As reported widely, the King County Canvassing Board voted 2-1 today to proceed with signature verification on the 573 absentee ballots that had been erroneously rejected when computer records did not have their signatures on file. County Elections Director Dean Logan believes most of the ballots belong to valid, registered voters. Ballots with matching signatures will be brought back before the canvassing board.
The board postponed a decision on what to do with the 22 absentee and provisional ballots recently discovered in the base of voting machines.
Yes! More theater!
I wonder if anyone at the Times or PI or Democratic offices are trying to contact the other 1000 people on that list. Just curious to see, not that I feel those votes will end up counting.
On NWCNews, they interviewed someone from the list. So some press is trying to contact them.
So are the other 1000 definitively out? Or is it still up to King County to look at those ballots again? I’m presuming the rest are out, or the King County Canvassing Board would be talking about them. Just trying to get the scoop.
Anyone know what happened with Whatcom’s big vote shrinkage?
oops, I meant Skagit. Sorry about that.
One fo the 1500 on King County’s lawsuit list works for me. He has told me he would switch his vote from Gregoire to Rossi today if he could. He ignored multiple phone calls after the vote to come in and sign his absentee, as well as at least one postcard. There is no valid reason this vote should count.
Zip: His vote should count if he followed the rules. We all subscribe to the “don’t change the rules” mantra. Don’t change the rules means if someone followed the rules, their vote should count. If they didn’t follow the rules, their vote shouldn’t count.
I know some people who voted for Gregoire who wished they voted for Rossi. And I know some Rossi people who wished they voted for Gregoire Following the rules doesn’t allow any of these people to change their votes, right?
Tom – read what was said about the voter in question. He did not sign his ballot, had notice of the error, chose to ignore the chance to correct his mistake. No count, no problem. His problem his mistake. Un signed ballots are out unless they get corrected. Signed ballots with quote ” signaure match problems”…..real messy stuff here.
If that’s against the rules, it shouldn’t count.
What if some are on the list of 1500?
were the 573 voters contacted by the County becasue their signatures did not match?
Good question. I haven’t seen an answer to that.
Ask your pal Larry Phillips…he seems to be the expert on this.
Allegedly King County didn’t have Phillips signature scanned in. Yet it was scanned in twice (I was told) into the Secretary of State’s voter registration. Now it is my understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong), that each County scans the signatures in and sends them to the Secretary of State. If that is the case…how in the world could they have it in Olympia and not in King County?????
Goldy…if you are interested in a fair election, pullleeeaaasssee check this out. And while you are at it, ask Larry Phillips who gave him the list with his name on it. I would just like a straight answer to clear all this up.
My guess is that they were, because within the first few weeks of the inital count the 573 were a part of the 1555. My friend was in the 1555 (I checked the list and sure enough there he is) and he was called.
Assuming that the 573 were contacted, messages were left, postcards were sent, giving them oppoertunity to come in and make their vote count, their votes should not be now counted if they blew it off. This scenario is typical of modern life, you do something, the institution goofs, you call them or they call you and it gets fixed. In the case of the 573, (if you go with my assumption) the voter dropped the ball just as far as the county did.
Another question that is relevant to these, (still on my assumption) how many absentees with no match were first found, who did respond to calls and got their votes counted?
What is a tougher thing to do to get a vote counted, return a phone message or stand in line in Ohio for hours on end? Thousands of people did that to get their votes in. Just to put some persepctive to it.
If somebody with the answer would return my phone calls, I’d love to clear this up. You may be under the mistaken impression that I am some kind of a Democratic party insider.
Yeah, but for the vast majority of us 3 million voters, all we had to do to get our vote counted was… um… vote. I really don’t think most voters had a concept before this debacle that they might have to do anything more than that.
Goldy–
All joking aside…I do appreciate that you want to do the right thing by all of this. I have questioned the R’s on several issues…like this additional 10,000 vote BS that keeps coming up (before the original count…remember…when counties were ESTIMATING ballots to be counted and King County underestimated absentees thus low-balled ballots left to count). In fact I heard it again today and called Republican HQ and asked them to knock it off!! I do agree however that was a sign that Dean Logan lacked certain oversight skills by failing to simply walk into the room uncounted ballots were kept and simply take a look. 10,000 is like 333 huge trays of ballots for God sakes!!
Anyway, I appreciate you quizzing Mr. Phillips on exactly how all this transpired and the alleged no signatures scanned on the King Co. system when they apparently had it in Olympia???????
So….if I mail in my vote and the county tries to get in touch with me to fix a mistake that was made, either by me or them, and tries to call me, sends me postcards, etc. I should just blow that off and still whine about my vote not counting? The phone messages and postcard told me I have to do more. If I don’t do it, I don’t “vote”.
Think of all the other things govt. supoervises; how many times have each of us had to correct a snafu that was not caused by us? We did it because it is an expected part of getting a desired result in a big bureacratic system prone to the occasional error. Compare this to those “unclaimed property” lists the newspaper publishes once a year or so. If I don’t make the call and claim it, I don’t get it. Similar situation here.
If these 573 people were called during the first count and blew it off their votes should not be counted.
“I get to vote, I did it right, and it gets to count,” said King County Councilman Larry Phillips (in the PI)
Maybe, maybe not. Did the County give you a call about this? Did you have a chance to correct this before the first count? Some decent reporting by the newspapers would help here.
zip–
Attaway! Phillips has created a lot more ??? than answers, that’s for sure. Hopefully he will respond to questions…my feeling is perhaps he has said too much already. Right now, things just don’t add up. I think the public ought to also see his envelope he mailed in. What is the postmark?? And good questions about whether he was contact or not. I’m not saying his vote shouldn’t be counted. I’m just saying because he was the instigator of these new ballots and is in such a high profile position, he needs to stand up publicly in a press conference and answer every question…and that includes about his prior comments. Let’s get this mystery off the table…ASAP!
Don’t count on the PI to uncover any facts embarassing to Phillips.
zip–
No Kidding!
I just think Larry Phillips should subject himself to open questioning because he instigated these additional ballots and he is the Chair of the King County Council for the love of God!
Goldy- any word on the story behind the “other” 245 ballots- the ballots were the county canvassing board has to make a decision on voter intent? I’ve not been able to find anything on this.
For prognostication, my Magic 8 Ball wants to know if these were previously machine counted ballots (so they were in the previous totals) that the human counters now see no obvious intent, or if they were thought to have no obvious vote (so were NOT previously counted), but that question is being reopened.
In the first case, if these will be disappearing votes, that will likely hurt Gregoire more than Rossi (assume 57-40, that’s a possible net loss to Gregoire of three dozen votes); if the second case, just the opposite.
On second thought, don’t post the answer if you know it- THAT uncertainty could blow Nostrasnarkus’ excel to pieces, and all the bullshit in the world couldn’t put Humpty Snarkdy back together again
Okay, you all – read this from today’s The Olympian, “All eyes on King County”:
——–
A chance discovery
Phillips learned about his rejected vote quite by chance, he said. As an active Democrat and chairman of the King County Council, he was invited Sunday to join other Democrats going door-to-door for Gregoire’s campaign. The idea was to talk to voters whose absentee ballots had been rejected and see if they could get valid signatures to ensure the ballots were counted.
When Phillips got a list of voters for the Queen Anne and Fremont areas of the city, which he had pledged to check out, he scanned it, looking to see if he knew anybody.
——–
So they were going hunting anyway… how conveinent?
Jim, I haven’t heard anything firm on the 245. But it would be a mistake to characterize these as “new” ballots.
It just goes to show you how hand counts can be more accurate than machines. I’ve seen a couple of these on TV, and they look ridiculous. If a human can’t discern voter intent on these ballots, how did the scanners?
On second thought… are the “245” the 245 of the 573 that have already have their signatures verified? Or are you referring to a different 245?
Goldy- I know they are not “new” ballots- they are ballots that were accepted previously- and the canvassing board dealt with them today/tonight. That’s what we both have seen on TV. They do not seem to be in dispute.
I’m just trying to figure out if intent was discerned previously, at a staff level (during last count), but it was decided to bounce up to Canvassing Board this time, or what. As I noted, these could be votes- not ballots- added or subtracted depending upon how they were handled last count. And this count.
Just trying to gather data.
Pierce has some data on their website- looks like they are close to finished, currently Gregoire up 199, Rossi up 182, an uncertain number left to be counted. With 392 added good votes (Bennett has 11), we see Write-in reduced by 1, over-vote reduced by 2, under-vote reduced by 457- total reduction in bad votes of 460. That leaves 68 votes to count, which matches the number needed to reconcile ballots cast between machine and manual counts. Unless new ballots are found (we had an increase of 9 in ballots cast in Pierce County, from original count to machine recount).
Goldy- there were three groups of ballots before the Canvassing Board- the 573, the 22, and 245 that required the canvassing board to discern intent- the ones we saw them working on. The 573 have NOT been opened- Logan was instructed to check signatures, and report back on Monday. The 22 have also been held until Monday.
Question If this is a manual count of the entire state, then why is the 42 (Rossi lead) votes from machine count being added?
Robin- the tallying you see people doing is the difference, from the machine count to the manual count- so most tally’s start with the machine count as the base, then note the additions are subtractions that get you to the manual count.
He started up by 42. He gained x in one county, lost y in another (in margin over Gregoire), so he’s ahead 42 plus x minus y…
Goldy- you are right that they have found signatures on file for 245 of the 573. Media also reported 245 “voter intent to be determined” ballots in front of the canvassing board today. Media may have confused the numbers, but there were x number “intent” ballots, and the reports said x was 245. Will run with that for now.
King County Canvassing Board also meets Tuesday to “discern intent”, preparatory to being completed on Wednesday.
Question being asked is, can we correct signature problems on the 573?
By the way, the Kvetch was a hit at the IBA Christmas Party. Your stock continues to rise…
Now, Locke budget released in the morning. Time for zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Jim
Thanks
Comment by Jim King— 12/16/04 @ 12:37 am
1230 Hours today, Gridlocke’s budget conference on TVW…
You mean Gary Locke. He is right when he says we need new revenue. There is very little left to cut without doing harm to people.
Comment by Sandra Morrison— 12/16/04 @ 1:21 am
No argument here, Sandra. None at all. I just don’t like him too much.
You all – figured you wanted to not have to wait until high noon for the story from Skagit County. This is what happened according to the Everett Herald:
In Skagit County, the issue was about subtracting, not adding.
Gregoire lost 16 votes and Rossi lost five after vote counters determined that one stack of ballots had been counted twice in November’s machine recount. Six people – two Republicans, two Democrats and two nonpartisans – verified the mistake, and Skagit County’s canvassing board made the correction, elections supervisor Erika Kubischta said.
I’d add the HTML, but that would delay this posting a few hours. You can always do a Google News search…
Here is Skagit County’s results – in PDF:
http://www.skagitcounty.net/Au.....stract.pdf
Thanks Josef – good catch on Skagit county’s part. That’s exactly the kind of thing that makes this hand recount worthwhile. Again, I’m not claiming we’re moving toward 100% accuracy, but I feel like we’re getting more accurate and also serving to highlight all the flaws with our existing mishmash of voting and vote counting methodology
So… while elsewhere in the Matrix they are apoplectic over the 573, which may only amount to 245 if that is all the signatures that can be found…
The King County Canvassing Board is discerning voters’ intent on another 245(?) with more of those next Tuesday…
Pierce County has reduced its “bad” votes by 460, yielding a net 17 for Gregoire in the process… (Bad votes- write-in, over-vote, undervote- these are being transformed into good. discernible votes…)
Again- folks, the process, working properly, has added 460 votes in Pierce County. Those votes favored Gregoire. I am not happy about that (being a strong Rossi supporter), but…
Let the Snark put that in his hookah and smoke it!!!!!
Wow, 460 more voters who get their votes counted, influencing the governance of their state. I love it. As I’ve said many times, if Rossi wins this recount, good for him. If Gregoire wins, good for her. Regardless, good for all of us.
I know election reform is always a “goal”, but lets hope after this election it actually gets some traction. I’m not in favor of doing things like moving up the time ballots have to be in (can’t control the post office), but I like other proposals, like standardizing the technology used, moving up the primary, etc.
I’ve now heard that Ralph Munro is saying we could have a new election in February… GOOD!
Jim… where are you getting your information on Pierce County? (Or can’t you say?)
Goldy- on the highly secret Pierce County website- they’ve been posting daily updates. The News Tribune notes that count, other than canvassing board decisions, apparently wrapped at 10:30am yesterday.
Thanks Jim… since the time I asked and the time you answered I managed to figure out “hey… why not just look on their website?” It seems Gregoire has picked up 17, with only about 75 ballots left for the canvassing board to divine.
It is interesting to see how the under vote went from 6979 in the first (preliminary) count, to 6486 in the machine recount, to 6029 (thus far) in the hand recount. That’s 950 voters who were re-enfranchised in Pierce County alone! Kind of blows away the arguments against recounts, doesn’t it?
Goldy- my argument against handcounts’ accuracy is ONLY in the tabulating part. I am bothered that these undervotes were not caught in the first recount- that is SUPPOSED to happen. I am glad they are being caught now, regardless of outcome…