Neither candidate is worthy. Write-in a different name of your choice.
Sam Reed does not deserve re-election. Beneath the avuncular and gracious exterior, he is one of the least competent and most dishonest elected officials in Washington politics. His sidekick and elections point-man Nick Handy is even worse (many specific examples of their ineptitude and lack of veracity have been posted here in the past).
Sadly, Reed appears to be coasting toward re-election. I had been leaning toward sending a message by voting for the Democratic challenger, Jason Osgood. I know Jason and like him. We've collaborated on some election reform efforts in King County. He's done good work in opposition to mail-only voting, and deserves credit for raising issues that probably led King County to scuttle its plan to go all-mail this year. He's been a guest blogger here in the past. He has a number of good ideas on election integrity, such as increasing the number of required audits.
Unfortunately, Jason wasted his opportunity to run as a reasonable centrist critic of the Reed administration by promoting one really, really silly idea. One of his top platform planks is something he calls "Universal Voter Registration", where "Every eligible citizen will be registered to vote by default". What this means exactly, I don't know, but I can't imagine how it could be workable except under one of two extremes -- either there would be no meaningful integrity checks on incoming ballots and elections would be little more than uncontrollable ballot-stuffing contests, or every U.S. citizen would have to be issued some kind of a national ID card, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. The idea is fundamentally unserious.
Both parties should and could have supported serious competent ethical centrists. But neither did. "None of the Above" is the best choice. Express your protest with a write-in.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 02, 2008 04:56 PM | Email ThisHowever, your contempt for Sam Reed is borderline quixotic. I think you are taking things too far and I fear that you are projecting blame for some of your King County frustrations on Mr. Reed.
Give him a break. He has competently administered the elections and his other functions the past four years, and you should not be so eggregious as to simply say vote against him becuse he disagrees with you on a FEW key points.
That sounds like a litmus test to me. And you should be above it.
Posted by: BigDawg on November 2, 2008 06:52 PMYou are 100% spot on. If not for that one STUPID idea, Jason would be SOS.
Jason...are you listening???
Posted by: pbj on November 2, 2008 07:28 PMOn a side note, I realized--while reading Fund's book--that all of the voter ID laws that have been upheld by the court systems all have an exemption that allows mail-in voters to vote without showing ID. Do you guys think that that may have something to do with our move towards all mail-in voting?
Posted by: blindman on November 2, 2008 07:40 PMI am voting for Reed.
Posted by: pudge on November 2, 2008 08:14 PMIt's more than a "few issues", BD-- it's the dishonesty and cover-ups and the See-No-Evil Monkey act regarding the 2004 mess and many other reports of election problems. It's the dishonest hucksterish promotion of mail ballots. It's the dishonesty about the felons in the database. It's the dishonesty when he tried to regulate initiative petitions. I've also given him credit where due on a few occasions when he's done some good things. But his overall record is a disgrace.
Oh, and you spell egregious "egregious"
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on November 2, 2008 08:35 PM"What is universal voter registration?
In a universal voter registration system, it would be the government's obligation to ensure that every eligible citizen was registered to vote. Individual citizens could opt out if they wished, but the registration process itself would no longer serve as a barrier to the right to vote.
"Here are some of the important ways that federal policy can and should encourage the states to improve on the current voter registration system:
"Mandate that the states put systems in place that would phase in universal voter registration, while preserving the states' ability to experiment with different systems.
Require states to immediately implement permanent registration, so that voters wouldn't have to re-register if they moved within a state.
Require states to implement Election Day registration, as a fail-safe mechanism for eligible voters missing from the voter rolls for any reason.
Provide the funding that states would need to ensure that every eligible voter is registered."
It sounds like people who show up would be registered on election day just before they cast their ballots, assuming the "obligation" of the government to find them and sign them up ahead of time hasn't been met.
Or, I suppose we could just eliminate the requirement to register at all. Just show up and vote -- but could we then require positive identification to inhibit the efforts of some people to vote more than once? ("One alias, one vote" could be our new motto.)
In a universal voter registration system, it would be the government's obligation to ensure that every eligible citizen was registered to vote.
The government has no list of every eligible citizen, and no prospect for getting one.
All of what you say is a blueprint for illegal voting.
And Reed's ineffectiveness as Sec State is borderline psychotic.
From a post I did a few days back:
Sam Reed: Secretary of Snivel (and Whining).
Where it really matters, which to me is election security, defined as:
* Keeping illegal aliens from voting and;
* Keeping all non-American citizens from voting and;
* Proving citizenship to register to vote and;
* Providing legal identification TO vote and;
* Keeping felon voters who have not had their rights restored from voting...
... Sam Reed has been an utter, abysmal, failure.
He has had EIGHT YEARS to get this straightened out, and has done absolutely nothing but whine and snivel and bitch and complain.
Well, here's a clue, Sam... that don't get it done.
The problem we have with you is that since you don't want to do these things, these things haven't happened.
It's not that you CAN'T address these issues. It's that you WON'T address these issues.
To my mind, you not only shouldn't be re-elected; you should, in fact, be thrown out on your incompetent ass.
You see, Sam... you've had EIGHT YEARS to fix this. And what's the result? 24,000 illegal felon voters THAT WE KNOW OF.
And all you can do is whine and moan and complain when you're busted.
You're a disgrace to elected officials generally and Republicans particularly. You're a part of the reason why I have left the party. You're a disgrace in every sense of the word as you have done NOTHING to address these most important issues.
Hopefully, you haven't had lunch when you read Sam's punk-ass whine, below, because if you have, you'll lose it.
Insert Sam Reed whinefest here: http://www.kirotv.com/news/17765742/detail.html
Now, Reed's letter is moronic on so many levels, but let me start with this one.
NO one wants to deprive ANY legal voter of the right to vote, INCLUDING felons with their rights restored.
Now Sam doesn't give a damn if felons pay their restitution or not, an attitude he might change if the felon in question owed HIM restitution.
In his pin head, he wants all felons that get out of jail, WHETHER THEY'VE PAID THEIR RESTITUTION OR NOT, to get their voting rights back.
Why? Well, it's sure a HELL of a lot easier to figure out who can and can't vote if the only ones restricted are locked up.
That's a crock, or course. Restitution is just as much a part of a sentence as serving time. But not to ol' Sam!
Also, he says nothing about the other major issues he did nothing to address, the issues listed in the first part of this post.
His utter and complete failure to address this issue; his reliance on blaming others ("When we asked Chris Halsne if he checked to see if these people had their voting rights restored by Superior Courts or the Board of Prison and Paroles or governors, he said no: "We have no way to use a computer to show which felons may have had their rights restored..." Well, Sam, WHY DON'T WE? YOU'VE HAD EIGHT FRICKING YEARS TO COME UP WITH ONE!) and his failures in all of the other areas he's responsible for means that re-electing this clown means we'll be having this discussion AGAIN... in 4 MORE years.
I don't know the name of the democrat running against Reed off hand. But truth to tell, I also don't care. He's getting my vote... and I hope he's getting yours as well.
Posted by: Hinton on November 2, 2008 09:36 PMRegistration only in person, with VALID ID and a fingerprint, followed by voting only in person (except military) with VALID ID and the fingerprint to be used for verification of questionable ballots.
The right to vote should not be treated as a convenience. Rights have responsibilities. If you are not up to the rigors of the resposibility, stay home.
Of course with the demoncraps running DC they like their fraud just the way it is.
But then, I think any person putting down his money to enter ANY political race should be required to pass a national civics and economcs test before they are allowed on ANY ballot. If you can't enter grad school without passing the LSAT, GMAT or MCAT, why the hell would we PAY people to run our lives without proving they are actually up to the task?
That would disallow most of the moron majority in DC... Olympia... King County...
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 2, 2008 10:32 PM"I keep hearing how important it is for everyone to vote. Let me be politically incorrect and say that maybe some people shouldn't vote. I know I'm swimming against the tide. Get-out the-vote groups now register young people at rock concerts. HeadCount cofounder Andy Bernstein told me: 'We registered over a 100,000 people. It is so imperative that this generation's voice is heard.' But wait. Is that really a good idea? Many kids don't know much. At a HeadCount concert, [ABC's] '20/20' asked some future voters, 'How many senators are there?' One said 12, another 16, and another 64. One girl guessed, '50 per state.' Most kids didn't know what Roe v. Wade was about. 'Roe vs. Wayne?' asked one. 'Segregation, maybe?' 'Where we declared bankruptcy?' Headcount's Marc Brownstein concedes, 'there's a lot of uninformed voters out there.' But he argued: 'Democracy is not about taking the most educated portion of the society and having them decide who's going to run the entire society. Democracy is about every individual having a voice.' I suggested that when people don't know anything, maybe it's their civic duty not to vote. 'It's an argument that really, really smacks against everything we hold dear as Americans,' Bernstein replied. ... Economist Bryan Caplan, author of 'The Myth of the Rational Voter,' points out, 'the public's knowledge of politics is shockingly low.' He scoffs at the idea that 'it's everyone's civic duty to vote.' 'This is very much like saying, it's our civic duty to give surgery advice,' Caplan said. 'We like to think that political issues are much less complicated than brain surgery, but many of them are pretty hard. If someone doesn't know what he's talking about, it really is better if they say, look, I'm going to leave this in wiser hands.' Isn't it elitist to say only some people should vote? 'Is it elitist to say only some people should do brain surgery? If you don't know what you're doing, you are not doing the country a favor by voting.' ... Voting is serious business. It works best when people educate themselves. If uninformed people stay home on Election Day, good."
EXACTLY!