September 25, 2007
Fell moves from King to Snohomish
Garth Fell, Assistant Superintendent of Ballot Processing and Delivery since 2004, has accepted the post of Snohomish County Elections Manager (top deputy to County Auditor Carolyn Diepenbrock).
Fell's last day at King County Elections is early October. Fell was rumored to be on track to be named King County's Superintendent of Elections and said to be performing many of the Superintendent duties pending formal appointment. With his departure, the Superintendent and two of three Assistant Superintendent positions are unfilled. The third Asst. Sup. position is held by someone only recently promoted to the job and still listed in the county directory as Acting Asst. Sup.
Fell was perhaps best known for fabricating numbers in the November 2004 Mail Ballot Report along with Nicole Way. Some who have worked with Fell say he has grown considerably since the 2004 debacle and was one of the few remaining election managers with substantial technical and operational knowledge.
UPDATE: Sherril Huff's announcement of Fell's departure.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 25, 2007
04:44 PM | Email This
1. Perhaps he Fell out of favor in King County?
2. This sure is strange. All this build-up for him in the position and he ghosts to Snohomish. Hmmm. Call me crazy here but I have a feeling that Simms laid down the law about how it's going to be at elections and Fells decided the best thing to do was adios. Simms needs somebody who is willing to bend the rules (OK, I'll say it: commit fraud) to make things to his liking and willing to take the hit if something goes wrong. Then, of course, take a similar position in California.
That requires a special kind of party apparatchik. Maybe Fells isn't that kind of guy.
3. This calls into question what Ms Diepenbrock's intentions are regarding her own election department.
Apparently she plans to emulate King Counties "unique" counting techniques.
This does not bode well for those of us in Snohomish County, that she would choose to hire someone from one of, if not the most, scandal plagued election departments in the nation.
4. I'd advise Snoco to check those numbers when the mail ballot report comes out.
5. They'll need every Lackie they have in every county in this state to get that Lying tax happy witch out of our governor's office.
Good Luck Garth, hope you can't pull it off again!
6. Be real. King County is going to be in the hot seat for 2008.
No one w/out a clear agenda or future kick back from Gregoire & Sims would want to be there or put their family through that.
7. Best to just get out of Dodge before the Sims machine kicks in to gear in the 2008 elections. Why put oneself through having to say things like "we shouldn't have counted those ballots" or take the fall for crappy spreadsheets trying to hide multiple elections errors. If things are close in King County, heck Garth might have even found himself on the witness stand this time in another trial. Good move. If I was in his shoes, I'd leave King County too.
8. Garth Fell is the perfect example of the Peter Principle at work. He is not qualified to do anything in Elections. When I first learned of him, he was managing the WAREHOUSE where the votes came in on Election Night and he was not doing a very good job there. When he was questioned about some irregularities regarding the handling of the ballot bags and if the many temporary workers (some of whom looked very shady) had undergone background checks before they were hired, his response was to get mad. I don't even think he has a college degree.
9. In
Bill Cosby: Himself, Cosby paints a hysterical picture of what people act like when they're on drugs -- the completely paranoid, irrational and inconsistent thinking, while the body tries very sensibly to reject the substance. "And then the best part," he continues, "is that the person next to them is saying, 'Hey, man, pass that over!'"
So there's Snohomish, saying, "Hey, man, we want some of that, too!"
10. I don't know Fell and I am very skeptical. But let's be frank here: we don't know Fell is directly responsible for anything bad that happened. We know that the word from on high was forcing things on those below ... I am not exactly willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but I am not going to assume he's guilty, either.