I can now confirm yet another screw-up that caused Ron Sims to count more votes than voters in November 2004.
As this January 2005 P-I article reported, thousands of voters were sent duplicate absentee ballots. It turns out that over 200 voters returned both ballots, of which several dozen were doubly counted. Samples here. Details follow.
This is still timely. It's about the honesty, competence and transparency of Ron Sims' elections office. And Bill Huennekens, who was implicated in this particular fiasco and cover-up, is now heading the transition to mail-only voting.
This case is different from the double votes from duplicate registrations that we found earlier. That was a failure of the voter registration system, and yes, the Secretary of State's statewide voter database has helped minimize such incidents. The newly discovered screw-up was a failure of the mail ballot accounting system. These voters were all sent a second ballot because a change to their voter registration record was processed after the first ballot was mailed out. If you look below the barcode in the bottom right corner of the envelopes in the photos, you'll see that each envelope has a different serial number. When the new ballot was issued, the serial number of the original ballot envelope was flagged in the database as "suspended". When a suspended envelope is returned, it should be marked as such and set aside. (you'll see that for every pair of envelopes in the photos, the envelope with the lower serial number has the word "suspended" written in red).
A suspended envelope isn't necessarily rejected. It's held until later in the canvassing period and should be counted if the voter is eligible and returned only the one ballot. About 2,800 voters returned a suspended ballot. Most of these were the sole ballot and were appropriately counted, some others were appropriately rejected. About 230 voters returned both the suspended ballot and the replacement ballot. From the January 2005 P-I article linked above:
County officials said the county's election system does not allow more than one vote per person to be counted.Only in theory, not in practice. Data records indicate that 80 voters who returned both ballots had both ballots counted. That's a 34% failure rate. Bob Edelman and I searched for a large sample of the physical envelopes. We found nearly every one where the data records predicted it would be. I don't know if we'll ever know if the redundant suspended ballots were intentionally counted, or if this was ordinary negligence. But one example is particularly galling. The suspended envelope on page 5 of the photos has "BAT 1331" written in green. Its twin ballot was found in batch 1331.
It took me this long to find these double votes because it took King County this long to release the records. Returned suspended envelopes are not tracked in the DIMS database with other returned envelopes. (that's a significant flaw in the existing mail ballot accounting system that will be an even bigger issue if they try to use it to run the 2008 election entirely by mail). Returned suspended envelopes are listed only on certain printed reports called "Wanda Error Reports" (sample here). Although King County should have released the Wanda Error Reports in response to records requests I made in March and April 2005, I didn't get them until late November 2006. It took me a few more weeks to analyze the reports and determine where the potential double votes might be, and a few more weeks for the county to make the old ballot envelopes available.
If King County had released the Wanda reports in response to my pre-trial records requests, the court could have seen how badly screwed-up the mail ballot processing was and that the screwed-up accounting permitted extra ballots to be counted without detection. But instead of full public disclosure, Ron Sims' elections office gave us this:
None of the problems caused by the expected "learning curve" was major, and none of them affected the outcome of the election, said Bill Huennekens, county elections superintendent.And now Huennekens is Sims' choice to implement mail-only voting. Sheesh. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 05, 2007 06:30 AM | Email This
The voters get what they deserve - most of the time. Those other times they get what the Dems want them to get, like another tax and spend governor.
Posted by: MJC on March 5, 2007 06:57 AMwhen HONEST liberals/Dems/voters FINALLY want to TRULY fix this, it will be done. until then, it's a lot of cow plop. talk talk. yet, these same apathetic "reformers" will yell at a bank teller for even a few cents' differences in their accounts. or they will bitch about a store coupon.
relativity & priorities i guess.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on March 5, 2007 10:34 AM2. The current politicos are not going to change the system, it benefits them and their cronies.
3. Some individual or group with deep pockets is going to have to fund an initiative that requires
proof of citizenship, residency, controls on ballots, an audit trail and a means of checking results.
4. Until the system is changed, Stefan will be posting discrepancies until he gets tired of the mess and turns his attention to something he might be able to change.
Posted by: WVH on March 5, 2007 10:56 AMThanks Bill and Ron, keep up the bad work!
Ron is a Sharp James who went to charm school
Posted by: Green Lake Mark on March 5, 2007 11:43 AM--Ray
From the article:
"Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi by 129 votes in a hand recount of almost 2.9 million ballots statewide. Rossi had won the initial count and a subsequent machine recount."
It wasn't a recount. During the hand "recount", King Co counted votes that had not previously been included (the fatal pends, for example).
Not that this was anything new...KC counted ballots during the machine "recount" that had not been included in the initial count.
Other counties that had completed their canvass asked to recanvass with the same after-the-fact rule changes KC was allowed to use, but were refused, which gave KC a green light to keep counting votes until they found enough to put Fraudoire in the lead.
Posted by: ewaggin on March 5, 2007 08:34 PMThere were some ballots that were counted in the manual recount that hadn't been previously counted. But the fatal pends were counted in the first count.
I highly doubt that Mr Simms and Mr Bill and Queen Christine...!
The further the dig, the more stink you find.
Posted by: GS on March 5, 2007 09:05 PMAnother thing. Bill's previous hands-on experience was in Mason County where the entire voting population probably doesn't amount to much more than a half a dozen or so of some of King County's more than 200 precincts. I believe he was simply overhelmed by the volume of King County's mail ballots but was not about to admit it. "Pride comes before the fall", and when it does, the fall can be hard.
Posted by: Bob on March 6, 2007 11:37 AMThank-you for the correction. Accuracy is critical in any discussion of this matter.
Posted by: ewaggin on March 6, 2007 11:56 AMIt's a sad, sick joke to call it a "recount". It was a re-vote, nothing less, with just enough votes added to the "recount" to put Fraudoire over the top. Everybody knows it. It's a joke, a laughingstock across the country. If the Repubs in DC had the guts, they'd hang out a "No Usurpers Welcome" sign everytime Fraudoire came to town.
Not that this was anything new...KC counted ballots during the machine "recount" that had not been included in the initial count.
You're darned right they did. They were ready to act if this were a close vote, like it was. They had enough fraudlent ballots ready to toss in for any kind of "recount" (re-vote). Just enough to put Fraudoire in the Governor's mansion. The KC 'Rats weren't going to let this one slip through their slimy fingers.
Posted by: Interested Observer on March 6, 2007 01:48 PM