November 14, 2006
Canvassing time

Now that Reichert is the acknowledged winner, there don't seem to be any really close high profile races in King County this year. Nevertheless, I'm taking a closer look at the canvassing process, because the integrity of the process is what's important, even if wide vote margins conceal any errors. Yesterday I got a tour of the provisional ballot operation at the Admin building. I'm on my way to the Elections Annex near Boeing field to observe the mail ballot and poll book canvassing. I'll report both on improvements that have been made in the last two years as well as on areas that could still be improved.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 14, 2006 10:16 AM | Email This
Comments
1. I'm glad you're doing this, Stefan. If they know they're being watched and blogged about (and they know the MSM reads your blog), they're at least less likely to pull anything shady like they did last time.

Posted by: Michele on November 14, 2006 10:32 AM
2. What about the evil KC counting?

What about the moles? The cheating?

You claimed that KC is incompetent...I guess they are only incompetent if democrats win or get more votes, huh?

You are the worst of the partisans. Your arguments completely fail in the face of fariness.

Posted by: Timmy Franklin on November 14, 2006 11:05 AM
3. Keep up the good work, Stefan. I wish I knew where the bodies were buried so I could help out at my county.

Posted by: swatter on November 14, 2006 11:11 AM
4. Timmy

Did you have a comment about the elections process or even a Point to make?

Posted by: Chris on November 14, 2006 11:13 AM
5. Reforming the Elections process is vital, but this election, both locally and nationally was not decided by election fraud - as far as anyone knows today. It was decided by a minority of voters convinced by the MSM that everything was bad and Republicans had to go.

What this state, and this nation needs, are people and organizations that critique media bias and focus attention on those reporters, editors and institutions that are creating the perceptions that are deciding elections.

I've taken on biased editors like David Birdwell at the Times, and challenged that paper for its bias, filtering and omissions. I don't think America will ever stay on the right track as long as people who overwhelmingly supported John Kerry and Al Gore are feeding Americans their distorted view of the world and this country.

I have to disagree with Michele. King County doesn't fear the MSM, because Sims knows that the media is a strong supporter of Democrats. How many times did anyone read our local media bring up the 2004 debacle that allowed 1,700+ illegal votes to make a Democrat governor? Who would have imagined in 2004, with the perceived outrage with Democrats in King County and the stealing of that election, that people would have completely forgotten about it last week?

If Republicans had stolen that election you can bet that the media would have been reminding voters every day that it was payback time.

Media bias should be the most critical issue to conservatives and Republicans. I have no doubt that media bias is responsible for Republican loss of Congress last week, and it is why we're forced to focus all of our attention on the issues the Democrats want talked about, and we can't get any traction with what is good in this country, or wrong with the party that represented the "give us the power becaue the other guys are bad" platform.

Posted by: MJC on November 14, 2006 11:17 AM
6. Pyrrhic victory \PIR-ik\, noun:
A victory achieved at great or excessive cost; a ruinous victory. (from dictionary.reference.com)

The 8th district election was decided by DOLLARS. Over $5Million poured in from the Republican party to support Right-wing Reichert - mostly by falsely "defining" his opponent via lying direct-mail ads to the district, and via TV ads. Only $3Million came in from the Democrats, and most of that went to TV ads. Oh, it was a dirty campaign alright. Both candidates attempted to stay 'clean'. But the respective 'party ads' spewed the dirt - on both sides. More dirt from the GOP by about $2Million. Rove came through, but it was a pyrrhic victory for the right. This seat will undoubtedly be captured by an experienced Democratic candidiate in 2008.

Posted by: Out spent on November 14, 2006 11:47 AM
7. Out spent-

If you were talking about most races, there might be some validity to what you say, but how could anyone say that Darcey Burner didn't get a chance to get her message out?

She was the first out of the box with major ads

She campaigned in district while Reichert was in DC.

She was on tv strong all through the season.

She received a lot more of her money from out of state than from in the district.

She had every opportunity to define herself and she couldn't win because she just wasn't a very good candidate.

That's not an insult. Reichert is a strong candidate and the 8th is not a democratic stronghold. Reichert had a solid background and high name recognition and Darcy didn't. Frankly, I'm surprised Darcy did as well as she did.

In fact, I would very much like to see the Dems spent millions and millions of dollars again next cycle.

(Reichert will still win, of course, but our local economy can use those millions.)

Posted by: johnny on November 14, 2006 12:23 PM
8. Timmy, care to explain to us how KC elections ran a clean, fair election and count in '04, since you seem so sure they're perfect?

Posted by: Michele on November 14, 2006 02:39 PM
9. Have the 1100 ACORN New Voter Registration's been processed yet??
With ACORN's horrible track record of FRAUD nationally (especially in Missouri), KCE owes Washington Voters a clear accounting on those apps....as in how many were deemed illegal (and who were the legal ones).
That ought to get interesting.
The Dems have chosen Diebold as a Boogieman to shift attention away from ACORN and other illegal Voter Registrations.
Until we have a NATIONAL Voter registration database tied into Social Security Numbers (I know, it's not CURRENTLY legal to do that!...how about a new Citizen ID number given to each SS# holder??). Who in the hell doesn't have a SS# and is a legal voter anyway???
I'm sure there are legitimate reasons....but my kids got there SS #'s right after they were born and I got mine at 16.

How many voters do you believe are make believe people?
How many voters voted in more than 1 State??

Republicans MUST work on an Audit Campaign of Voter Registration in High Democrat Precindts!!!!
It's an awesome task....but how about doing just a couple Seattle Dem precindts??? Try calling each registered voter....if unable to contact and verify...visit their residence.
If you find nothing in 3-4 precindts, scrap the idea. But if you do....keep digging. Citizens have a RIGHT to challenge Voter Registration.
We MUST aggressively do this BEFORE the 2008 Elections!!

Posted by: Mr. Cynical on November 14, 2006 03:00 PM
10. Timmy @ 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know all about it. And Diebold is evil and their voting machines are rigged only when Repbulicans win.

Posted by: Metronatural Rube on November 14, 2006 04:19 PM
11. There is very low confidence in KCRE, evidenced by the number of people who wanted to drop their ballots off at polling stations. They didn't trust the mail and didn't trust the elections office to properly handle the ballots mailed in. Of course, now they see that the poll workers weren't given enough supplies to properly handle dropped-off ballots. Also didn't have enough ballots at some polling places.

Go for it Stefan - this group is thoroughly incompetent.

Posted by: Janet S on November 14, 2006 05:00 PM
12. I guess there just were not enough dead people, felons and non-residents to overcome Reichert's lead.

Posted by: JP Gross on November 14, 2006 05:09 PM
13. Well, this is a surprise, I guess after installing gregiore they decided to slack off on the vote "finding". Probably figured that they couldn't get away with that twice in such a short period and it would be a bone thrown to the citizens and the repubs.

Still no confidence...

Posted by: Fox3 on November 14, 2006 07:25 PM
14. Thanks Stefan!!
Any chance you could get pictures of Canvass board decisions again? What I saw in 04 was as bad or worse than your '05 pictures.
G.

Posted by: Gregg on November 14, 2006 09:56 PM
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