Several weeks ago I gave an account of my niece Maria’s struggle to get a Wisconsin state ID card so that she could vote under Walker’s stricter ID voting laws. She made three trips to the Department of Motor Vehicles office and on the third trip they rejected one of her IDs—her birth certificate—because it didn’t clearly distinguish her middle name(s) from her last name(s). That she had two other forms of ID didn’t make any difference.
I mentioned in the comment thread that a memo was uncovered in which a top administrator directed DMV employees to NOT inform people that these IDs were free. There has been speculation that there is a more sweeping directive to obstruct people from obtaining these IDs in other ways as well.
It seemed pretty clear to me that Maria was a victim of some kind of obstruction. I don’t know if the employees were targeting everyone trying to get a free state ID or whether Maria, a young Hispanic woman with a disability, who produced a student ID as one of her three IDs, fit some profile of people for exclusion.
Either way, the results are identical—disenfranchising likely Democrats. The people who have no driver’s license are more likely to be at the margins of society: the young, the elderly, the poor, those with a disability, students, the unemployed, and so on.
The story continues. Last week, Maria’s mother (my sister) had some time off from work, and could personally transport Maria to the DMV during business hours. She had an idea…something to try before going through the trouble and expense (and possibly the legal procedures needed) to obtain a birth certificate that clearly specified whether her first (middle) and last names were “Maria (Elaine) Valdez Holman” or “Maria (Elaine Valdez) Holman” (…as if there is some big fucking ambiguity there).
The DMV office that Maria previously visited was on Madison’s west side. That would be the more well-to-do, lily-white side of town. Perhaps, my sister reasoned, Maria would have better “luck” going to the east side DMV. The east side of Madison is much more culturally, ethnically, and socioeconomically heterogeneous.
So last week she takes Maria to the east-side DMV. Maria got her ID with no difficulties whatsoever. No problems with the birth certificate. Indeed, they gave a cursory glance to her three IDs and got down to business. Mission Accomplished!
Yeah…it took four freakin’ trips to two different DMV offices, but Mission Fucking Accomplished!
Maria was lucky. She is a determined young woman. She is particularly determined to vote against Gov. Scott Walker. So she got her ID through brute force perseverance.
Other people in a similar situation may not have the motivation, the time, the resources, the luxury to make four trips to the DMV, just to meet new bullshit administrative hurdles required to vote later this year. 
I’m happy for Maria. I’m sad for my beloved Wisconsin. I’m ashamed for what the Republicans have done to her. A video of the experience of another Madison mother trying to get her son a voting ID (and some answers) can be seen here.
Since this is a Washington state blog…let me bring it home by repeating my warning: A Governor Rob McKenna will take actions to disenfranchise the Marias of Washington state.
McKenna, and the Washington state Republicans, have never gotten over the 2004 election. They are convinced the Democrats stole the governorship from them by systematic voter fraud. For them, Washington state is the the number one example of unchecked, rampant election fraud. And Governor McKenna will do something about it.
Besides Wisconsin, new laws that disenfranchise people by limiting registration periods, restricting registration drives, making stricter ID requirements, chopping early voting laws, or reverse felon voting rights have been have been passed in Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Kansas, Tennessee, Florida, Maine, Georgia, Ohio, and Iowa. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It’s obviously part of a broader G.O.P. agenda.
Seriously…if Washington state gets a Republican Governor Rob McKenna, what do you think the chances are that our voting laws and rules will continue without some sort of assault?
It may be new voter registration ID requirements. It may be an attempt to reverse all mail-in voting. It could be new restrictions on voter registration drives. Perhaps it will include a reduced window for voter registration.
I hope the people and the press fully vet McKenna on “his” ideas for changing our voting systems before next November.
“McKenna, and the Washington state Republicans, have never gotten over the 2004 election. They are convinced the Democrats stole the governorship from them by systematic voter fraud.”
So, if the King County election people did their job, Rossi would have lost on the first ballot with no recount. The whole thing reeked to high heaven of either incompetance or fraud. Which one was it?
Well, of course there’s an ambiguity! It makes a big difference whether her surname is Holman or Valdez Holman or Valdez-Holman. They could be three different people, even if they have the same body. If her surname is Holman, then she has two middle names, which by itself is suspicious because how many white male Republicans have more than one middle name? She could be a Middle Eastern terrorist for all the DMV bureaucrat knows! Was she wearing a burkha? If not, had she ever considered wearing a burkha? This obviously bears further investigation. We can’t allow people like that to get on planes or vote until they’ve been cleared by security.
Politically Incorrect @ 1,
No. In fact, King County did not have the highest error rate (IIRC it was 4th highest).
It “reeked of fraud” because you are gullible, and fell victim to the GOP spin. In fact, there was not a shred of evidence for systematic fraud for King County or any other county.
The Republicans promised to provide such evidence during the opening argument of the trial.
It was totally vaporware.
It was successful in spreading their (false) meme (witness, um…YOU), but the charge was groundless.
@1, It is obvious you think it was fraud. The recount was certified by the Sec. of State (R) and reviewed by the United States Attorney (another R) who found no fraud.
@3, who came in 1,2 & 3?
@1 “So, if the King County election people did their job, Rossi would have lost on the first ballot with no recount.”
That isn’t true, and this statement shows you don’t understand the vote counting process.
In 2004, King County used paper ballots, and counted votes with optical scanning machines. You don’t get a 100% accurate count with a machine count, but most of the time it doesn’t matter because most elections aren’t close enough for the small error rate to affect the outcome.
There are various reasons why a ballot might not be counted in the Election Eve machine count. There’s no such thing as a perfectly run election, and some ballots inadvertently get mislaid — they may get stuck in a polling place machine, or put in a ballot bag that is set aside, or they can fall out of a tray in the ballot storage facility, etc.
Also, the optical scanning machines won’t read a ballot that is frayed along the edges, torn, bent, or has stains or stray marks.
In other words, there are always some ballots that don’t get tallied in the initial machine counting because of human or mechanical error.
State law provides for up to two subsequent recounts, and the total number of votes will always increase in each successive recount because each recount picks up ballots that weren’t counted in the previous counts.
Also, in a hotly contested close election such as we had in 2004, the partiues’ official observers dispute more ballots, and disputed ballots get much closer scrutiny. In this respect, Washington election law is based on “voter intent,” so human judgment will be used to determine who the voter intended to vote for, if there is any ambiguity on the face of the ballot. The final arbiter of disputed ballots is the county canvassing board.
In 2004, there were two recounts, a machine recount and a manual recount. The total number of votes statewide increased in each of the two recounts. In the manual recount, each and every King County ballot was counted at least three times by three separate counting teams that consisted of a counter chosen by the GOP, a counter chosen by the Democrats, and a county employee who acted as a neutral recordkeeper. Each team was given a box containing all the ballots from one precinct, and the GOP and Democratic counters each counted all of the ballots independently. Their tallies had to agree exactly. If they didn’t, they counted all the ballots again, and if their tallies still didn’t agree, those ballots were taken away from them and given to another team. This process was repeated at least three times by different teams for every precinct, and some precincts were counted up to seven separate times by different counting teams.
In the manual recount, either counter on a team could pull out a ballot for dispute. No reason had to be given and there was no discussion or negotiation. If either of a team’s counters pulled out a ballot for dispute, it automatically went to the King County canvassing board, which consisted of Dan Satterberg (a Republican) from the prosecuting attorney’s office, a Democratic King County Council member, and the elections director.
During the course of the ballot counting in 2004, some “lost” or mislaid ballots were found in several counties, including King and Whatcom counties. These were reported in the news media at the time. There is never any evidence that they were anything other than ballots that had been cast by qualified voters on Election Day, or that they were intentionally mislaid; these were all cases of ballots being inadvertently mislaid by election workers, and the number of such ballots was very small.
Post-election analyses showed that while the 2004 election was not error-free, the error rates in King County and statewide were typical of error rates in other elections and in other jurisdictions across the nation.
There is absolutely no basis for Republican claims that the 2004 was “stolen.” These arguments should have been laid to rest after the GOP spent $2 million in legal fees to contest the election before a handpicked Republican judge in a carefully forum-shopped Republican eastern Washington county (i.e., Chelan County). The result of the trial is that out of nearly 3 million ballots cast, the judge found 4 votes — all of them for Rossi — invalid and subtracted them from Rossi’s total.
If it sounds like I was an eyewitness to the counting of ballots in 2004, well, I was. Maybe the news media didn’t notice, but there was a rabbit on the official observer team. I personally observed both recounts.
And what I can tell you about the recounts is this:
First, Chris Vance, the King County GOP chairman, never once entered the building where the ballot counting was taking place. He showed up almost every day to give press conferences in the parking lot, but he never went into the building itself, so Vance never personally observed the ballot counting process. So how did he know what was going on? Well, the answer to that is,
Second, I attended some of those press conferences, and the statements made to the press by Vance and other GOP representatives were scripted in advance. It was obvious they were. They bore no relationship to what actually happened in the building. The GOP knew what it wanted to tell the world, and like the runup to the Iraq invasion, the facts were “fixed” to fit the pre-tailored conclusion. It was a blatant exercise in dishonesty. Or, if you wish to be more diplomatic about it, the GOP’s scripted public statements were fiction.
Now, PC, if you still want to debate what happened in the 2004 election, my answer is simply this: I was there every day, from 6 AM until 10 PM, of both recounts as an official observer. To get into the building, you had to sign in, and part of my job on behalf of the Democrats was keeping track of who came and went, so I knew the name of every person who was in that building at any time. I watched the Republican observers — mostly low-wage workers from a couple of companies that had provided their employees to the GOP to work as observers on paid company time — read books, knit, gossip, and do everything except watch ballots being counted. They were more or less supervised by GOP party staff who, like us, were set up at a table in the main lobby. We fraternized with the GOP folks, and they fraternized with us, and we shared our pizza and cokes with them, and they with us. It was extremely clear to me that the Republicans weren’t at all concerned about how the ballots were being counted and didn’t give a damn that their observers weren’t paying any attention to the election workers — who were temporary workers hired by the county — feeding ballots through the scanning machines. Both parties had official observers who worked together in setting aside damaged or unreadable ballots to go to the canvassing board. There was no hanky-panky in that building, none, nada, zip. I also should mention that the observers had to stand or sit behind rope lines and weren’t allowed to get near or touch ballots. Only the official county workers were allowed to handle or touch ballots, and there were county supervisors watching them work at all times.
So, as I said, if you want to debate this with me, my answer is that I was there and as far as I know you weren’t — it doesn’t sound like you were, because it sounds like you don’t know anything about it. So if you want to pit your word against mine, my answer is, I was there and know what I’m talking about, and you weren’t there and don’t know what you’re talking about, and that’s that.
Further on the subject of the 2004 election, Rossi led statewide after the two machine counts — the Election Night machine count, and the machine recount.
In the manual recount, King County was the last county to report, because it had more ballots to count — almost 3 million. All the other counties finished their manual recounts within a few days, but it took King County two weeks. That meant that when King County reported, we knew what the statewide tally was, except for ballots still being considered by county canvassing boards. The last ballots to be tallied and reported were those being counted by the King County canvassing board.
When the results of King County’s manual recount were posted, I was standing right next to Dean Logan, and he and I and five or six other observers were the first people in the state to see the result. That result was: After King County completed its manual recount, but before the canvassing board ballots were added, Gregoire was ahead by 8 votes. The canvassing board ballots added to the totals of both candidates, but Gregoire got 125 more canvassing board-counted votes than Rossi did, bringing her margin to 133 votes. In the election contest lawsuit, the judge subtracted 4 votes from Rossi’s column, so Gregoire’s final official margin was 129 votes.
That was the result of an extremely careful hand-counting of every ballot in the state by teams of Republican and Democratic party-selected counters who could (and did) send any ballot they wanted to on to a county canvassing board for determination.
@3 “It “reeked of fraud” because you are gullible, and fell victim to the GOP spin. In fact, there was not a shred of evidence for systematic fraud for King County or any other county.”
Having officially observed both King County recounts, I agree with this, insofar as it pertains to King County, which is where the GOPers alleged the “ballot fraud” occurred. I have no personal knowledge of the recounting in the other 38 counties.
@5 I assume you’re asking Darryl. I used to know this, but I’ve forgotten. It may be buried in my old paper files somewhere, or maybe I got rid of those files in one of my spring burrow cleanings.
“It may be an attempt to reverse all mail-in voting.”
Absolutely. Republicans hate absentee voting, and eliminating mail-in voting will be a top priority for them.
After the 2004 election, SoS Reed held a series of townhalls on election procedures around the state, and I attended one of them. After his presentation, I talked with him one-on-one. There was an older Republican lady standing right next to me.
I told Reed that it was important to make absentee voting as accessible as possible because our state has a lot of people who have to make their livelihood away from home — pilots, seaman, construction workers, fishermen, people working seasonal jobs in Alaska, etc. This Republican woman starts shaking her head “no” … her attitude was if you have a job that forces you to be away from home on Election Day, that’s tough shit. If you can’t go to a polling place in your precinct to vote, then you don’t have a right to vote or have any say in who runs our state and country. That’s their attitude.
Here’s what I’ll say about this. I’m a Vietnam veteran. A lot of the 19 and 20 year olds died in Vietnam weren’t allowed to vote because they weren’t 21 yet. We have an 18-year-old voting age in this country now because of Vietnam. Congress and state legislatures realized there was something wrong with the idea that people who were old enough to die in Vietnam weren’t old enough to vote, so they changed the voting age.
There’s more I want to say. We were told we were fighting in Vietnam to defend our freedoms. Our single most important freedom is the right to vote for our leaders. Without that right, none of our other freedoms will last. My buddies died in Vietnam to protect and preserve the right to vote and our other freedoms. Anyone who tries to take that right away from any American citizen for any reason is going to have to walk over my dead body before I’ll allow them to do it. These Republicans who work so hard to keep Americans from voting in their own country piss me off big-time. Are you listening, Republican assholes? Nothing motivates me to work to defeat your candidates like your voter suppression activities. I’ll hate you for that. In my eyes, it makes you lower than sewer rats — you are scum of scum. I repeat, it pisses me off. This isn’t an intellectual conversation we’re having here, this is something that provokes me at a profoundly visceral level. If you’re one of the low-life motherfuckers trying to keep American citizens from voting in their own country, I see the faces of my dead buddies who fought to defend those rights, and I hate your motherfucking guts. Do you slimesuckers have any questions for me about how I feel about this?
well, if it ain’t fraud, it sure as hell is incompetance.
“We have an 18-year-old voting age in this country now because of Vietnam.”
We should also have wine and beer avaiable to 18-year-olds. Why can’t a person who goes off to the next fucking misadventure be able to have a beer with his or her buds?
@11 You don’t know what you’re talking about, so stop polluting this thread with that garbage.
@10,
If you’d really like to read about voter intimidation, the history of the Irish, vis-a-vis the British Empire’s tyranny in Ireland, makes some good reading. The Brits essentially tried to remove all the Irish from Ireland except those who would be the slaves for the linen mills and coal mines. The Irish Catholics were worse than fourth-class citizens in their own country, and the Scots gladly helped the Brits subjugate Ireland to the “glorious” British Empire. In fact, the whole thing is continuting today in Ulster.
It’s time for the Brits to end their fucking empire and let the Irish have self-determination for the entire Emrald Isle. If the Scots living in Ulster don’t like that, they can always take a short ferry ride East, across the Irish Sea, to return to their master’s empire.
Once the Brits end their empire, maybe we can work on ending ours.
@12 In Vietnam, enlisted men weren’t allowed to have hard liquor, only beer, because the Army believed they weren’t mature enough to handle it. So they got stoned instead. Meanwhile, many of our officers were fucking drunks.
@13,
Must have scored a direct hit on the rodent.
@14 We’re not talking about Ireland here. You spewed crap about Washington’s 2004 gubernatorial election and I put you in your place. I don’t give a damn what the Brits did in Ireland. That has nothing to do with the bullshit you’re posting about the 2004 election.
@15,
I’m not talking about 40 years ago, rodent. I’m talking about today. Wine and beer should be available to 18-year-olds today.
21 is OK for hard liquor, 18 for beer and wine.
@16 In your wet dreams.
@18 That’s a different issue that has nothing to do with elections.
@17,
You haven’t finished anything, rodent. You’re just a sad little rodent whose life has been totally useless. You would have been better service to humanity as a dung beetle.
Looks like we have another cut-and-run troll who changes the subject when he’s getting his ass kicked.
@21 Let’s take a public vote on that assertion.
If you think I won this argument, check this box [ ].
If you think head-up-his-ass-troll won, check this box [ ].
The only one with his head up his ass is the rodent.
@6 deserves to be a front page post, so, yeah.
If you can’t win the argument, change the subject! That always works.
Roger Rabbit above,
“but Gregoire got 125 more canvassing board-counted votes than Rossi did, bringing her margin to 133 votes. In the election contest lawsuit, the judge subtracted 4 votes from Rossi’s column, so Gregoire’s final official margin was 129 votes.
Other way around.
Gregoire led by 129 votes after the hand recount. Judge Bridges subtracted four proven illegal votes from Rossi’s total, leaving Gregiore with a 133 vote margin.
Ekim @ 5,
“who came in 1,2 & 3?”
I don’t remember either. I’ve written about it and put it in the HA comment threads as well.
Politically Incorrect @ 11
“well, if it ain’t fraud, it sure as hell is incompetance.”
Objectively, no. Once again you have been snookered by Wingnut rhetoric.
In one of his 2005 blog posts here, Goldy linked to an academic study that estimated error rates in closely scrutinized elections (like Florida, 2000). The “typical” error rate of such elections was something like an order of magnitude larger than the error rate of the WA 2004 gubernatorial election. By historic standards, the first Gregoire—Rossi contest was squeaky clean as assessed by the number of errors per 100,000 votes cast.
@ Roger Rabbit
Thanks for the behind the scenes details on the recounts. I knew it was rigorous, but had no idea HOW rigorous.
@ Darryl
I’m glad Maria had the fortitude to persist until she got that Voter ID. I’m seriously worried about all this voter suppression – thanks to the ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, scheme. Yes, it’s not mere coincidence that it’s happening in so many states!
I’m hoping that all the outrage and excitement to recall Scott Walker will boost WI voters to get their IDs or help their neighbors pursue an ID.
I’ve voted before for McKenna but NEVER AGAIN. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that he wants to lead us down the WI/ALEC road!
http://horsesass.org/?p=752#comment-39106
@24 – rabbits aren’t rodents; they are lagomorphs.
And, like Goldy, I miss the local polling place.
19. Roger Rabbit spews:
@16 In your wet brain dreams.
There, fixed.
# 10: Back in the late 1960’s, I read about a “war” that started back in East Tennessee. It seems that the G.I.s came back from WWII to find that the county had been taken over by some redneck storm-trooper types who used arrests and beatings to enforce their control. It was being run by the sheriff, who in Tennesse holds more power than any county executives (think of Buford Pusser).
The G.I.s mounted a campaign to kick them out of office. The sherriff’s deputies responded by beating up anyone putting up posters for the G.I. candidate, and posting deputies at the polling places. The ballots were placed in thin envelopes so that someone could read the ballot through the envelope, and the deputy would require each voter to hand him the ballot, he would inspect it, and if they voted for the “wrong” person, they would be taken out back and beaten to within an inch of their life.
But towards the end of the day the sheriff and his cronies weren’t sure if that was enough, so they closed the polling stations and confiscated the ballot boxes, taking them to the jail for “counting”. That was the straw which broke the came’s back.
A hostile crowd surrounded the jail and demanded the ballot boxes back. After some taunts, some shots were fired from the jail. The crowd scattered,but soon the G.I.s were firing on the jail. from cover. Remember, most had only recently come back from service in Europe and the Pacific, and assaulting a position was something they knew how to do. By the time everyone had their rifles from home (this is rural East Tennessee, remember), and someone got hold of some dynamite, they were working their way forward to the jail, throwing dynamite and providing covering fire for one another. The Sheriff and his deputies didn’t ahve a chance, and when dynamite exploded on the front porch of the jail, they flew a white flag. They agreed to turn over the ballots in exchange for a promise to be allowed to leave the county safely.
The sheriff raced to Chattanooga, and tried to talk a local judge into invalidating the election and putting his opponants in jail. He refused.
I’d love to provide more details, but it’s in a book somewhere in the top of my bookshelf. I’ve never found information on the story online – it seems that nobody really wants to talk too much about it.
This asshole has the primary Republican characteristic of being dead fucking wrong, and being an absolute jerk about it.
Rabbit wins, btw…as usual.