Archives for December 2004

A big thank you to The Seattle Times for the public service of posting the list of rejected King County ballots online!

My vote apparently counted… how about yours?

(FYI, the most likely surname to be disqualified was Johnson, with 17 rejected ballots. I guess those dicks just don’t know how to vote.)

The Washington State Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Democrat’s petition to establish uniform standards for conducting the hand recount, and order counties to recanvass rejected ballots.

I’m disappointed, but not surprised.

Here is something to chew on for all those Republicans, “Dinocrats” and weak-kneed liberals who argued that Gregoire should have gracefully conceded after the machine recount: if those 561 erroneously rejected absentee ballots had been counted in the first place, it is Gregoire who likely would have come out with a 40-some-vote lead after the first recount, not Rossi.

Chew on that for a moment.

At the risk of drawing a baseball bat to the head from the mathematical guidos who run the numbers racket over at (un)Sound Politics, I thought I’d comment again on their wholly unscientific enterprise of predicting the outcome of our ongoing hand recount.

In an effort to prepare his “fellow Republicans for some possible bad news”, Jim Miller presents the somewhat plausible (though totally unsupported) premise that random counting errors are not random at all, positing that “people tend to make mistakes that favor themselves.”

And so I wondered if the current results — an admittedly small sample representing only 20% of total ballots cast — might support Jim’s thesis. Early returns have tended to come from Republican strongholds where Rossi won handily, thus he currently leads the recount 56% to 41%. If Jim is correct, that some of the newly found votes are the result of nonrandom bias, then Rossi’s lead in these new votes should be somewhat greater than his lead in the overall totals.

Out of 338 aggregate new votes, Rossi has gained 190, while Gregoire has gained 144. Pull out your spreadsheets if you wish, but off the top of my head that comes to about 56% for Rossi, 42% for Gregoire… almost exactly the same percentage as the overall totals. Apparently, these new votes have been distributed randomly between the candidates.

Of course, Jim might attribute this lack of discrepancy to the fact that Republicans are honest and Democrats are not. (I suspect he probably will.)

But more interesting to me is what this says about the statistical contortions his fellow numerologist Stefan is using to reinforce the notion that Rossi has already won… whatever the final vote count. Stefan knows how to write, so I can only assume that his long-winded recitations of obscure Excel functions are intended to confuse the reader, while fulfilling an apparently urgent need to constantly reassure himself of how smart he is.

So rather than torturing you with pages of calculations, permit me to propose a mathematical shortcut, based on the premise that the majority of these newly counted votes are not the result of human error during the recount, but rather, random tabulation error during the machine count. Since the overall vote count is roughly a 50-50 split, can’t we assume that statewide, the newly found votes should also split roughly 50-50?

Add in the 561 new votes in King County, and one would think that Gregoire stands a fair chance of winning the election.

Of course… all of this is complete bullshit, because there are so many factors that could screw up any projection in such a close race. Did King County already vet much of its discernible “under vote” during its more thorough recount? Are there more surprises to be uncovered in King or elsewhere? Will the King cavass board re-examine rejected ballots due to court mandate or public and party pressure? Will the rest of the new votes break as predictably as the first 20% have?

I’ve got no idea. And you know what? Neither does Stefan or Jim.

According to a release on their website, King County Elections Director Dean Logan will ask the canvassing board to amend their certified results to include “approximately” 561 absentee ballots mistakenly rejected because their signatures were not on file in the county’s voter registration system. Original registration records should have been retrieved to verify signatures.

If these ballots break along similar percentages as the rest of the county vote, that should amount to about a 100 vote pickup for Gregoire.

Even as the state Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments (1:30PM, C-SPAN2) on whether the gubernatorial re-recount should include a recanvassing of ballots previously rejected, the case may have already become moot.

As reported today in The Seattle Times, the rejected ballots included that of King County Council Chair Larry Phillips, whose absentee ballot was tossed because his signature wasn’t on file with county elections officials. Philips voted absentee because he was campaigning for John Kerry in Ohio; had he voted at the polls as is his custom, his vote would have counted.

Ooops… there goes the GOP argument that voters who had their ballots rejected were either stupid or didn’t follow directions.

King County Elections Director Dean Logan said he didn’t know how many ballots might have been rejected for the same reason. Election workers will spend the day looking for other ballots that were rejected for the same reason, and present them to the canvassing board.

As I noted last week, Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed has already stated that canvassing boards have some discretion to re-examine ballots:

Reed said county canvassing boards could re-examine some rejected ballots “if there is a problem brought to their attention,” But, he said, “they really don’t have the authority to on their own decide that not only are we going to do a recount, but we’re also going to systematically go back” and recanvass. That could change if a systematic error was discovered, he said, adding he thought that was unlikely.

If Phillips was registered to vote, but had no signature on file, how could it be anything but a bureaucratic error? So I guess the question is, what exactly does Reed mean by “systematic”? If a number of other ballots were rejected for similar reasons, isn’t that systematic? And if there are systematic errors in one part of the system, doesn’t that call into question the entire process?

GOPolitburo Chair Chris Vance would like you to believe that raising these issues leads us down the road towards disaster:

“The Democrats are asking for far more than counting a few ballots that were missed the first time. They want them to look at every ballot that was rejected the first time. It would destroy our election process.”

But explain to me how double-checking the legitimacy of a ballot before discarding it would “destroy our election process”?

It is time for King County Democrats to pressure the Democratically-controlled canvassing board to agree to re-examine all the rejected ballots, before the Supremes hand down their decision. Thousands of ballots have been tossed out by low-level election workers, and these voters deserve that have their ballots reviewed by the canvassing board before they are summarily disenfranchised.

———-

UPDATE:
Watching the oral arguments before the Supremes, the SOS attorney pointed out the following statute, 29A.60.221:

Whenever the canvassing board finds that there is an apparent discrepancy or an inconsistency in the returns of a primary or election, the board may recanvass the ballots or voting devices in any precincts of the county. The canvassing board shall conduct any necessary recanvass activity on or before the last day to certify the primary or election and correct any error and document the correction of any error that it finds.

So my point remains, if the GOP doesn’t want the rest of the state to recanvass, that’s fine by me. But I think enough errors have been uncovered in King County to warrant that the rejected ballots be brought before the canvassing board… for the first time.

I’ve been awfully quiet about Tim Eyman recently, and for a number of reasons, not the least of which being my reluctance to be pigeonholed an “Eyman critic” at a time when Tim is gradually transitioning to the role of a marginal political figure.

But I have also been loathe to publicly discuss Timmy’s proposed performance audits initiative in any detail, for fear he might cull something constructive from my criticism. I’ve never subscribed to the theory that Tim is some sort of a political genius… but he ain’t dumb. And he certainly doesn’t need my help in perfecting the initiative’s policy or rhetoric prior to its January filing date.

That said (or not said), I agree 100 percent with the sentiment expressed in an editorial today in The Seattle P-I: “Beware of magic bullets.” Surprise… Tim is pitching a very simple fix to a very complex public policy issue, cloaked as usual in his familiar anti-government spiel.

I support the concept of performance audits — in theory — perhaps even to a greater extent than currently conducted by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC). In fact, I would like to see JLARC extend the audits from state agencies to tax exemptions.

But once the public learns of the true costs of Eyman’s overreaching initiative, and how little in savings we can reasonably expect to see in return… well… I don’t suppose it will make much of a difference one way or the other, as I sincerely doubt that Tim can raise the kind of money or grassroots fervor necessary to get this dog onto the ballot.

More on this subject after the New Year.

I’d like to add a little levity back into this forum by taking a moment to turn away from the tedious subject of re-recounts, to touch once again upon my eternal torment.. No, I’m not talking about reading the comments on (un)Sound Politics… I’m talking about the widespread belief that upon Christ’s imminent return, I shall be cast wailing and screaming into the pits of Hell.

When I last wrote on this subject a couple weeks back (“Have you heard the good news? I’m going to Hell!“), I generated some thoughtful and not-so-thoughtful criticism, ranging from those who accused me of demonizing Christians, to those who bluntly stated that the “truth hurts,” I am going to Hell.

But the critique to which I gave the most consideration was that I had misinterpreted Revelations. The truth is, I’ve only read the New Testament once, and that was twenty years ago for an Ethno-History class in college. And so I read with great fascination Tim Appelo’s cover story in the current Seattle Weekly: “Is Bush the Antichrist?”

Appelo delves into the history of the Antichrist and modern apocalyptic theology that I was only peripherally aware of. But while Appelo makes it clear that these themes are not part of main stream Christian theology — and Rev. Rich Lang of Seattle’s Trinity United Methodist Church goes so far as to make accusations of “heresy” — it is hard for me to dismiss these “heretics”, knowing that they control the White House.

“The progressive church should bring back–and this sounds so crazy–the word ‘heresy.’ The end times theology and this other thing called Dominionism or Christian Reconstruction–those are heresies.” Lang says not to believe Christian Coalition leader–turned–Whore of Enron–turned Bush/Cheney campaign lieutenant Ralph Reed when he claims the Christian right has no plans to upend the Constitution and impose its religion on civic life. “He’s a liar,” says Lang. “Dominionism is the notion that God has given the dominion, the governance of the world, to the church. And so Christians literally are born to rule, by force if necessary, to bring the Kingdom of God on Earth. I believe that the theology that drives the Bush administration affirms this.” When Falwell preached, “We must take back what is rightfully ours,” his ambitions did not stop at U.S. borders. This is a Church of a Law Unto Itself.

Years ago, after an especially harrowing driving experience in Boston, that involved my (now ex-)wife angrily driving the wrong way up a freeway exit, she turned to me and said, “I put the fear of God into you didn’t I?” To which I shakily replied: “It’s not God I’m afraid of.”

That is also my reaction to those Evangelicals so enraptured with The Rapture, so eager to leave people like me behind to our imminent and eternal damnation. I do not, cannot, will not accept Christ as my savior. If these people so fervently believe that I will be punished for this sin in the next world, how can I expect them to respect my rights as an American in this world?

Dismiss them as wacky cultists, whose time will pass, if you wish. Just remember that 2000 years ago, that’s what my Jewish ancestors probably said about the early Christians.

While the numerologists over at Sound Politics are busy job counseling prospective Gregoire nominees, I thought I’d take a look at a single number: 271. That’s the total number of additional or subtracted votes counties have reported thus far. (In fact, the total number is likely quite a bit higher, as subtracted votes at the precinct level would have canceled out additional votes in other precincts.)

With only about 14% of the counties reporting, this projects to about 2000 changed votes statewide.

And so to all those who argued that Rossi won the first two counts, thus there was no need for a third, I ask you: are you really comfortable saying that Rossi won by 42 votes… give or take a couple a thousand?

The Rossi campaign and their cheerleaders on the neocon blogs have made much ado about a 1996 memo from the Secretary of State’s office that supposedly shows Christine Gregoire’s “hypocrisy” on the issue of whether recounts should include re-examining the signatures on rejected provisional ballots. This is the issue at the heart of the Dems’ lawsuit, and if this memo truly proved Gregoire had changed her stance, it would certainly hurt her in the court of public opinion, if not a court of law.

But the memo doesn’t prove anything of the sort. Let’s take a look at the paragraph in question:

We are advised by the Attorney General that state law makes no provision for the challenge of ballots or voters (as provided in RCW 29.10.125) during the recount. The recount procedure provided for by statute is a mechanical function of re-tallying the ballots cast and accepted as valid by the precinct election officers or the canvassing board with respect to the inclusion or exclusion of a particular ballot during the canvass is not open to question during the recount.

The memo doesn’t say when they were advised, or by which Attorney General, nor in what context. The Gregoire campaign claims that this advice was given by the office of her Republican predecessor, Ken Eikenberry. This makes sense when you consider the memo in question concerned routine guidelines for conducting an election; it was not in response to any existing debate over recounts, so it would have been unlikely that Republican Secretary of State Ralph Munro, in 1996 an old hand at the job, would have suddenly sought a new opinion directly from the AG — indeed, no evidence has been provided claiming such an opinion was solicited.

In fact, the last time this issue arose was in 1990, during the very close race in the 24th Legislative District that was eventually decided by five votes. Ken Eikenberry and Ralph Munro were both in their respective offices at that time, and it seems plausible that the advice expressed in the 1996 memo stems from that earlier disputed election.

Neocon apologists like Stefan on (un)Sound Politics would place the burden of disproof on Gregoire, with absurd double-negatives like “I haven’t yet seen specific information that the AG office in 1996 had no knowledge of the opinion upon which Munro was relying.” And I haven’t seen evidence that Stefan is not the reincarnation of Joe McCarthy… but that doesn’t mean he is. (Then again, it doesn’t mean he isn’t.)

But regardless of who gave the advice and when, a close reading of the memo calls into question whether it specifically contradicts the Democratic lawsuit at all. The paragraph’s two sentences should be understood as two independent clauses. The first sentence clearly reflects the advice of an “AG”, but it would be presumptuous to infer that the second sentence is anything but a conclusion by the SOS. The AG’s advice is thus limited to the issue of whether RCW 29.10.125 makes a “provision for the challenge of ballots and voters” during a recount.

A literal reading of current state law suggests the AG’s advice is on target, because the statute makes no provision one way or the other. The RCW says “recount” and it says “all ballots cast”, but it fails to define either term. Yes, there is no provision that defines how a party might challenge ballots during a recount; but neither is there a provision that absolutely prevents canvassing boards from re-examining ballots on their own accord… an opinion that current SOS Sam Reed seemed to share in the TNT yesterday.

Oh, and by the way… the advice in the memo was based on an interpretation of RCW 29.10.125. Problem is, there is no RCW 29.10.125 on the books anymore, so the accusation of hypocrisy becomes shakier still in light of the fact that the law itself has changed in the intervening years.

On a curious side note… guess who was the Assistant AG assigned to the SOS at the time of the 1990 dispute? None other than Tim Eyman’s attorney, Jim Johnson, newly elected to the state Supreme Court on the strength of a familiar, alliterative name, and a half million dollars of BIAW money.

I mention this because it raises the very important issue of process. AGs and SOSs don’t generally give this kind of advice or write these kind of memos on their own; their staff handles it. So even if there was communication between the two offices in 1996, it’s unlikely that it would have been called to Gregoire’s attention on an issue that appeared to be settled practice as recently as 1990. Remember, Assistant AGs (and SOS staff) stay on from one administration to the next, and an Eikenberry holdover would have no reason to expect the office to reconsider this issue without a recent controversy.

And just to be sure I’m not accused of hypocrisy myself, I’d like to present a quote from a screed I wrote last year in which I repeatedly attacked the Attorney General for selectively seeking an injunction against my “Horse’s Ass” initiative: “And of course, wherever I refer to the ‘Attorney General,’ I am usually referring to her office.” Even I didn’t have the temerity to believe that my joke initiative was on her radar. The injunction was the work of an underling, as is most of the work of the office.

So what we have here is a eight-year-old memo, probably written by an SOS staffer, which included routine advice which may or may not have been given in 1996, or in 1990, by an Assistant AG in either Gregoire’s or Eikenberry’s office, about a vague lack of provision in a narrow portion of a statute that’s not even on the books anymore. And we’re asked to accept this as damning evidence of Gregoire’s contemptible hypocrisy?

Puh-leaaaase.

If Ralph Munro comes out tomorrow and states that he personally got this advice from Gregoire herself, then I’ll give this memo more credence. Otherwise it’s little more than gossip, hearsay and conjecture.

I don’t intend to obsessively dwell on the results of the hand recount as they slowly dribble in, unless there’s some kind of surprise to report. We all know that the prize is King County, and they’ll surely be the last to report. It’s kind of like watching the Seahawks on Monday Night Football.

Instead, I’ve added a scoreboard to the top of the page, which I will update at the end of each day, and whenever else I feel like it. I’ve provided a link to the results page on the Secretary of State’s web site, which will almost always be at least as current as mine.

As for the results thus far, it’s mostly been smaller, rural counties that have reported — less than 5% of the vote, and predominantly Rossi country. Too early to discern any trends.

I’ve been a little behind on my reading, so I only just noticed this tidbit in Ken Vogel’s very thorough article today in the Tacoma News Tribune. [Election mess heads to court]

Reed said county canvassing boards could re-examine some rejected ballots “if there is a problem brought to their attention,” But, he said, “they really don’t have the authority to on their own decide that not only are we going to do a recount, but we’re also going to systematically go back” and recanvass. That could change if a systematic error was discovered, he said, adding he thought that was unlikely.

What’s that? Secretary of State Sam Reed says King County can re-examine rejected ballots if a problem is brought to their attention? Well then, what the hell are we doing wasting our time in the courts? I’ll give you a systematic error… King has systematically disenfranchised hundreds of voters by anally holding to signature matching standards more stringent than any other county in the state! Hell, some counties didn’t even bother checking signatures!

We all know King County is the prize, and at least within the context of their lawsuit, the Democrats did the right thing in asking that the recanvass be statewide. But as far as I’m concerned, screw the courts. The party needs to play hardball with the Dems on the King County canvassing board, and get them to reexamine the rejected ballots. After all, Sam Reed has given his blessing.

In fact, this wouldn’t really be “recanvassing” at all. In most counties, the final decision to reject a ballot was made by the canvassing board — but not in King, where the decision to disenfranchise a voter was left to sub-canvass election workers. The canvass board has never even seen these ballots. I think it’s time they take a look.

The Washington State Supreme Court announced this morning that they will hear the state Dems request to issue uniform guidelines for the recount. Oral arguments will be heard before the full court, Monday Dec. 13, at 1:30PM.

Conservatives aren’t funny.

I know, that’s a bit of a generalization… but I’m comfortable with it. I mean really… apart from P.J. O’Rourke, name me one fall-down-funny conservative or neo-con?

Oh they’re awfully good at name-calling — clever or otherwise — but funny? Sarcasm without irony comes across as just plain angry.

Take for example the right’s latest attempt to poke fun at WA Democrats, Gregoire the Grinch, a lazy piece of neo-satire that proves once again that alliteration is no substitute for wit. What offends me most are not the lame, partisan insults, but the absolute failure to mine the rich vein of material Dr. Seuss provides to any self-respecting parodist. They couldn’t even bother to write their mere dozen lines in the style of Dr. Seuss.

Pathetic.

They just better hope that the very litigious Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LP doesn’t catch wind of their unauthorized use of a Grinch illustration, because they’ll sue for trademark violation in a two-size-too-small heartbeat. How do I know? Well, a few years back I wrote a (constitutionally protected) parody of the very same Seuss story, and my agent told me publishers backed away for fear of the inevitable, expensive lawsuit.

And so on this first day of Chanukah, as a lesson to the righties of the true meaning of “parody” — and with undying admiration for the late, great Dr. Seuss (if not the exploitive corporation that survives him) — I publicly present for the first time what is sure to become an enduring holiday classic: How the Kvetch Stole Chanukah.

As promised, I have posted the Republican response to the Democrat’s lawsuit. All the documents I have managed to obtain thus far are available for download in an easy to manage .ZIP file. Or you can separately retrieve PDFs of both the Secretary of State’s Response, and the Rossi Brief.

For good measure, I have also thrown in a copy of the 1996 memo the Rossi campaign has been touting, in which the SOS says that they were advised by the Attorney General’s office (that would have been Gregoire at the time), that the “decision of the canvassing board with respect to the inclusion or exclusion of a particular ballot during the canvass is not open to question during the recount.” It’s an effective PR maneuver, but even an official AGO wouldn’t have any legal standing.

[UPDATE: The AP reports that Democratic Spokeswoman Kristen Brost claims the memo is not what it seems: “Brost said that memo referred to legal advice from previous state attorneys general, not from Gregoire.”]

My impression of the SOS brief is that Sam Reed has hired very good lawyers. Their brief is well argued, and at least as compelling as the Dems. They argue that this is a “recount”, not a “re-canvass”, and that’s the way recounts have always been conducted. (Except, of course, for the first recount.) But then, I’m not an attorney, so what the hell do I know.

However, Rossi’s brief reads like it was written by PR hacks, not lawyers. By it’s whiny, condescending tone, it is clearly intended more for the court of public opinion than the Supremes.

Whatever.

There, I’ve given you both sides of the dispute, a gesture of fairness I suppose the neo-cons will inevitably view as a sign of weakness. I just hope you all appreciate the irony that it is the “outrageous” HorsesAss.Org that is truly promoting informed debate, rather than the obversely named Sound Politics.