This just in: Nicole Way, the mail ballot supervisor in King County during the November 2004 fiasco who was terminated by Dean Logan last year, has prevailed in her arbitration against King County.
According to a spokesman for Teamsters Local 117, which represented Way, the arbitrator found that the termination was too severe a punishment. He lessened the penalty to a three month unpaid suspension, restored the remaining back pay and reinstated Way in her job.
The entire ruling is not yet available, but I have the testimony and exhibits from the arbitration posted here.
More later.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 21, 2006 02:51 PM | Email ThisShe had a long paid vacation - you King County taxpayer SUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Norm on August 21, 2006 05:58 PMGood for her.
Now at least their is one individual who isn't afraid to step up and point at the inside graft they see in the King County elections department!
Posted by: GS on August 21, 2006 06:56 PMAbout halfway down.
Reliable machinery
No overhaul necessary
I imagine Jefferson was used to dealing with individuals who insisted on being paid in "cold, hard cash," hence that particular Einsteinian storage location...
Posted by: TB on August 21, 2006 09:38 PM*"In this week's Seattle Times, Nicole Way who works at King County Elections admitted that not only she and also one of her supervisors knowingly submitted a totally false, totally fraudulent absentee ballot report to the King County Canvassing Board and partly based on that report, the canvassing board certified the election. So we now know that King County's certification of this election was based on... [pause] a fraud, a totally phony document. If that isn't a bombshell, I don't know what is."
*"We know one thing for certain that King County cannot reconcile its numbers. The numbers don't match. Neither on the poll ballots, or on the absentee ballots. They are wildly off. There are way more votes than there are voters that can be attributed to those votes. So what we're saying is... King County can't explain why this happened. By virtue of this system being such a complete and utter mess far in excess of the very narrow 129 final margin of victory... [pause] it's certainly left open the possibility of fraud."
*"...The fact that elections workers in King County knowingly submitted a completely false election report to the canvassing board. That's illegal. That was a fraudulent report. So that's fradulent. The fact that you know, people voted twice is fraud. The fact that felons voted is fraud. The fact that people cast votes on behalf of dead persons is fraud. But really, I think, you know, this, this news that we just found out from the deposition of Nicole Way that people actually knowingily submitted a false report when they didn't actually know what the numbers, they just made 'em up and submitted it to the canvassing board, I mean that's a major, major deal."
B) I think somebody should go HERE and report fraud to Hagens Berman, the law firm (which is an equal opportunity law firm - suing Mike McGavick and Washington State Ferries). King County Elections and Ron Sims are real fraudsters.
Posted by: Commentator Anonymous on August 22, 2006 05:55 AMShe personally never presented the Mail Ballot Report as being correct - at every point, she said "these numbers are off, and I can't get the correct data to reconcile them."
It was her supervisors - Garth Fell, Bill Huennekens, and Dean Logan, ALL of whom knew that Ms. Way had stated the Mail Ballot Report was off - who knowingly and fraudulently represented the report as complete, true, and accurate. In Huennekens and Logan's case, they did so under OATH.
Why Ms. Way was fired and Fell and Huennekens each barely got a slap on the wrist, and Logan got the King's royal send-off for his "excellent work" when he finally left is beyond me.
It seems that Logan and Huennekens should be arrested and prosecuted for forgery, fraud, and election tampering before the statute of limitations runs out.
Posted by: Insider on August 22, 2006 09:21 AMThe problems are so pervasive down there it would take the very best of Elections Directors to bring that place back to health--and there's to way that candidate is going to come to work for the sorely tainted Sims administration.
With several decent-sized f-ups under their belts already, the so-called leadership is operating in crisis mode for this election. We can expect a VERY interesting fall election season!
And what about Waldren, Sims' consultants scheduled to deliver their six-month update directly to Council (not through the Executive) at the end of the year? Well, their contract finally got signed around the beginning of August and nobody on the job has seen hide nor hair of them yet.
Improved efficiency can save 25% in a typically mismanaged organization, probably lots more here I'm sure! Next time Mr. Sims starts making noises about getting more money from us, we need to tell him to start scouting around inside first. He could do an awful lot with 25% of $3 billion+!
Posted by: IYQ2 on August 22, 2006 09:52 AMcan't do the job? then have some integrity and quit; who'd want to go back now anyway? with all the ill will and loyalist leftie insiders with you in their crosshairs;
if smart, she'd print business cards, 'consult' the KC elections dept & milk them forever like everybody else does; sweet revenge and your own business to boot!
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on August 22, 2006 10:29 AMHas anyone been fired? Held accountable in any way?
We just blew $90 million when WADOT dropped the ball on that Indian burial ground over by the Narrows Bridge.
Who go fired over that?
"Watch my nickel at work?" I watched 1.8 BILLION of my nickels VAPORIZE on that single project.
And no one has paid the price for that... except us idiot tax payers.
Who here actually believes that anyone will ever be held accountable for the train wreck that is KingCO Elections?
we need to offer whistleblowers a nice 'bounty hunter's fee' and de-fang the unions' powers to defend crooks; to encourage integrity, the bounty comes with a price--falsely accuse someone & YOU pay double as a fraudulent accuser & get sued to boot;
DOT has had nearly 20 years of poor audit findings; Elections had their stellar 2004; enough is enough with excuses; i want to see more 'shackled-in-the-courtroom' lackeys;
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on August 23, 2006 04:48 AMHope SP opines... the conclusion was almost written by Stefan (Sharkansky) or Reagan (Get Things Dunn).
Posted by: Commentator Anonymous on August 23, 2006 06:12 AM