Back on November 2, the gubernatorial election was far from my major concern.
I spent much of election day following the exit poll leaks, buoyed by what appeared to be record voter turnout nationwide and stronger than expected support for John Kerry in several key states. But as the polls started closing, reality set it — Ohio, which seemed certain to break Bush’s back, inexplicably broke Kerry’s instead. I never went downtown to the big Democratic “victory” party, instead choosing to watch the defeat unfold at home. That night, alone in my despair I blogged:
I never accepted the legitimacy of W’s first administration and I will never accept the legitimacy of his second. At this moment, I cannot imagine being convinced that this was a free and fair election. Quite simply, I fear for our democracy.
To which HA received its first mention from the kind folks over at (un)Sound Politics; a short, smug, snide, and perhaps deserved dig: “Yeah, whatever, aluminum hat boy.”
We had no history at that point, and I thought Stefan could have shown a bit more empathy, allowing me a brief moment to sit political shiva. But I recognized his comment as the kind of sarcastic cut I might make, and so I took it in stride, and replied in a self-deprecating manner in Stefan’s comment thread. (At that point, I still believed him to be a reasonable person with whom one could have a reasonable and lively — if somewhat insulting — debate.)
As to Ohio? Well, I’ve barely followed it, and have hardly mentioned it here since… partly because I prefer to make accusations of election fraud based on hard facts, and partly because I got sucked into covering events back home.
Ironically, it turned out to be Stefan who sported a chronic case of helmut-hair from his mind-control-ray-blocking headwear.
Even before the election, the (u)SP folks were steeling themselves for defeat, bandying about the reassuring notion that the Washington state GOP’s dismal history at the polls was more a result of “distributed vote fraud” than actual rejection by the electorate. And from the very first prolonged vote count, Stefan and his fellow travelers quickly established themselves as the gubernatorial election’s leading conspiracy theorists.
From the 10,000 “mystery” absentee ballots that screwed up Stefan’s spreadsheet during the first count, to the military ballot hoo-hah, to enhanced ballots, to provisionals, dead people and felons, die-hard Rossi supporters have been snapping up (u)SP’s conspiracies like they were iPods. Meanwhile, I confidently sat back and waited for each new theory to be debunked — as they all have been — secure in the knowledge that most conspiracy theories remain just that.
See, the main problem with your run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory is that it proposes an actual conspiracy… an exercise that typically proves to be considerably less daunting in theory than in practice. Conspiracies tend to be logistical nightmares. They require opportunity, planning, execution, and absolute secrecy. And above all, they require motive.
I’m not talking about the institutional motive of one party wanting to win an election over another… I’m talking about the individual conspirators, whose motives must be strong enough to balance the inevitable consequences of getting caught. For example, why would Dean Logan, a career civil servant, risk a lengthy prison sentence on behalf of Christine Gregoire? All ethical and moral considerations aside, we can assume that Logan would not participate in such a conspiracy unless the risk was small, the benefit large, and the objective achievable.
It is on that last point that I laugh off any suggestion that the improperly scanned provisional ballots are evidence of some organized vote fraud conspiracy, because it overwhelmingly fails the “why the fuck?” test, as in: “Why the fuck would you only stuff 660 ballots?”
Nobody expected this election to be anywhere near this close. If Gregoire had won by only 30,000 votes, surprised political pundits would have painted this a moral victory for Rossi and the Republicans, instantly marking Gregoire as vulnerable in 2008. But 129 votes? Get real.
Why bother risking the scandal of stuffing 400 or 600 or even 900 ballots when such numbers would have no reasonable expectation of impacting the election? Such a piddling conspiracy would be absolutely pointless without the hindsight we now have as to the extraordinary closeness of the actual results. And if anything, the Democrats were overconfident about the governor’s race.
Elections simply aren’t this close. Thus any conspiracy at the polls on election day would have to be massive to have any hope of impacting the outcome of a statewide election. Anything less would be just plain silly. I’m not absolutely precluding the possibility that somebody might be stupid enough to risk going to jail for stuffing a couple hundred votes in an election Gregoire expected to win by over 100,000… but it just doesn’t seem likely, does it?
So if you’re looking for corruption, it’s going to have to be of the official variety, and it would have had to occur post-election, during the recounts, by canvassing workers, election officials, even the canvassing board itself. And in the context of the recounts, people were looking for official corruption… and very carefully. Say what you want about the hand recount, but there is no arguing that it was an extraordinarily transparent operation, with bipartisan observers watching and participating in every detail. If Dean Logan managed to steal this election during the hand recount, without getting caught, then you’ve got to wonder what a fucking genius like Dean is doing in such a shit-ass job like his? A criminal mastermind like that should be selling tanker planes for Boeing… or working for Karl Rove… not sitting before the King County Council subjecting himself to misleading grandstanding from the likes of Raymond Shaw Reagan Dunn.
Whatever.
The point is, conspiracies are a helluva lot easier to theorize than they are to execute (or disprove;) to borrow a phrase from President Bush, they’re “hard work.” And that’s ignoring the fact that most people — even Democrats — are basically honest… and that even the most dishonest folk are reluctant to so blatantly break the law knowing that each and every one of their actions would be subjected to such microscopic scrutiny.
So my confidence that official corruption is the least likely explanation for the outcome of this election is not based on a naive trust in public officials, but rather on the simple logic that anybody who would be stupid enough to have engaged in such a conspiracy under these circumstances would have to be too stupid to have gotten away with it. If fraud occurred, the evidence is there, and you can be damn sure Rossi’s attorneys and the BIAW would have discovered it by now.
Were mistakes made during this election? Absolutely! Were election officials sometimes not as forthright as they could have been? Perhaps… but then, if I was in their shoes I might have been just as cautious.
If Rossi can prove that irregularities and illegal votes cost him the election, then the results will be set aside. But he has absolutely no evidence of organized fraud or corruption, and for people like EFF President Bob Williams to be squawking on talk radio that Dean Logan is a “crook” who should be jailed, is downright inexcusable.
The scary part is, that despite all the logical inconsistencies, and despite the months of sleuthing that has failed to turn up a single shred of evidence of official corruption, there are still people that are absolutely convinced that Democrats, actively, intentionally, and illegally stole this election. And to them I say: “Yeah, whatever, aluminum hat boy.”
WASH’s GOV election was little different than elections in Philly, Milwaukee, Chicago, or Detroit. All controlled by Democrats……all fixed and crooked. The ONLY difference I can see is that we can talk about the WASH election without being labeled as racist. Voter fraud CANNOT be even discussed or investigated in black cities because of policial correctness. Therefore, the Dems can cheat, lie, and acheive massive voter fraud, scream “racism”, and get away with felonies.
Citizens must review election results at arms length. Few people have the time and money to thoroughly investigate the possiblity of election fraud. That is why elections must be conducted in a manner so that the possiblity of fraud is so remote that even the most casual observer would find fraud to be a ridiculous suggestion.
That is not what we have today.
Liberals are the first to defend the election travesty that just occured which is incredibly suprising because if the election reforms that conservatives endorse came to pass, there would be no question as to who is the legitimate governor of this great state of Washington.
Zapporo says: “if the election reforms that conservatives endorse came to pass…”
Gee, from everything I’ve read, that’s probably true…because from what I understand, the “election reforms that conservatives endorse” are, simply, allowing only redneck, white male property owners the right to vote. Plus, after the election, you are only permitted to count ballots from counties that have guaranteed GOP majorities (plus, of course, the military mail-in ballots from white, non-hispanic non-coms and commissioned officers whose name isn’t Gen. Wesley Clark). No residents of large cities shall be permitted to vote at all, as they historically vote Democratic, and we can’t have them voting!
Those are the “election reforms that conservatives endosre”, right?
I dare you to refute my logic, Zapporo.
Very good analysis, Goldy. The more I see evidence, the less likelihood I see of official fraud. This does not excuse the total incompetence of King County Elections, which has provided plenty of reason for up to 65% of the people (at certain points in time) to believe that fraud or irregularities determined the Governor’s election. We need an appearance of fairness in elections, and not just actual fairness (or merely lack of official fraud).
I was quite concerned when I saw 3,539 more ballots than voters initially. With preliminary statistics like that, it can support many possible conclusions — including a lot of extra ballots being “added” to the count towards the end — many days after the election, when it was clear they awere “needed”.
We are now down to 484 out of 557,000 or so absentee ballots not being associated with an identified voter. Or perhaps as many as 776 or so, since nearly 292 people credited with submitted a valid absentee ballot envelope failed to include a valid ballot inside their envelope. (Dozens of people even submitted ballots from previous elections — some from the primary, some from years ago.) Secrecy (the anonymous inner envelope) prevents any identification of those 292 people, so whoever they are, they are credited with voting, even though they failed to submit a valid ballot for counting.
Still, whether it is 484 or 776, that number of “extra” absentee ballots is worrisome, since they could have been “added” anywhere in the process — included when it was known they were “needed”. Or it could simply be that about 0.1% of the accepted absentee ballot envelopes were not properly entered into the computer to credit the voter with voting.
The polling place discrepancy was much larger — 1,660 more ballots than voters, based on the voter crediting process. However, the voter crediting process for poll voters simply involves computer scanning of the signatures on the signed poll book sheets — which has many false positives and false negatives.
Unlike absentee ballots, there is more comprehensive “source checking” for poll ballots — they must be fed into the machine on election day. Poll workers count the number of ballots fed through the machine, see how many provisionals were issued, consider spoiled ballots, count the signatures in the poll book, etc. — all before leaving the polling place on election night.
Apparently, 660 provisional ballots were improperly fed through the machines on election day. One of the most common reasons for this was official ineptitude — many polling places ran out of provisional ballot envelopes. What were they supposed to do with the provisional ballot to secure it and preserve its secrecy, if no ballot envelopes were available?
Of course, there may have been some people who deliberately fed their provisional ballot into the machine, knowing that they were not eligible to vote, just so their “vote” could count — or perhaps count twice. While it may be that these kind of folks were much more likely to vote Democrat, there is no way they could have reasonably expected to make the difference in an unpredictably close Governor’s race when they did this on election day.
The unexplained polling place discrepancies (besides whatever number of the 660 directly fed provisionals were cast by ineligible voters and should not have been counted) amount to certain polling places which have 216 more ballots than voters, and other polling places which have 158 more voters than ballots. (These were aggregated by polling place — most of which have multiple precincts — to eliminate any discrepancies caused by someone getting the ballot from the wrong precinct at a given polling place.)
These are still a lot of discrepancies — any of which exceed the 129 vote victory margin in the Governor’s race. But it is hard to call any of this organized official fraud. If that had been the case, thousands more invalid ballots could have been stuffed, to eliminate any question about a close victory margin.
All that said, “If Rossi can prove that irregularities and illegal votes cost him the election, then the results will be set aside.” And these words are quoted directly from Goldy. Once again, a good analysis.
Nelson, The result that I seek would be that elections are conducted in a manner that no reasonable person, liberal or conservative would have any reason to doubt the outcome:
* Changing form and color the provisional ballot so that it is distinct and cannot be mixed and counted with regular ballots.
* Eliminating electronic voting unless it provides an auditable paper trail.
* Require and provide the authority for election officials to periodically inspect and remove ineligible voters from the voter rolls.
* Establish a reasonable level of proof of residence and voting eligibility for every person voting by mail.
* Require that voters be required to present picture identification when voting.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea – create a level playing field devoid of fraud and freedom and democracy will triumph.
I choose NOT to have elections decided by DEAD, FELONS, CONVICTS, ILLEGAL ALIENS. Just WHAT is wrong with that?
Martin @6 – Yeah, what he said.
Goldy–
Your typical rambling, rambling, rambling….
Alleging fraud is foolish…I have repeated that..repeatedly!
However, like Richard Pope said, there are many errors and plenty of negligence in KingCo to overturn a 129 difference.
It’s that simple.
It’s hard for the LEFTISTS who have spent 4 years screaming nationally about FRAUD, FRAUD, STOLEN ELECTIONS etc. to come to grips that there is a highly flawed election that will be set aside to their detriment. Painful I’m sure. Left WingNuts are a highly sensitive, emotional cesspool of ridiculousness.
And Goldy–
Get a tape recorder and read in your emotional way what you have written here………..
Are you done yet?
OK, now play it back and listen to yourself..
Now do you understand why Left WingNut radio has no past, present and certainly no future?
Cynical @ 8, 9
I can’t hear you when you’re holding your aluminum hat over your mouth!
Don:
To hear Mr. C better, you may need to ask him to stand up!
Zapporo@5
I’m surpised that you included in your list the issue of a paper trail for electronic voting machines. That is the one major issue that every Democrat supports and every Republican opposes, since it’s Republican dominated machine mfrs like Diebold who refuse to put paper trails on their machines. They want Republicans to win and they can fraudulently manage that by manipulating the software codes.
I applaud you for asking for that. It’s the way the GOP commits actual fraud in elections.
As for the other 4 items you mentioned, I have no problem with provisional ballots that resist being commingled with regular ballots. However, a provisional ballot opportunity needs to exist in any polling place in the state (or at least the county) for any voter. Limiting that opportunity to only the specific precinct that a voter is registered in is absolutely ridiculous. That issue is of far more importance than a handful of commingled provisionals that might happen. But let’s do both.
As for election officials regularly purging voting lists, that is already done routinely in every jurisdiction I’m familiar with. So it’s not an issue at all.
Your item 4 is already federal law under the HAVA legislation, and it is required that first-time voters produce definitive residency evidence to local authorities. So it’s a non-issue.
As for the last one, there is more validity and convenience for voters to have people sign a book than to show photo ID, since signing a book commits an individual to truthfulness and can inhibit fraudulent voting. Anyone can obtain a phony photo ID and use that if they wanted to commit fraud. Ever go to a bar and see underage kids drinking because they have phony IDs? That won’t cut it at all. Signing books is far better.
The best improvements by far are to simplify the process as much as we can to enfranchise as many legitimate voters as we can and encourage everyone to vote. The Oregon all mail-in system is absolutely wonderful. They get huge turnouts and nobody accuses anyone of any kind of shenanigans. The simpler and more convenient the process, the better for democracy.
Nelson@12
I have an idea Nelson…why don’t you back up your, ” It’s the way the GOP commits actual fraud in elections”, comment with, call me crazy, facts and evidence.
Another idea, why not provide your vast evidence to the authoritize to prove your allegations that a voting machine manufacturer (Diebold) has committed fraud and manipulated our elections. Your exact words….”since it’s Republican dominated machine mfrs like Diebold who refuse to put paper trails on their machines. They want Republicans to win and they can fraudulently manage that by manipulating the software codes.” I am sure you would not spew such severe allegations without evidence.
I could just say that exploiting provisional ballots, “is the way the Dems commit actual fraud in elections.” Me saying it doesn’t make it so.
Chris @13
The evidence about Diebold is anything but hidden or secret. The president of the company — one of the largest donors to the Bush reelection campaign — wrote a well-publicized letter that stated he will do everything in his company’s power, as the largest manufacturer of touch-screen voting machines, to assure that President Bush is reelected!
The company also refused to turn over any software codes to any customers and refused to put paper trails on their machines. The State of California issued orders to counties to stop using the Diebold touch-screen machines because the company violated the state’s election laws.
You can look that up too. It’s all true.
Those are facts. You can look them up anywhere.
Every Democrat welcomes any Republican who urges paper trails for touch-screen voting machines. Several states have already mandated them. Nevada is one, California is another and Maryland a third. The League of Women Voters urges compliance with that as well for honest voting.
Paper trails are absolutely necessary to help prevent fraud. Think of all the electonic devices that produce receipts: ATMs, cash registers, ticket kiosks, you name it. This has been possible since the very first use of these devices commercially dating back more than 30 years, so why not on electronic voting machines – and why are Republicans in particular against the use of paper trails? The very purpose of paper trails and receipts is to provide historic data that cannot be electronically erased or altered. So the only benefit to positioning themselves against the use of paper trails on electronic voting machines is in effect to create the proper climate for fraud to be committed. No other viable excuse can or should be accepted from our elected officials because this directly relates to accountability with regard to the method in which they obtain their jobs. It’s in the best interest of a politician who can’t be elected without the help of voter fraud to oppose paper trails on electronic voting machines, but this policy runs directly counter to the vested interest of the public – especially the true voting majority.
Beyond the paper trail issue are some serious concerns about the inherent security flaws in Diebold’s equipment. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have written an alarming report about the potential vulnerability these machines have to outside manipulation or tampering:
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/n.....rubin.html
Electronic Voting System is Vulnerable to Tampering
Computer Researchers Find Critical Flaws in Popular Software Produced for U.S. Elections
The software believed to be at the heart of an electronic voting system being marketed for use in elections across the nation has weaknesses that could easily allow someone to cast multiple votes for one candidate, computer security researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have determined.
The researchers reached this conclusion after studying computer code believed to be for Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems’ electronic voting equipment. The code, which included modifications made through 2002, was posted anonymously to a public Web site earlier this year. During 2002, approximately 33,000 Diebold voting stations, which allow ballots to be cast via a 15-inch touch-screen monitor, were used in elections in Georgia, California, Kansas and other locations, according to a company news release. On July 21, the company finalized an agreement with the state of Maryland to provide up to $55.6 million in touch-screen voting technology and related services.
But after analyzing tens of thousands of lines of programming code purportedly used to make this electronic voting system work, three researchers from the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins, aided by a computer scientist at Rice University in Houston, have expressed serious concerns about the voting system. The researchers said they uncovered vulnerabilities in the system that could be exploited by an individual or group intent on tampering with election results. In particular, they pointed to the use of a “smart card,” containing a tiny computer chip, that each eligible voter receives. The card, inserted into the electronic voting machine, is designed to ensure that each person casts only one ballot. But the researchers believe a voter could hide a specially programmed counterfeit card in a pocket, withdraw it inside the booth and use it to cast multiple votes for a single candidate.
“A 15-year-old computer enthusiast could make these counterfeit cards in a garage and sell them,” said Avi Rubin, technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins and one of the researchers involved in the study. “Then, even an ordinary voter, without knowing anything about computer code, could cast more than one vote for a candidate at a polling place that uses this electronic voting system.”
The researchers were quick to note that no evidence exists that anyone has used such tactics to tamper with an election. However, they chose to make their findings public because of concerns that election fraud will almost certainly occur if weaknesses in the electronic voting system are not addressed before many more jurisdictions move to this method of picking public officials.
The security flaws were discovered this summer after Rubin assigned Adam Stubblefield, 22, and Yoshi Kohno, 25, two computer science doctoral students at the institute, to review the voting software code found on the Web. The students analyzed only those files that were publicly accessible and did not attempt to breach others that were protected by passwords. “Many of the attacks are very simple,” Kohno said. “It is unfortunate to find such flaws in a system potentially as important as this one.” Stubblefield added, “When people vote in the United States, they have to believe the election is fair.”
The researchers, joined by Dan Wallach, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice University, were able to reconstruct the electronic voting terminal in a Johns Hopkins computer lab and detected the security problems. “Even without access to the protected files, we’ve determined this system is fundamentally flawed,” Rubin said. “There will be no easy fix for this.”
The issue is important, Rubin said, because problems related to Florida’s punch card ballots during the 2000 Presidential election have prompted many cities and states to consider computer screen voting systems as a better alternative. But Rubin, who has conducted extensive research into electronic voting and has been tapped to review the security of a federal electronic voting proposal, said the move to high-tech balloting should not be conducted in haste. “People are rushing too quickly to computerize our method of voting before we know how to do it securely,” he said.
The researchers have detailed their findings in a technical paper posted at this Web address: http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf.
Although the researchers have not independently verified the current or past use of the code by Diebold or that the code they analyzed is actually Diebold code, they stated in their technical paper that “the copyright notices and code legacy information in the code itself are consistent with publicly available systems offered by Diebold and a company it acquired in 2001, Global Election Systems. Also, the code itself compiled and worked as an election system consistent with Diebold’s public descriptions of its system.”
Wayne @ 11
In that case, better pass out the gas masks.
At the public hearing on election reform I attended, Republicans were just as opposed to electronic voting machines with no paper trail as the Democrats. It appears the Republican rank-and-file believes Democrats want to use touch-screen machines to steal elections! But then, paranoia is what these people are good at …
Speaking of paranoia Guv’mint Attorney Don–
The AP reports today—
State Workers in 10 bargaining units across Washington have filed petitions to LEAVE their unions BEFORE their new contracts go into effect and they are REQUIRED to pay union dues. And many more workers appear inclined to follow their example.
Workers were “BLINDSIDED” by the proposed contract’s dues REQUIREMENT. “PEOPLE FEEL BETRAYED” said 1 worker.
Read the article Don–
I will bet a jackass willing to step up and put their money where their mouth is on HA $1000, that this case will not only move forward, but trial (not appeals) will be succesful for Rossi. I am willing to put the cash into paypal, escrow or whatever medium we BOTH determine to be reasonable. One taker, not a group, someone willing to back up all of the HORSESHIT you dish on this website.
I do tip my hat to Goldy for being involved and passionate about important issues. Even if you are wrong most of the time.
Dave @15
Thanks for the comments about Diebold, backing up my earlier statements. Calif. did outlaw those machines, as did Nevada and Maryland is ordering them all retrofitted to include paper trails.
As for Don’s comments, every Democrat welcomes Republican support on the paper trail issue and it may be that at the one hearing he attended, it was true. Nationally, however, the leadership of the Republican Party is adamant against the paper trails because they know it’s “their guys,” that make the machines and they can commit massive voter fraud at will without anyone to track them simply by installing engineered software codes right at the factory.
Since they refuse to publish the codes, or even give them to county election officials who purchase the equipment, it would be no trick to insert a few lines of code that simply changes, say, every 20th vote for a Democratic candidate to a Republican candidate. That would give a 10% vote swing and probably not look totally out of line.
To put that in perspective on the Washington gubernatorial race, while Rossi and his loser cronies are offering phony agonizing over whether a few hundred provisional ballots may have been cast in error (without even knowing for which candidate they were cast), in the “no paper trail machine fraud instance” I cited above, fully THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND votes in WA would have been changed, to turn a close race into a landslide.
And, as a matter of fact, since several WA counties (mostly in GOP areas) did indeed use Diebold machines, how do we know that in those areas that actually didn’t happen, to turn the anticipated Gregoire easy win into the current close race? Interesting thought, isn’t it?
Nelson@4. Heh…your right up. Zap elaborates on a level playing field with little if any margin for error. While sounding a good plan, the human element and errors will have to be figured in. That is what we faced in the past. Not fraud .
Take a small town in Eastern Washington.
1,000 residents. 800 US citizens; 100 immigrants with green card; 100 illegal aliens w/o green card.
Of the 800 residents, who are US citizens, 400 register to vote; the other 400 don’t register to vote for reasons of their own.
Of the 100 immigrants with a green card, 50 register to voted and sign the oath that they are a citizens. Likewise, 50 of the illegal aliens register to vote because they are not required to provide proof of citizenship.
In this example, 500 people are registered to vote. An election is held and 300 turn out to vote. The 300 are made up of the following:
[1] 150 are US citizens registered to vote
[2] 50 are provisional voters who never registered to vote; nobody knows who they are
[3] 25 are dead people who were registered at the time they died
[4] 25 are felons or convicts who where registered before they became a felon or a convict; they served their time and never had their privilege to vote reinstated
[5] 25 are immigrants with a green card, who registered to vote
[6] 25 are illegal aliens who registered to vote
Candidates in this scenario require 151 votes to prevail and win the election.
Candidates who receive 149 votes lose.
In this example, there are two candidates for Mayor: There is Dee Dee Tossof and Tina Havealot.
Tina Havealot gets 155 votes.
Dee Dee Tossof gets 145 votes.
Question #1: Who wins the election?
Question #2: How many people should have been “entitled” to vote? Why?
Question #3: Should each vote cast be worth 1/300th?
Question #4: Was anyone’s vote stolen? If yes or no, why?
Question #5: Should every vote count? If yes or no, why?
Question #6: Who should win this election and why?
Question #7: What should happen with the outcome of the election, and why.
Martin @21
You forgot one Circumstance and Question: One of the candidates has a friend who could hack computers, and inserted a smart card into a touch-screen voting machine used. It electronically changed 30 of the votes for the opposition candidate into 30 votes for the hacker’s buddy, a swing of 60 votes. Question 8: Without a paper trail for the machines, how can we know that those 60 votes weren’t reversed?
That question is far more significant than any of your silly hypotheticals about non-citizens, felons, dead people, etc. and far more likely to cause a fraudulent election outcome.
In point of fact, in your example, we know for sure that ZERO of the illegal immigrants would have ever registered to vote, since all want to stay as far away from any authorities as they can. As for the green card holders, the answer there is also absolutely ZERO since if they got caught voting their green card would be immediately revoked and they would be deported. As for dead people and unreconstructed felons voting, the likelihood is more like 1 or 2 of each category rather than 8% of the electorate as you suppose. On the provisionals, the data shows that about 3-4% of votes cast these days are indeed provisionals. However, about 90% of those turn out to be legitimate registered voters with the election bureacracy simply messing up their records. So of the total 10 or so provisions cast in your hypothetical example above, probably 1 was an illegal voter. So your example of the 300-vote electorate now comes down to, maybe 3-5 or so, illegal votes cast. If one of the candidates got 155 votes, they won the election fair and square — unless of course they were the friend of the software code hacker who surreptitiously changed SIXTY votes on the non-paper trail touch screen voting machines used in that election!
Nelson,
You did not provide proof of fraud. What you prove is some states do not like the policies of Diebold and have chosen not to utilize their equipment. Where are the federal fraud charges? Against whom? King County broke election law, did they commit fraud? I have no issue with a paper trail; it is clearly a needed safe guard. I have issue with your blanket, unsupported statement; that this is how republicans commit election fraud.
In the industry in which I work, it is very common for manufacturers to not provide the software code to any other party. It is how they protect their intellectual property. As for the Diebold president statement indicating he would do everything to assure the president is reelected. It is reasonable to assume that he believes his technology provides the most accurate election result possible. That fraud is harder to perpetrate using his equipment. It is likely he felt what was in his power was to reduce or eliminate a likely fraud by the democrat party to steal the election from Bush. And that by getting his machines in use in as many areas as possible he could do what was in his power to limit the capabilities of the dems to cheat. Is it not more feasible that he meant this as opposed to putting in writing the fact he was prepared to commit fraud himself, to assure a Bush victory. If that was his intent why would he write a letter stating it? So you have proven nothing in terms of fraud or intent to commit fraud. You have proven that some people don’t like the fact a republican supporting company makes the voting equipment.
http://www.votergate.tv/
It is entirely appropriate to require that companies like Diebold (and Diebold in particular given circumstances and statements on record) open their “intellectual property” for review of the deepest technical sort. In other words, they should already be prepared to supply the source code for their systems, voluntarily publishing it on illustrated slick stock, complete with diagrams having many circles and arrows. Even Microsoft allows their best customer to review their source code. That Diebold doesn’t makes their products particularly suspect.
Chris@23. Folks know the gambling machines are rigged by house and gamblers going to gaming places continue to devise new ways to cheat the house. This doesn’t stop the average Jane and John Dow from gambling or thinking they have an edge and a winning streak of luck. Stuffing the ballot box may have just moved up a notch. All the evils of the world devise a way to exist.
Chris @23
Here’s a link to the California Secretary of State’s website de-certifying the Diebold machines (and others that do not have a paper trail). It talks about fraud. The State later actually charged Diebold with fraud in its machines. http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections.....ecert1.pdf
Here’s the story about Diebold actually being charged with fraud by the State of California:
“The Associated Press
Updated: 9:25 p.m. ET April 30, 2004
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The state’s top election official called for a criminal investigation of Diebold Election Systems Inc. as he banned use of the company’s newest model touchscreen voting machine, citing concerns about its security and reliability.
Friday’s ban will force up to 2 million voters in four counties, including San Diego, to use paper ballots in November, marking their choices in ovals read by optical scanners.
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley asked the attorney general’s office to investigate allegations of fraud, saying Diebold had lied to state officials. A spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer said prosecutors would review Shelley’s claims.”
So it’s not just supposition due to dislike. California, at least, felt that Diebold committed fraud with its machines. Compared with the minor human errors in King County, this is the real election scandal that needs reform legislation.
But you Republicans don’t care about this one, because it helps your candidates out since William O’Dell, the head of Diebold has repeatedly said he’ll do anything he can to help out GOP candidates anywhere in the country.
The greater fraud committed in US elections is campaign propaganda. The GOP is guilty of fraudulent propaganda, mudslinging and character assassination, capital D deception, questionable or illegal funding, and control over public airwaves and print media. It is more likely the GOP is involved in vote rigging, whether with ballot stuffing or touch-screen computer hacking or good old-fashioned christian hatred and bigotry. Jesus loves me but he can’t stand you. Uh huh. Uh huh.
Nelson@27. I got to hand it to you. You have the goods. Keep on trucking. Good info.
Nelson@27
Did you even bother to read the information in the link you provided? Not once did it accuse or suggest Diebold or any other manufacturer committed fraud. In summary, it only states that the systems as currently designed, in their opinion, did not prevent or make difficult enough, the ability to commit fraud. And that manually recounting of votes was not possible and hence they did not meet election law. So they tossed them out. Seems reasonable to me, I have no problem with that. But where is the fraud?
One more question, how do you equate; “Secretary of State Kevin Shelley asked the attorney general’s office to investigate allegations of fraud, saying Diebold had lied to state officials. A spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer said prosecutors would review Shelley’s claims.” into actual charges being filed? You stated; “Here’s the story about Diebold actually being charged with fraud by the State of California:” – What a load of shit. Did you lie thinking I would not read the whole article on the web or are you just too stupid to understand the written word. All it is is a story about how the Secretary of State Kevin Shelley asked the attorney general’s office to investigate allegations of fraud. Allegations are not charges. Allegations are not facts. Allegations are not evidence. You cannot show where actual charges have been filed. Allegations can be leveled at anyone at anytime for anything. I am not saying that fraud cannot occur, I am saying without evidence you state as fact that it did. I researched it at length Nelson, I cannot find any formal charges of fraud being filed against Diebold in any state. Please prove me wrong, but try real proof this time instead of trying to spin opinion into fact.
Sirkulat@28. You mince no words about what is rotten is not in Denmark.
Chee@29
You should really read the information before you throw your support behind it. Otherwise when the information is debunked, as I just did, your reputation goes down with it. Oh…I forgot your reputation is a low as it can go already.
Sirkulat is obviously naive. Are you new to politics?
Chris@30. But how about the past election and screaming about illegal votes, illegal voters, illegal aliens and other imposters including cries of fraud fraud. Didn’t anyone read they were only allegations against Gregoire, KC, Sam Reed and others. I get it. What is good for the goose is not good for the gander.
Chris@32. Reputation is what others think of you. Far different than one’s character. Worry about your own reputation. Building character, which can be built faster than torn down by you, is more important than what some unknown thinks. Get real.
Chee @31
Good post! Chris has blinders on. He refuses to see real evidence of fraud and deceit, such as with Diebold, which could affect hundreds of thousands of votes, but instead points fingers at an unfortunate widow who voted erroneously after her husband’s death thinking she was fulfilling his dying wish. Or talking about a handful of correctly cast votes of juvenile felons who mistakenly were placed on a state’s no-voting list.
And to Chris @30 who claimed that the story I posted didn’t actually prove fraud? It was equivalent to an indictment, with the chief election official of the State of California turning material alleging fraud over to the Attorney General’s office for prosecution. Sure, in the US every defendant is innocent until PROVEN guilty. Diebold has not yet been put on trial in this issue. If that gives you so much comfort and you’re such a stickler for legal niceties like that, as Chee points out, how can you continue to discuss fraud in the Washington gubernatorial race? There’s far less evidence there than in the California Diebold charges.
I have “voted electronically” in Snohomish County for the past few elections. I do believe that in each case there have been “glitches” Cards that either cannot be initialized or read. ALways gives me a warm feeling about the process. And of course no trail.
I also blame it (admittedly without a shread of evidence) for pushing out the kind old gentelman who met at every election prior to going electronic.
K@37. I too liked the sound of that old gentleman they got rid of. As a child, holding onto to Mom’s skirts while peeking out from behind the dark blue curtains was fun too.
Nelson @ 19
Only two counties used touch-screen machines in the Nov. 2004 election — Snohomish and Yakima. A post-election private study raised serious questions about whether the Snohomish voting machines were manipulating, noting that Gregoire won the absentee vote but the smaller polling place vote inexplicably favored Rossi by a much larger margin. The report also notes complaints by individual voters that machines changed their Gregoire votes into Rossi votes. For the complete report see the following link and click on “Report: Snohomish County DRE Investigation” — http://votersunite.org/
Oops I mean “manipulated” not “manipulating”
ringhofer @ 21
Any entry-level statistician would have a field day taking apart your ludicruous “example.” You should try your hand at fiction writing. You seem to have a lively imagination.
Chris @ 23
You were more-or-less logical and I more-or-less agreed with you until you fell off a cliff with this statement: “And that by getting his machines in use in as many areas as possible he could do what was in his power to limit the capabilities of the dems to cheat.”
What the Diebold CEO actually said was he’d “deliver” Ohio for the president. As I recall, he was head of Bush’s Ohio re-election committee. The term “deliver” is political slang that has been around for a very long time and doesn’t have sinister implications. It merely represents a promise to do the organizational, fundraising, and field work necessary to win one’s own state for the national candidate one supports. The Democrats have made too much of this remark, reading something into it that isn’t there.
On the other hand, it certainly doesn’t look good for manufacturers or suppliers of voting equipment to align themselves with a party, make donations, or campaign for candidates. They should stay out of the political fray so there is no appearance of using their unique power over the voting process to sway an election. Even if he’s entirely innocent of vote rigging, it didn’t look good, and Diebold’s CEO’s political activities tainted the company’s name and product, and probably ultimately will have an adverse impact on sales.
Chris @ 23 (continued)
No source code, no sale.
Chris @ 30
“Allegations are not charges. Allegations are not facts. Allegations are not evidence.”
BINGO! Congratulations, you are the only Republican in the entire state of Washington who understands this. (But I wonder how well YOU understand it whenever the subject of Rossi and the governor’s election comes up?)
Don @39
That’s really interesting. I was aware of the Snohomish anomaly and wondered by nobody had made an issue of it. Traditionally, GOP candidates always do BETTER in absentee voting than in polling place voting. Yet in this instance, Gregoire won the absentee votes but lost the machine counted polling place votes.
Highly suspicious.
Also, as I recall, in Yakima county the machine recount was identical to the original count — what I thought was really weird. But with no paper trail, it’s probably logical. Yet when they did the hand count the tally changed. How did that happen? Since the polling place count could not possibly change, it had to be a result of new counts for absentee and provisional ballots. Why weren’t those changes picked up in the first recount?
No election reform package should ever be passed without the very first item in the program being a paper audit trail, verified by the voter at the time the vote is cast, being mandated for every touch-screen voting machine used. The optical scan system is an excellent system because you start with a paper ballot, then the machine counts it electronically and it’s deposited into the voting console for re-verification later if an election is close.
For touch-screen machines, I would recommend that the voter enter the votes on the screen, then, when his ballot is completed, he hits a print button and his vote is printed out. He then checks it for accuracy and deposits it back into the voting console, so that a re-count will actually have a paper ballot for verification purposes. Then, anyone monkeying around with software in the machine would be found out by simply counting the paper ballots entered.
Chee and Don –
Chee, Don and Nelson,
Oh, where do I start.
In terms of the what’s good for the goose…..I have no history of claiming fraud in this election. I do not rule it out since the investigation is not concluded. But I do not state it as fact and believe there to be plenty of reasons for a new election without proving fraud or even alleging it. Please find any post where I have……you can’t. Nelson your “He refuses to see real evidence of fraud and deceit” comment is insane. If you would actually show some evidence I assure you I would see it. I don’t give a shit about Diebold or Voting Machine Manufacturers as a whole. If they did wrong I would support 100% the prosecution of their Executives. I don’t have a dog in this hunt. So to say I have blinders on is stupid. What I won’t do is take your version of the truth as gospel and make a decision about the character of an individual or organization when you can’t support your allegations.
Nelson, this whole comment;
1. And to Chris @30 who claimed that the story I posted didn’t actually prove fraud? It was equivalent to an indictment, with the chief election official of the State of California turning material alleging fraud over to the Attorney General’s office for prosecution. Sure, in the US every defendant is innocent until PROVEN guilty. Diebold has not yet been put on trial in this issue. If that gives you so much comfort and you’re such a stickler for legal niceties like that, as Chee points out, how can you continue to discuss fraud in the Washington gubernatorial race? There’s far less evidence there than in the California Diebold charges.
is stupid. Did you not read it back to yourself before posting it? “Equivalent to an indictment”. You’re f’ing kidding me right – You don’t truly believe this line do you? “If that gives you so much comfort and you’re such a stickler for legal niceties like that”. You call innocent until proven guilty a “Legal Nicety”. You’re a bigger dipshit then I thought.
chris@47. “where do I start?” Get a dog that hunts.
Don@41
I thought you were making a great point but since you misspelled ludicrous I disregard your thought completely. I thought only Republicans were inept at spelling.
See how stupid you look now for making a big deal over a misspelled word.
Nelson @45
“Traditionally, GOP candidates always do BETTER in absentee voting than in polling place voting. Yet in this instance, Gregoire won the absentee votes but lost the machine counted polling place votes.”
The state of WA has liberalized the absentee requirements. The statistic you refer to is based on the traditional absentee ballot (cast by someone on out of state business, in the military, etc.). Now, anyone who requests one will get an absentee ballot. Throw out your “highly suspicious” inference, it has no basis in today’s reality.
Nelson @ 45
“Also, as I recall, in Yakima county the machine recount was identical to the original count – what I thought was really weird. But with no paper trail, it’s probably logical. Yet when they did the hand count the tally changed. How did that happen?”
You are correct. There was no change in Yakima County between the first and second counts, but Gregoire picked up 20 and Rossi picked up 35 in the hand recount. I don’t know the details but I surmise these had to be paper ballots — either absentee or provisional votes. The most logical explanation is they were provisional ballots forwarded to Yakima County by other counties during the hand recount process, but it’s more likely they were a mix of absentees and provisionals that weren’t counted on the first two go-rounds for various reasons.
Nelson @ 45 (continued)
“The optical scan system is an excellent system because you start with a paper ballot, then the machine counts it electronically and it’s deposited into the voting console for re-verification later if an election is close.”
Optical scan has major problems. Here are just a few of the things that can go wrong with optical scan ballots:
1. The timing marks along the edge of the ballot may become frayed, smudged, or torn.
2. People fail to completely fill in the ovals.
3. People fill in more than one oval.
4. People in an oval, then write in the name of a different candidate on the write-in line.
5. People write in an ambiguous name like “Dino Gregoire” or “Christine Rossi.”
6. People draw pictures or write messages on the ballot.
7. People spill coffee on the ballot, or their pet pisses on it.
There’s more, but that should get you started on rethinking your affection for the optical scan system.
“For touch-screen machines, I would recommend that the voter enter the votes on the screen, then, when his ballot is completed, he hits a print button and his vote is printed out.”
This is the system I personally favor — a combination of touch-screen and optical scan. The touch-screen machine doesn’t record votes, it simply converts the voter’s button-pushes into a clean opti-scan ballot — the ovals are correctly filled in with no extraneous marks. But it would be foolish to consider this, or any other, method as foolproof. I forget who said, “No matter how foolproof you make a machine, some fool will figure out how to misuse it.” Or words to that effect. Might have been Einstein.
Don @51
Your analysis is also what I would guess. However, wouldn’t absentee and provisional votes have been recounted during the first “machine” recount? Did they simply ignore paper ballots for recounting because they had touch-screen voting machines?
Also, since the GOP has made such a big deal about “newly appearing ballots” in King County, how come they aren’t yelling and screaming about the 55 “newly appeared ballots” in Yakima County?
It couldn’t be because they favored Rossi there, could it?
Naah. That would be too cynical!!!
Chris @ 49
Better take what you can get, imperfections and all, because it might be the last time I ever agree with you.
Nelson @ 53
I don’t know. I do know there wasn’t a single county that made it through all three counts with no changes. For the most part, the changes consisted of adding more votes. There was very little movement of votes from one candidate’s column to another’s, and most of what did occur was votes moving in or out of the Libertarian column to the (D) or (R). The movement of votes from (D) to (R) or vice versa was miniscule to nonexistent. I also know the absentee ballots didn’t get sorted by precinct until the hand recount, at least not in King County. What makes sense to me is that some provisional ballots were still in transit and finally got batched with their “home” precinct in the final count.
Goldy –
“As to Ohio? Well, I’ve barely followed it, and have hardly mentioned it here since… partly because I prefer to make accusations of election fraud based on hard facts,[…]”
Just highlighting, as I am sure you intended…or maybe not…?
Marks;
you might want to take a look at the Conyers report then, then tell us this sounds better then Wa.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtml
Marks;
This is Goldys Point…If your going to do it, Do it Grand like the GOP.
Election improvements that will serve to reduce sharply the probability of illegal votes is the type of Election reform I support. As for Dean Logan – why is he and the King County Council Democrats frantically trying to cover up the insinuation of incompetence and ignoring that the number of illegal or fraudulent (if you will) votes far, far exceeded the 129 votes that CG was ahead by at the end of the last count ? (she is the acting Governor now). That is why this contest is going to court and if it loses, so be it – but this whole debacle will not be forgotten.
If King County Elections were being more forthcoming with their evidence or in their reports, people would have less reason to suspect distributed voter fraud or the result being rigged in King County, since they were the last county to report. Cynicism is a human characteristic and I believe that the right has alot more reason (in this state) to be cynical than the left.
The left has shown time and time again on the national level their cynicism and vitriol against the Bush Admin. and the Republicans. Really, what does all of the vitriol accomplish besides set the stage for the pending Culture War ? at America’s pain and disdain..
KS @59
I do not know. Perhaps things will continue to spiral down into a chasm the state and country will not be able to emerge from. I don’t think that is a wonderful thought…
Danw – I am reading your link. I will get back to you on my thoughts, for what they are worth…
Is all this talk considered “language of conflict?” because I would hate to see Julia Patterson and Christine “chris” Gregoire upset in any way. Goldy, tone it down boy! the Censorship police are coming, I think that hag McAuliffe is sponsoring legislation as we speak.
Danw @57
First item in the report:
“27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry.”
Pardon me as I do my bad Judge Judy imitation:
Take 30 apples, and compare them with 7 oranges???
How about comparing 30 wards with the most machines, to 30 wards with the least machines…
27 wards had most machines PRV. Okay, I see no links to actual numbers
6 had the least machines PRV. Okay, I still see no links to actual numbers
Sorry Danw. I will stop right here. This is not a justified exercise.
minor correction – Gregoire is the legitimate governor of King County. She does not represent the remainder of the the state as Governor, even if she chooses to keep her head buried in the sand about it. “Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. HELLO – Ron Sims !
marks
You need to keep reading…because what you are seeing are some actual things that happened, mostly in Democratic preceints. the difference in machines, was not based on the populations of the area. more over, Besides the intimidation throughout the rest of the article, are the machines. Who owns them? I know Republicans believe in less government involvement (wait that was the old republicans) but do you think our votes should be controled by private enterprises and their lobbyist?
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/whomakes.htm
I think this is no good for anyone, and maybe you can understand after you read who owns and runs the machines, while we are a little disturbed by accusations of voter fraud in KC.
But you can be proud that you do it better, I hope that you don’t close your eyes to this because it is working for the party you like now. If this is not checked, you won’t even recognize your party, because they will never have to worry about being reelected.
Danw @64
I would hope I never close my mind, because to do such would mean I can’t learn.
I downloaded the PDF file after my last post, and am going through the Conyers information. Funny thing is that the PDF so far is exactly what I read on the HTML…
I will continue to read. One cannot, I suppose, be an idiot and dismiss simply because the first “fact” one reads in a report has nothing to do with actual numbers or comparison.
I hope I am making a point for you on the need to question the authority of one’s “facts”, since I only did a cursory reading and discovered a massive discrepancy. 30 vice 7 is not a comparison without a realistic breakdown of numbers.
Goldy….good try. Are you feeling a little worried about Gregoire’s moving day? And date???? LOL…..
So, you had HUGE doubts about the validity of the returns in the last Presidential election….but not in the Washington Governor’s race? Come on…..
Christmasghost @67,
You miss the point. On election night I responded emotionally. Do I have doubts about the presidential election?… sure. But I don’t have the evidence to support a claim that the R’s stole the presidential election… just like you don’t have evidence to support a claim that the D’s stole our gubernatorial election.
Think rational.
DON, Break any windows lately? Goldy, same question. Sounds a little like pre war Germany. National Socialists: Democrat “progressives”.
Goldy dear….ya wanna bet? Do you want to have an open bet right now about how the election contest will turn out? What are you willing to put up?
Goldy @ 68
There is a world of difference between the margin of victory (3.5 million votes) and the margin of assumed victory by Gregoire (129 votes). It has been shown that the number of illegal or fraudulent (if you will) votes far, far exceeded the 129 votes that CG was ahead by at the end of the last count is the point to be considered here. I have read in numerous sources including the Seattle Times that these numbers are in excess of 1000. This alleged evidence is forthcoming – that will be unveiled in the courtroom in Wenatchee next month that could refute your claim.
KS @70
You better not go there, KS. Bush is president not because of 3.5 million votes in 2004, but because of 537 votes in Florida in 2000. And remember, he LOST the total popular vote in that election by more than 500,000 votes nationally. So in presidential elections, the popular vote doesn’t even count. Yes, he won the 2004 POPULAR by the 3.5 million votes, but he won the electoral vote by just 118,000 votes in Ohio. True, that’s more than his 537 vote Florida margin in 2000, but not significantly different from the Wash. vote on percentage basis. (Florida, in fact, was LESS of a percentage difference than Wash. is).
We know for sure that there was complete and total Republican cheating in 2000 and probably also in 2004. There is no evidence whatsoever of any Democratic cheating in Wash. There is evidence of a handful of minor errors made without any bias. Simply occasional human error that occurs in every election in every jurisdiction. Nothing more, nothing less.
Your guy lost under the rules here in Wash. Our guy lost under the rules in 2000 and 2004 in the US.
Give it up and go home, just like Al Gore and John Kerry did. Too bad. Rossi only makes himself look like a total and complete jerk by continuing this nonsensical charade.
Marks @ 66
First off,I appreciate your discourse in a civil manner. Thank you
You are absolutly correct, I have not read the entire Conyers report. ( I will make an effort to). I appologize for making seem like I had, I will leave that up to Goldy to disect it.
But it is strange to me that in the first few Paragraghs there are these items, including a 2 court judgments, Are just a couple of examples of PROVEN manipulation….
The Ohio Republican Party’s decision to utilize thousands of partisan challengers concentrated in minority and Democratic areas likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of legal voters, who were not only intimidated, but became discouraged by the long lines. Shockingly, these disruptions were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican officials: Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, admitted the challenges “can’t help but create chaos, longer lines and frustration.”
Mr. Blackwell’s decision to prevent voters who requested absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able to receive provisional ballots 6 likely disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voters, particularly seniors. A federal court found Mr. Blackwell’s order to be illegal and in violation of HAVA.
The Ohio Republican Party’s decision to engage in preelection “caging” tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation of consent decrees barring the Republican Party from targeting minority voters for poll challenges.
How many of these would it take for you to believe that there was actually a concerted efforted to sway the election. If they were proven to being doing some, don’t you think they would make sure they did enough to win?
Your group here in Washington have nothing but Speculation, and an occasional voter here and there that felt disenfranchisement, Not entire communities.
If you can’t see the difference between Errors and actual Fraud then I am wasting my breath ansd Sleep.
There is evidence of a handful of minor errors made without any bias.
Comment by Nelson @ 71
Nelson, the point is that the screw ups, the vast majority of which occurred in “progressive” King County, were of a large enough magnitude that they could allow biased cheaters to sway the election. The alleged bias is not in the administration, it’s in the illegal votes. Or to put it in terms that Don won’t bust my chops over, the votes were not controlled in an adequate manner to prevent biased voters from affecting the result.
KS @ 70
No such thing has been “shown.” GOPers alleged more than 1,100 illegal votes, but the Seattle Times has “shown” that hundreds of the allegedly illegal votes were legal votes. The only thing that has been “shown” to date is that the GOP’s allegations are wildly inaccurate.
Nelson @ 71
Sorry to disagree, friend, but on a percentage basis Washington’s governor race was closer than Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004.
Here are the numbers for those three races.
Total votes – 2,810,058 (WA), 5,963,110 (FL), 5,627,545 (OH)
Margin of victory – 129 (WA), 537 (FL), 118,599 (OH)
% margin of total – .0046% (WA), .0090% (FL), 2.1% (OH)
Another way to compare is by expanding Washington’s and Ohio’s numbers so total votes are the same for all three states. The multipliers are 2.122 (WA), 1 (FL), and 1.06 (OH). This yields comparative margins of victory: 274 (WA), 573 (FL), 125,715 (OH).
In other words, on a vote-for-vote basis, Bush’s margin in Florida 2000 was more than twice Gregoire’s margin in Washington 2004.
Don @ 40 and Nelson @ 46–
Interesting that you 2 pinheads choose to focus on Snohomish and Yakima County’s with these “touch-screen” conspiracy theories because both County’s have big-time DEMOCRAT County Auditor’s yoy morons!
SNOHOMISH–Auditor Bob “Sideshow Bob” Terwilliger drafted the infamous letter of support for Dean Logan that County Auditor President Corky Mattingly tried to ram thru the membership until a few Auditors stepped up and said “NO WAY!” to blindly endorsing what Logan did without independent analysis and review.
YAKIMA–speaking of that idiot, Corky Mattingly, SHE IS THE YAKIMA COUNTY AUDITOR. Mattingly worked for BOTH Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and is a big-time Democratic Party activist.
Hello Don & Nelson??? YOO-HOO!
So are you saying these 2 partisan Democrat auditors are incompetent? Or are they corrupt?
With there Democratic Party roots and obvious loyalty to Dean Logan…you would be hard pressed to convince ANYONE they miraculously cheated to benefit ROSSI!
DON Nelson just retired as a professional Basketball Coach.
Too bad you 2 paranoid brown-eyed bastards can’t retire from being so full of shit!
Yet another Left WingNut Conspiracy Theory bites the dust.
Mr. Cynical @75
Another typical right wing response. When you don’t have logic or facts on your side, resort to name-calling! What a pack of losers you are. No wonder the public doesn’t support your rants and raves.
Nelson @76…the public doesn’t support Conservatives??? The White House, The House, The Senate, most Governorships….on and on. Yeah with that little support it’s soooo depressing.LOL. So you guys have Washington State temporarily? So what? That’s going to change……..
Hang on baby…it’s going to be a rough ride for you for the next several YEARS………..
Logan may not be a crook, but he is incompetent; he also violated the law. He should be relieved of his post.
Ghost @77
The handwriting is already on the wall. All the current evidence shows that the temporary ascendacy of right wing doctrinaire garbage is dramatically receding. The president can’t get more than 33% of the public to support his anti-social Social Security reforms.
Your day has come — and gone. Sorry to ruin your day with bad news.
Nelson……..with logic like that you couldn’t ruin the day of an ant with a can of raid.
“temporary ascendacy of right wing doctrinaire”
You’re kidding right? Or to line steal from Goldy…is your foil hat too tight?
Hope I didn’t ruin your day with that nasty reality……..
Nitwit @ 75
“Interesting that you 2 pinheads choose to focus on Snohomish and Yakima County’s with these ‘touch-screen’ conspiracy theories”
Another possible reason for focusing our discussion of touch-screen voting machines on Snohomish and Yakima County is because they’re the counties that have touch-screen voting machines.
However, this may be too complicated for Cynical to puzzle out.
Nelson@71 – he won the electoral vote by just 118,000 votes in Ohio. True, that’s more than his 537 vote Florida margin in 2000, but not significantly different from the Wash. vote
Nelson@71 – We know for sure that there was complete and total Republican cheating in 2000 and probably also in 2004. There is no evidence whatsoever of any Democratic cheating in Wash. There is evidence of a handful of minor errors made without any bias. Simply occasional human error that occurs in every election in every jurisdiction. Nothing more, nothing less.
Your an idiot. I need not say more, your own words explain it for me.
Poor, poor, Cynical. He’s too dim to figure out that if the touch-screen machines in Snohomish and/or Yakima counties were rigged or hacked, maybe the county auditors didn’t know/couldn’t do anything about it?
Once again, the complexity of abstract concepts eludes him. He never did get the square peg into the round hole, even though he commenced pounding on it at age 3 and is still hammering away 60 years later.
Nelson @ 76
Unfortunately, ghost @ 76 has a point. There are a LOT of dumbasses in this country, and you don’t have to know which country George Washington was born in to be able to vote.
ghost @ 80
We’re not worried. There will be another liberal president and Congress for sure, and soon. All we have to do is sit back and watch as the wingnuts self-destruct. About every 30 years a wingnut gets into the WH, and in the wreckage that follows, even Democrats can’t keep a Democrat from being elected.
interesting article this AM concerning electoral reform…. maybe this with soothe the savageness of the postings… rational discourse falling into the sewer drain with all the other blather????
http://www.tompaine.com/articl.....mplete.php
DON….Think Condi Rice….and then tighten down that foil hat…you’re gonna need it……..
ghost @ 88
You’ve GOT to be kidding.
However, if you’re NOT kidding — please run Condi as your candidate for president. Please do. We Democrats would LOVE to run against a former Exxon board member about the time gas is hitting $4.50 a gallon. Hell, even Hillary could crush her. So, whatever you do, don’t listen to Condi when she says she isn’t interested in running for president. Draft her. Don’t forget what Barry Goldwater said — “I’d rather be right than president!” Way to go guys! Let’s hear it for Condi! You go girl! haw haw haw
Don @90
I’m right with you here, rooting for the GOP to draft Condi Rice for president. Just the kind of candidate their evangelical Christian constituency would drool over — an African-American female who never married, never had children and is pro-choice as well as being an Exxon board member. Wonderful traditional Christian “family values.” I also don’t know this for sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her on any of Jerry Falwell’s or Pat Robertson’s nonsensical TV shows.
DON AND NELSON……..everytime I read something either of you write I honestly know why people vote the way they do. When you are not ‘knee-jerking’ you are insulting in a really bigoted way. Republicans are not the ones that want their candidates to be in lock step. It never ceases to amaze me that you consistantly show your biases.
So basically what you are saying about Condi Rice is that she is not Presidential material because she is an old maid,smart, educated, and black. Did I miss anything?
Is this right out of Robert ‘KKK’ Byrd’s playbook?
Ghost @92
“So basically what you are saying about Condi Rice is that she is not Presidential material because she is an old maid,smart, educated, and black. Did I miss anything?”
Did you miss anything? Is the sky blue? Of course, as is typical of you narrow-minded clueless Republicans, you can’t see satire when it’s staring you in the face.
Any DEMOCRAT would vote for someone with Condi Rice’s characteristics in a second, if she was indeed a registered Democrat. We would be justifiably proud of her, as should many mainstream Republicans. However, not a single Evangelical Right Wing Christian Conservative Republican would EVER vote for Rice PRECISELY because of her ethnic and social characteristics.
Even more damning in her background as far as Christian Conservatives would be concerned is the fact that she used to be on the faculty of, horror of horrors, STANFORD UNIVERSITY. That, of course, is second only to HARVARD as the most evil American institution of higher education!
Everyone knows that only Republican candidates that genuflect at the pew of the Evangelical Christian leadership ever get to run for anything these days.
Just look at that travesty of Congress and Bush falling all over themselves to pander to the Christian right in the Terri Schiavo case (despite the fact that polls show more than 70% of Americans think it was wrongheaded for politicians to involve themselves in tragic family disputes) and you see all you need to know why Rice would be ridden out of a Republican nominating convention on a rail if she actually thought of running for president.
No, Mr. Ghost, it’s not people like Don or I who are saying Condi Rice is not presidential material. IT IS YOUR OWN ALLIES ON THE RELIGIOUS (oops, I meant Republican) PARTY where her background would make her candidacy totally unacceptable.
DON AND NELSON…. “PEEPLESS IN SEATTLE”????
ghost @ 92
“Republicans are not the ones that want their candidates to be in lock step.”
You are funny. Sometimes, you are truly hilarious. :D
Nelson, Nelson, Nelson…where to begin?
“Did you miss anything? Is the sky blue? Of course, as is typical of you narrow-minded clueless Republicans, you can’t see satire when it’s staring you in the face.”
Satire? Oh please…if it was satire I would definitely recognize it….and that wasn’t.Do you know the definition of satire?
So you would vote for Condi if she had the big D after her name? Oh, that’s rich. That’s right up there with my favorite lefty protest sign…..”No war unless a Democrat is in the White House”
So if YOU do it it’s okay…if a republican does it it’s evil. Oh good grief…..no wonder you keep losing elections.
Personally…I would rather see a healthy Democratic party. I think one of the most important things for the security of our country and democracy is to have two healthy parties.And you Dems need to get your act together, seriously.Try to remember that you are americans before you are Democrats[or Republicans] I always do. The country comes before the party….simple rule.
And as for Terri Schiavo? Frankly, if this is what it means to keep abortion and assisted suicide/death with dignity[which I am very much for] legal…then I think we should make them both illegal. When the rights of one person are categorized as “it’s ONLY one person” to play political games with someone’s life so you can cover your pet projects…I say get rid of the pet projects.
Remember, all of us with eyes have seen the same people[you] do the candlelight vigil baloney when a murderer is going to get his.And now you want to starve an innocent woman to death merely on the say so of her husband….who has ALOT to gain with her death.
That’s very enlightened of you………
Partisan Democrats would vote for Pinochet if he had a big D after his name………
Ghost @96
Sorry, Ghost. Rambling repartee doesn’t cut it. After reading this latest missive of yours, I haven’t got a clue where you stand on the Schiavo case, or abortion or assisted suicide, nor do I care. I respect anyone who makes a cogent argument and engages in intellectual debate, but I guess you don’t do either so you can’t earn any real respect from me.
Nelson,
What a truly silly post. The fact that you cannot grasp the intricacies of the english language is not my problem. You cannot defend your silly statements so this is where you go?
Yet ANOTHER nah nah nah posting from a silly lefty…….
Don & Nelson–
You 2 pinheads are a crack-up.
YOU bring up Snohomish & Yakima County’s as possible corrupt elections due to touch-screens. I point out that these 2 County’s have DEMOCRAT County Auditors. You goofballs respond that I’m:
a) Name-calling
b) That these 3 DEMOCRAT AUDITORS are too stupid to detect election fraud in the machines.
LeftWingNut jobs are priceless when you call their bluff. I say let them babble and babble….then smack ’em with their own words.
Remember, poor Don spent 10 failed years trying to develop his failed AMWAY Distributorship…make $1000/yr. then became a LEFTIST Guv’mint hack Attorney for 30 years even though he knew his work was useless. Don did it for the money, pension and “high” he got from pretending he did anything of value.
Cynical,
You and I both have learned by now that facts only get in the way of the lib argument, so they are ignored. What we are up against here is a sampling of the caliber of mind the Dem’s rely upon. They refuse to really address any point made, ask them a question; you never get an answer. They divert attention from it by rambling and ignoring the question outright. I, like you, fear no question from them and will answer honestly, because I am confident in my positions and know that they are reality based and defendable.
Chris @ 100
I really enjoyed your attempt at humor! :D
Don–
30 years of mind-numbing, time-wasting bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo….I guess it’s understandable that you are so bitter towards those of us who have built businesses, employed people and actually take pride in what we do.
Don…there were better choices you could have made than a 10-year stab at establishing your AMWAY business. Panhandling would have been more lucrative (LEFTISTS are good at that because they are always looking for “free money” like grants, welfare handouts etc.)! Grave-robbing is another thing LEFTISTS are adept at (estate taxes are like banana’s to monkeys, right Don!)
LEFTISTS=Expert Panhandlers and GraveRobbers!
Don @ 101 Now Don, we must listen with reverence to the President of WART. The honorable Idiot and his troll brigrade can never be wrong…….GW says so…..
jpgee–@103
You continue to razzle-dazzle us with gibberish.
You are the easiest of the LeftWingNuts to smack around because you can count your IQ on 1 hand.
I find your obsession with testicles peculiar jpgee.
If any guy ever drops anything near you, they would be well advised to “kick it all the way home” rather than bend over and pick it up.
Jpgee-Read the damn warning label on that Viagra dude!
Don @75 – No such thing hasn’t been shown yet, because the court hasn’t called for this evidence yet ! but when it does, it will – and you can take that to the bank if you have the courage to..
Don and Nelson – I’ll be waiting to read the next in the series of your conspiracy theories !
The public doesn’t like conservatives ! Not, it’s mainly the progressives who comprise about 30% (in the real USA) of the population who don’t. There’s also the moderates who make up about 40% of the real USA, who support both sides…
Idiot, and what hand is that? The one you use to rob your clients, or the one you use to pat yourself on the back?
Cynical @ 102
How many full-time family-wage jobs are you providing right now, Cynical?