behavior from our local tin god democrat bureaucrats.
True - they're not getting us into wars, yet. The way these yahoo local minor functionaries are behaving will hopefully bring about a full scale revolution!
Posted by: let them eat cake on June 27, 2006 06:54 AM"If I were Mr. Scholes I would probably not have talked to you either. You lost, get over it. Don’t like your councilmember vote for someone else. The beautiful thing about a Republic is that you can vote for whoever you want. Hell I bet you’re not even in Patterson district. I’ll even take 9:1 odds."
How is any of that relevant to the issue of Jon Scholes, a supposed public servant, saying "I don't spend my time talking to people like you". Regardless of where I live, or what policital party I belong to, why is this type of behavior apparently OK according to you?
Let me phrase it more directly: Do you advocate this type of behavior on the part of public officials? Yes or No. If yes, why?
How would you feel if you called the office of a public servant under identical circumstances, and were spoken to in that manner? Can you answer this question directly without changing the subject?
Posted by: MB on June 27, 2006 12:16 PMLets say Kos called Bush's chief of staff. Would he be obligated to talk to him? I think not.
Hell should I be able to call up Doc Hastings office and force them to listen to me?
Public servants and employees have no obligation to talk to everyone who calls. Now as for average members of the public I think that they should make an effort. However for members of the media, they have no obligation to give time to overtly partisan bloggers/reporters.