Sound Politics: Pierce County Auditor seeks to outlaw polling places

June 22, 2007

Pierce County Auditor seeks to outlaw polling places

Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy has revived her scheme to close the polling places and force everybody to vote by mail.

A Pierce County task force rejected mail-only voting two years ago:

The savings from closing polling places are more than offset by the increased cost of printing, mailing and sorting more absentee ballots, said McCarthy, a member of the task force who runs local elections and opposed the change.

But now, McCarthy is using the non-sequitur of an excuse that the county's adoption of Instant Runoff Voting will make the ballots too complicated for poll workers to cope with. (Actually, if the new ballots are sufficiently complicated to cause confusion, then adequately trained poll workers would be able to assist the voters. Confused mail voters would be SOL).

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 22, 2007 04:50 PM | Email This

Comments

1. Well Stefan you will no doubt delete this comment because you are too gutless to hear the truth, but cut-and-paste is a wonderful invention.

I can tell you this for a fact, having no reason to lie and having heard it from Pat McCarthy's own lips several times. If there were no Instant Runoff voting, she would not be taking this step. She has said this many times. She has no choice if she is to keep spending on this insane scheme from going through the roof.

The IRV plan that Pierce county has adopted is the worst moonbat clusterf-k in this state's history, and if the Democrats were gaming it against one of your candidates you would be the first to holler. And you would be right to do so.

The number of ballots that have to be printed, because of the many races and jurisdictions covered by this Charter provision, and the added administrative expense that the taxpayers will have to incur as a result, should appall any good-government conservative.

But you are grasping at straws for any opportunity to attack a Democrat, so go ahead and play your little games. You're certainly not fooling anybody in Pierce County who knows the score, least of all the Republicans who correctly opposed this stupid IRV in the first place.

Posted by: ivan on June 22, 2007 05:32 PM

2. In the TNT, notice how there's no mention of voter fraud likelihood. But Auditor McCarthy wants to carry it out with "great integrity."

Posted by: Van on June 22, 2007 06:16 PM

3. If only voting reformers had made a more sensible choice, and worked to implement Range Voting, or its simplified form Approval Voting, they'd have better elections, with fewer (rather than greater) spoiled ballots, and a fair chance for third parties, as well as less pain from strategic voting.

Why, oh why, won't reformers listen to the evidence.

http://RangeVoting.org/Irvtalk.html

http://RangeVoting.org/vsi.html

Clay Shentrup
The Center for Range Voting
415.240.1973

Posted by: Clay Shentrup on June 22, 2007 08:10 PM

4. Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwnnn!

Posted by: BillL on June 22, 2007 08:25 PM

5. in Snohomish County this has already happened.

I always vote in person anyway, as the county is required (by HAVA) to make DRE machines available for disabled voters, and it does not define disabled, and Snohomish County didn't even bother to restrict it: the machines are open to everyone. They just don't have actual polling places anymore, but they are putting the machines and dropoff boxes in libraries and grocery stores and so on.

Polling places are better, but at least I still don't have to entrust my vote to the postal service, and I can make sure my vote is counted properly before I even finish voting.

Clay: "evidence"? Heh. It's about principles. Range voting violates mine. One voter, one vote. Not a range of votes. If you cannot pick the one choice you want, then that's your problem.

Posted by: pudge on June 22, 2007 10:57 PM

6. For once we agree, Stefan. This is a really bad idea. And she shouldn't be blaming it on IRV. She should be smart enough to ask for more money to implement this process, and hire a boatload of pollworkers to help educate voters up-to and during election day. That's how you effectively incorporate a new change. Paying a bunch of postage with no way for voters to know their votes were counted is nuts.

Posted by: Tahoma Activist on June 22, 2007 10:57 PM

7. For once we agree, Stefan. This is a really bad idea. And she shouldn't be blaming it on IRV. She should be smart enough to ask for more money to implement this process, and hire a boatload of pollworkers to help educate voters up-to and during election day. That's how you effectively incorporate a new change. Paying a bunch of postage with no way for voters to know their votes were counted is nuts.

Posted by: Tahoma Activist on June 22, 2007 10:58 PM

8. For once we agree, Stefan. This is a really bad idea. And she shouldn't be blaming it on IRV. She should be smart enough to ask for more money to implement this process, and hire a boatload of pollworkers to help educate voters up-to and during election day. That's how you effectively incorporate a new change. Paying a bunch of postage with no way for voters to know their votes were counted is nuts.

Posted by: Tahoma Activist on June 22, 2007 11:03 PM

9. Oh, and about complicated ballots: again, here in Snohomish County, our new auditor (appointed when Sideshow Bob left for another county job, as he is term-limited) notes right up front that the decision to go to all-mail ballots makes the problem of complicated ballots far worse.

Not only do you not have poll workers to help people out, as Stefan notes, but you also have to send every type of the ballot to every voter. So if you have multiple languages as mandated by federal law? Everyone gets every language. Partisan primary? All voters get all parties.

DRE voting machines drastically simplify this, of course, but even polling places can make it much simpler, as you can have separate ballots (and, again, poll workers can help explain to voters).

Also again: IRV is stupid. I just felt like repeating that!

Posted by: pudge on June 22, 2007 11:07 PM

10. Everytime I go to do some business in the Pierce Couty Annex on South 35th Street in Tacoma, I fell as though I've walked into a mini-State Democratic convention. The political bias is so think there you could cut it with a knife. Plus there's a lot of "attitude" with the help!

They should be glad they have jobs!

Posted by: Skylar Vandergrift on June 23, 2007 10:22 AM

11. It looks like the perpetual competition between Seattle and Tacoma is rearing it's ugly head again. Tacoma wants it's "worst elections in the state" title back.

(and no, I'm not back on the site... the Orb linked to this post.)

Posted by: Republican (by default) on June 23, 2007 10:43 AM

12. Golly. Given the history of voter-fraud, auditor-fraud (and every other kind of fraud and criminal behavior in the Democrat-party controlled Pierce County), should anyone be surprised?

Every time somebody actually asks to watch them count votes in Pierce County, they get arrested.

Which is amazing when you consider that this takes time away from the cops down there engaging their first hobby: Watching kiddie-porn! (Giles, French, et al...)

Posted by: cmiklich on June 23, 2007 02:50 PM

13. What is the diff they can miss count the ones you put in the little box machine too.

Um who programs it?

I don't trust this states democraps!

Posted by: dcat on June 23, 2007 03:01 PM

14. dcat:

Everything has problems. But the problems are much fewer with DREs with paper ballots. You see right there on the machine what your vote is before it is even recorded. No overvotes, no undervotes, and so on. They have their own unique problems, and some similar problems to other forms. But they are better overall for large elections, and they are improving.

One thing I think we also need is open source for these machines, so everyone can know what's going on with them. In last year's primary I planned to vote for myself as PCO. Instead of seeing my name on the DRE machine ... I saw a blank space where my name should be. You could vote for me by selecting the empty line. (And, that very morning, I was in the newspaper criticizing the decision to move to all-mail balloting!)

Did you see the HBO documentary about voting machines? I already knew almost everything they mentioned there. I've been personally screwed by these machines when they left my name off. I have been a computer programmer for many years, and have personally created and exploited various online voting systems.

I know the problems, and they are many. But all of the problems are solvable (unlike with mail ballots, where many of the problems are inherent), and they are still not as bad as all-mail balloting is even today.

The biggest thing people complain about with DREs is the counting machines can be hacked, as in the HBO documentary. The problem with this argument is that the same thing can happen with all-mail voting too, as similar tabulation machines are used for those (indeed, in the HBO documentary, in the demonstration at the end, it was a paper ballot tabulation machine that was hacked, not a DRE).

We've got problems, and we shouldn't trust our government, and we should all work toward improving the system.

Posted by: pudge on June 23, 2007 04:08 PM

15. Exactly pudge and your point is?

Posted by: dcat on June 24, 2007 01:38 PM

16. You asked what the "diff" was.

I told you what the "diff" is.

Posted by: pudge on June 24, 2007 03:38 PM

17. King and Pierce counties are virtually the only counties in the state which have poll voting. The Secretary of State's office is prodding King and Pierce counties to move to all-mail voting. Most voters in the state of Washington already vote by mail.

Ranked Choice Voting will result in Terry Lee (R), Shawn Bunney (R), Calvin Goings (D) and Pat McCarthy (D) all being on the November ballot for Pierce County Executive. Ranked Choice Voting will allow all of the voters to select from a complete set of candidates. More voter choice. Voters will like that.

Posted by: Kelly on June 24, 2007 03:48 PM

18. King and Pierce counties are virtually the only counties in the state which have poll voting. The Secretary of State's office is prodding King and Pierce counties to move to all-mail voting. Most voters in the state of Washington already vote by mail.

Posted by: Kelly on June 24, 2007 03:48 PM

19. If we are going to keep increasing the complexity of elections (high tech gear, complex voting schemes like IRV, etc.) then we will have to be looking at getting away from the system of a large number of neighborhood precincts voting solely on election day. It would appear that an extnsive early voting system say three weeks at locations at, say, a 25 to 1 ratio of the former precincts to new early voting centers) with some more mailed voting is probably going to be needed.

It is getting increasingly hard to staff hundreds of neighborhood precincts with people who have (a) a pulse, (b) sufficient tech savvy, (c) the free time to work all day on election day, and (d) the desire to do so. As the system gets more complex, it will only get harder.

Posted by: km on June 24, 2007 07:07 PM

20. If we are going to keep increasing the complexity of elections (high tech gear, complex voting schemes like IRV, etc.) then we will have to be looking at getting away from the system of a large number of neighborhood precincts voting solely on election day. It would appear that an extnsive early voting system say three weeks at locations at, say, a 25 to 1 ratio of the former precincts to new early voting centers) with some more mailed voting is probably going to be needed.

Posted by: km on June 24, 2007 07:08 PM

21. km: yes, this is already happening. In Snohomish County the voting period is, I think, a couple of weeks long, where you can go to one of the polling stations (in libraries, etc.) and vote in person.

Although, the people at the Arlington Library were not entirely clueful. They both needed to work together on the voting machine, and while they did that, they left the voting table (with ballots) unattended and (just barely) out of sight. (I informed the Auditor when I got home.)

Posted by: pudge on June 24, 2007 11:28 PM

22. Pudge,

Range Voting doesn't violate one-person-one-vote. Each person gets the same number of ballots - one. So each voter, regardless of race, sex, or wealth, has the same power to influence the election. That's the point of the OPOV concept.

If you are defending the idea that we should only be able to vote for a single candidate in each race, then you are horrendously ignorant of how terrible plurality voting is. Range Voting is as much of an improvement over plurality (vote for one) voting as plurality is over non-democratic random selection out of a hat.

I suggest you learn a thing or two about the incredibly complex subject of election science.

http://rangevoting.org/Plurality.html
http://rangevoting.org/vsi.html

Posted by: Clay Shentrup on June 25, 2007 08:59 AM

23. Ranked Choice Voting will allow all of the voters to select from a complete set of candidates. More voter choice. Voters will like that.

Baloney. The strategy with IRV is to top-rank your favorite of the two front-runners. That's why IRV leads to two-party domination in partisan races, where the front-runners are generally perceived to be the major party candidates (there are other reasons too).

http://RangeVoting.org/Irvtalk.html
http://RangeVoting.org/IRV.html

Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
415.240.1973

Posted by: Clay Shentrup on June 25, 2007 09:07 AM

24. Pudge,

If you believe a voting machine that counts paper ballots can be hacked, then you'd better bet your life that a machine that simply records information from a digital entry is the fraudster's best friend.

Rebecca Mercuri, a computer science Ph.D., and one of our foremost authorities on election integrity, attests that we must switch to 100% paper ballots, cast into transparent ballot boxes, and hand-counted in full public view. If you think electronic voting machines can ever be trusted, even if they are "open source", then you have not studied this issue very deeply.

http://www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html

Furthermore, if we used Range Voting, or Approval Voting (which you absurdly criticize for violating OPOV) we'd dramatically reduce the number of spoiled ballots. This has been experimentally shown.

Posted by: Clay Shentrup on June 25, 2007 09:13 AM

25. Clay: um. Uh. No, you're wrong. You said:

Range Voting doesn't violate one-person-one-vote. Each person gets the same number of ballots - one.

Yes, they get the same number of ballots, but I didn't say anything about ballots. I said votes. And while only one vote is COUNTED in the end, you get multiple votes. Don't tell me it doesn't happen: it is the primary FEATURE of Range Voting. And I am entirely against it.

If you are defending the idea that we should only be able to vote for a single candidate in each race, then you are horrendously ignorant of how terrible plurality voting is.

Yes I am defendin that, and no, I am not remotely ignorant on these issues. You, however, are terribly ignorant about how logically fallacious your question-begging claim is.

Range Voting is as much of an improvement over plurality (vote for one) voting as plurality is over non-democratic random selection out of a hat.

That is your opinion, it is not a fact. And it is an opinion I disagree with.

I suggest you learn a thing or two about the incredibly complex subject of election science.

I suggest you don't fall into the sophomoric trap of assuming people who disagree with you are less knowledgable than you.

Sorry, you must have missed the part where I mentioned a paper trail on DRE machines, which are now mandated in this state.

Shrug. She's wrong. Being an expert does not mean your policy opinion is correct. And if she thinks that computer systems cannot be made reliable, then frankly, she's ignorant.

And that thing about transparent ballot boxes and doing everything in full public view ... you do know that this would violate voter secrecy, right? Which would undermine our election system entirely? Just checking. Since you know so much.

If you think electronic voting machines can ever be trusted, even if they are "open source", then you have not studied this issue very deeply.

Again with the logical fallacies. The more you claim people are ignorant for disagreeing with you, the dumber you look. Just a word of advice.

And no, in fact, I have studied it very deeply. I know the technology and the issues very well.

Posted by: pudge on June 25, 2007 01:19 PM

26. Pudge strikes again.

I can't argue sensibly, so I will just attack you!

"Also again: IRV is stupid. I just felt like repeating that!"

"You, however, are terribly ignorant about how logically fallacious your question-begging claim is."

Phallacy!

Phellacious!!

Phellatio!!!

What a dick head, argue, don't just attack those who don't agree

Posted by: keeppudgehonest on June 28, 2007 10:37 PM