August 17, 2010
Mail Ballot Horror Show (XLIV)
We celebrate today's mail-only primary with some more items on the beauty and majesty of mail-only voting. As Jim notes below, King County has removed the signature security flap from the outer ballot envelope to "save money".
If the idea is to save money, they should go back to polling places. Sam Reed predicts that only 38% of the state's voters will vote this primary, meaning that the remaining 62% of 3.59 million registered voters will toss their ballots into the recycling. 2.2 million packets of wasted paper, ink, glue and outbound postage must cost a horrendous amount of money, with or without the extra flap.
Meanwhile, over in Mason County 114 voters opened up their ballot packets to discover they were missing the actual ballots.
And in Snohomish County, 1,278 ballots were not mailed out to voters until yesterday.
Yes, yes, I know. It's only a 1,400 voters out of 3.6 million. An accuracy rate that any bank would envy!
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 17, 2010
02:28 PM | Email This
1. OH BOY!...here we go again. Hang on Dino! :)
2. That's odd. My ballot had a signature flap on the outer envelope. What mine lacked was an inner security envelope. I put it in a regular white envelope and sealed it for a security envelope.
3. Huh... that's weird. I got three ballots in mine.
4. Two family members got two ballots---ballots for our old address in the 5th, (which had been forwarded--ha!), and ones addressed to the current address in the 45th. We had correctly filed address changes by the appropriate dates. Had these family members been less honest what do you want to bet they could have voted twice and somehow would have gotten away with it---but only if KCE employees could see that they voted for liberals, I'm sure. Fortunately for the people, these family members are too honest to even consider such.
5. What I find interesting is that Obama came in with a boom to campaign for Murray on "voting day" when there isn't an open "polling place" in the entire state. I realize people tend to procrastinate but c'mon, how many people were sitting at home staring at their ballot trying to make up their mind and thought, "oh, look, the President is here for Patty - I'm gonna vote for her". Seems to me that appearance would have been more valuable a few weeks ago.
6. What is the situation with mailing ballots to our military members? Did Eric Holder give Washington a waiver so that these did not have to be mailed out in time?
7. D Doyle: Plenty of open polling places in Pierce County. Went to one myself. I will keep on going to the polling place to vote until they force me to use mail ballot. Unfortunately, it's just a matter of time.
8. Spunky says, "I got three ballots in mine"
Let me guess....you're a King County Democrat....
9. Dammit Shark!
I told you to lay OFF the ballot stuffing this time...but you did it anyway! And now look, I'm gonna lose the 3rd election in a row!
People are going to get tired of your stuffing shenanigans, but then it affects me...maybe Beck had it right..."Ohhh, Rossi boy! You're a loser baby, so why don't you kill me."
Now I'm really depressed. 3rd election loss AND losing my speaking gig.
10. Same thing again, voter fraud, nothing new here.
11. Folks I am not gonna make it this time. The Democrats are finally killing me off. Well it was nice while it lasted. Your new master, the dictator Obama will take over now.
May your chains bear lightly.
12. Sharkansky doesn't know what he is talking about. I and all my ghoulies in the cemetary got our ballots in plenty of time to vote. Our helpful Democrat Paty apparatchiks made sure of that.
Go Patty Go! Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy Democrats!
Even a stiff like me knows how to vote Democrat.
13. Re the elections results: Keep an eye on the 3rd Congressional district. That one could flip to republican this year. And in the 45th Leg. district, there are a couple seats that look like they could flip to republican. Yahoo! Let's hope Oemig is out. He's looking the most vulnerable. and Reichert looks very strong in the 8th.
14. yea--i'm back to preferring the in-person voting with CHECKING your i.d.--sure, I was lured into the convenient mail-in, but my own readings & research now suggest not; hey--if you can't get in off your dead arse and vote, then why should YOU determine MY life & freedoms!? you have time to get a latte? rent a stupid movie? get a fast food drive-thru dinner? car wash? and ALL of those check your i.d. & money instantly & better than ANY voting place! go figure...
15. Here's a good piece of news for everyone: Rep. Geoff Simpson is having quite a weak showing in the primary. He's very vulnerable for the general. Watch for that one to flip republican, as well.
16. Geoff the Wife beater does not deserve a seat in any public forum
17. There's also an open polling place in Snohomish County. One: the Auditor's Office, where I voted at 7 a.m., sharp.
18. Went and voted at community hall near house at 9 a.m. lets see if we can rid ourselves of Porky Patty.
19. Aren't Dems usually running the elections? Just a questions. Been known to be wrong.
20. I wrote about this last election, but don't remember the advice I got so I'll ask again.
I've owned a house in Reicherts district for more than a dozen years now. Every election I got sent ballots to the attention of the last owners of the home (Boeing union members) and every year I told the elections dept that they are not longer at this address. One of the names was eventually scrubbed, but the other ballot continues to come.
What advice do you have to help me document this issue? Is there any way to see if the name of this person shows up as a voter? (She moved to Missouri so she shouldn't be voting here.)
21. I'm old school. Back in the day you went to a neighbors house who had a sign in the window that she was a voter registrar. She checked out your THREE pieces of ID and registered you to vote. Then you went to the polling place and you couldn't vote unless you had that voter registration card and your signature on the card matched your sign-in signature.
22. #27 'Old school' indeed. Now, you needn't 'document' ANYthing; including proving your eligibility for running for POTUS. How silly of you. :)
23. johnny, there obviously is a way. A newspaper here ran a huge front page article complaining about a city councilman who did not vote in an election where the emergency levy failed by one vote. Obviously, they must have found that information out some how. Yes, even though we have a secret ballot right, evidently we don't have a right to keep whether or not we voted secret.
Some day, I'd like to see that in court - possibly in an election that has to be validated like a school levy. In those cases there has to be a certain number of people voting in order for the measure to pass, you could easily argue that a 'vote' to abstain should be secret because it could be an attempt to get the levy not to pass.
24. @ 23: "Obviously, they must have found that information out some how?" Take a civics lesson, will you? WHETHER you vote -- not HOW you vote -- has ALWAYS been public information.
25. Ivan, and I take issue with that - specifically in regards to voting on an issue that needs to be validated. I would like to see the courts have an opportunity to rule on whether you voted or not in an election that needs validated should be considered on par with on whether your actual vote should be secret.
It is in those limited instances that by not voting you can have more power to vote down a measure than if you actually did vote. Obviously, those elections are far different than the normal run of the mill office filling elections.
26. And my husband continues to get a ballot (which started after he registerd to have his driver license renewed online) even though he is NOT a US citizen. I save them so that I have something to show when the ugly "voter fraud" thing raises its head again.
27. So Ivan,
I know you're very active in the democratic party so obviously you know how to get bad ballots off the rolls.
Would you be willing to share with Cindy and I what steps we should take? Or would that go against the grand old tradition of democrats encouraging sloppy voter rolls so they can count on the votes of the dead and moved away?
28. Yeah, it's part of partisanship that members of one party always accuse members of the other party of dirty tricks.
If it's King County, call King County Elections, explain the problem, and ask for help. If it's any other county, call the county auditor's office.
Nobody wants ineligible voters to be receiving ballots. Not you, not me. OK?
29. Per Doug Parris over at
The Reagan Wing, the likely fraud you suspect is the result of Republican driven change.
We once had a system in Washington State that met the above criteria. It was HIGHLY RESISTANT to fraud. It was replaced (at the behest of the Evans/Gorton/Mainstream Republicans of Washington wing of the Republican Party) ...
30. I'm overseas right now, but am registered in Island County. I got my absentee ballot late in July.
I'm not the usual case, though. I actually recieved an in person response from the Island County Auditor when I went to set up my absentee ballot before I transferred out of state.
31. not that their opinions matter, but have the media ever done a recent (balanced) spread why the turnout is always so shamefully low? 30% or so? why isn't it 90%? apathy? ignorance of what few rights we have as they get whittled down? distrust? people sure whine a lot but never turn that whine into a 90% turnout--no matter who wins; guess things have to really go south to no return before anyone will care...
32. If Obama had showed up here before people sent in their ballots Patty Murray may have lost in the primary. Candidates that he "helps" usually end up losing their elections. It has gotten so bad that dem pols don't want to be seen with him, even those in Chicago.
33. My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!