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As the thousand monkeys on the right-wing blogs tirelessly type away in hope of accidentally writing Hamlet — or better yet, the final chapter of Christine Gregoire’s political career — we have been treated to snippet after snippet of half-coherent conspiracy theories regarding alleged misdeeds at King County Elections.

The 10,000 ballot underestimate during the first count, the provisional ballot affidavits, “changing the rules” to count 735 misfiled ballots, disenfranchised military voters, partisan canvassing decisions, lax security, enhanced and duplicated ballots, improper voter registrations… it is all intended to crush the integrity of the electoral system under the combined weight of the various allegations.

Now perhaps the unSound sycophants find it convincing, but as legal evidence in an election contest… it’s all load of monkey poop. Not a single one of these so-called-scandals provides legal grounds for overturning this election. And no court is going to set aside the results simply because the election was chaotic, or imperfect, or close.

But the monkeys keep on typing, and the latest “smoking turd” to roll off their Smith-Coronas is the supposedly shocking discrepancy between the number of people who voted, and the number of ballots counted in King County. County officials and the Secretary of State have all said that these returns are preliminary and unofficial. But how could King County possibly certify the results, the monkey’s angrily demand, based on unofficial returns?

Hmmm. How about RCW 29A.60.190, which is plainly titled “Certification of election results — Unofficial returns”…?

So how long do the counties have before submitting the final returns? Well, I’m not exactly sure, but according to RCW 29A.60.230 it seems a final report on absentee ballots is not due until March 31st. So personally, I’m just going to remain patient and wait for the final numbers before I start worrying about the typing monkeys.

Oh… and one other thought. It’s not at all clear to me, that even if King County fails to reconcile all the discrepancies in its returns, that this would provide grounds for an election contest either:

RCW 29A.60.130
Certificate not withheld for informality in returns.

No certificate shall be withheld on account of any defect or informality in the returns of any election, if it can with reasonable certainty be ascertained from such return what office is intended, and who is entitled to such certificate, nor shall any commission be withheld by the governor on account of any defect or informality of any return made to the office of the secretary of state.

I think the key words here are “reasonable certainty”, a phrase repeated in RCW 29A.60.200. But, the usual caveat: much to my mother’s chagrin, I am not an attorney. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this statute… but hell if I’m going to trust a bunch of typing monkeys.

I can predict the future. I see… (un)Sound Politics trashing Mark Trahant’s column in Sunday’s Seattle P-I.: “Rossi should take a cue from Gore.” (Unless of course, they read my prediction first, and don’t trash it just to spite me. So come on Stefan, I dare you to prove me wrong by proving me right. Or prove me right by proving me wrong. Whatever.)

Anyway…

This was an election that raised more questions than answers. Voters were split, roughly 50-50, and the conclusion was not at all satisfying. The division was so bad that the very process of elections and how we count votes became its own legitimate political issue.

Al Gore conceded anyway.

Ouch.

The point is, we’ve just been through a damn close election, and while those of you on the losing side may believe it was a load shit… shit happens. Trahant takes a historical perspective, pointing out that we had extremely close and contentious presidential elections in 1800, 1824 and 1960 (not to mention 1876), and in each case the loser managed to accept the results without a demanding a revote.

U.S. elections are not perfect and there’s no guarantee a new election would be any more satisfying than the November race.

Of course Dino Rossi supporters ardently believe a new election would be more satisfying — they’ve spent so much time and energy impugning Christine Gregoire and the Democratic party, they’re just oozing cockiness that Rossi would win in a cakewalk, if not a land slide. But as Trahant points out, he’ll have that chance… in 2008.

Ultimately, the question of legitimacy will not be answered by Rossi, a court or even a new election. It will be something that must be earned by Gregoire. It will be determined by how well she leads and governs the state.

If she’s effective, it will be tough for any Republican (Rossi included) to win office four years from now. And if she fails, Rossi or another Republican ought to win easily.

Republicans can rest assured that our state Constitution does indeed allow for a new election… every four years. But for now, it’s time for our new governor to get on with the job of governing. And it’s time for loudmouthed know-it-alls like me to get on with badgering her and the Legislature to do the right thing on tax restructuring, education, election reform and a host of other important issues. Speaking of which…

One way to improve access for military voters is to move the primary election back, allowing more time for ballots to be printed and mailed.

I couldn’t agree more. Oh wait… I already did.

Even as citizens from across Washington state joined together to celebrate the inauguration of 2005, former GOP gubernatorial hopeful Dino Rossi refused to concede the changing of the calendar, claiming that “unexplained irregularities” required an entirely new year.

Citing information first posted to the OCD support group blog, Sound Politics, Mr. Rossi pointed to data that showed the number of days in 2005 do not reconcile with the number of days in 2004. In a hastily called, and somewhat incoherent New Year’s Eve press conference, Mr. Rossi angrily slurred “Democrats say they want to count all the days. Well I’ve counted the days, and they just don’t add up. This Gregoirian calendar will not stand!”

Democratic spokesperson Kirsten Brost attributed the one day discrepancy to a “leap year,” but the conservative blogs were abuzz with rumors of this “mystery day.” Sound Politics had originally charged that 2005 had as many as 42 fewer days, but quickly revised the posting after admitting they were working from a preliminary calendar, and had not yet accounted for all the Jewish holidays.

Calling the calendar “a total mess,” Mr. Rossi sent a letter to Governor-elect Christine Gregoire, asking her to join him in demanding that 2005 be set aside, and that the state skip immediately to 2006, or preferably… 2008.

“Voters have lost faith in the integrity of the calendar,” wrote Mr. Rossi. “It is time to start fresh, with a happy new year.”

I thought I’d provide a link to George Howland’s column in the current Seattle Weekly: “The Republicans Blow It“.

While I personally hold a slightly less cynical view of this election, I thought Howland hit the nail on the head in comparing the strategies that ultimately shaped Christine Gregoire’s victory in the hand recount:

This turnaround wasn’t happenstance. The Democrats played a brilliant endgame, aggressively hunting for votes that had been incorrectly disqualified, while the GOP focused on trying to ferret out fraud that wasn’t evident.

As it so happens, these competing strategies were clearly represented in the blog wars over this election. I embraced the “count every vote” mantra early on, not only because I genuinely believed it the right thing to do, but out of confidence that if we counted every ballot cast by a legally registered voter, Gregoire would surely come out ahead. Meanwhile, our friends over at (un)Sound Politics callously dismissed voters with poorly marked ballots or illegible signatures as unworthy of the franchise… and have instead focused their prodigious efforts on unsound allegations of fraud, corruption and gross incompetence. As Howland points out, these two very different approaches stem from longstanding philosophical differences.

For decades, Democratic electioneering philosophy has been turnout

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The other day I conducted an informal poll of a dozen of the most respected political reporters and columnists in the state. I asked them via email, whether they thought Dino Rossi would eventually contest the election or concede.

The results were informative:

Concede:			1
Contest:			2
On vacation:			4
Declined to participate:	2
Totally ignored me:		3

I think what we learn most from this poll is that journalists have a better benefits package than I do, with a full one third of those surveyed on vacation, while I’m left blogging in the Seattle rain. What we learn about this election is virtually nil.

The same can be said of those stupid, lame-ass internet polls that some people like to point to as valid indicators of public opinion… unless of course they don’t like the results, in which case they’re just stupid, lame-ass internet polls. My personal “favorite” at the moment is The Seattle Times poll that asks “Should we vote again?” I am particularly amused by the ironic result… a 50-50 tie.

Considering the public’s lack of trust in these stupid, lame-ass internet polls, and the extraordinary closeness of the Times survey, I am sending a letter to the Times editorial board asking them to agree to a new poll on the subject. And to give you the opportunity to show your support for a new poll, I have updated my own stupid, lame-ass internet poll to ask the all important question: “Should the Seattle Times conduct a new poll on whether we should vote again?”

FYI… just sent this to my press list:

Contact: David Goldstein
HorsesAss.Org
david@horsesass.org
206-774-6790

TO MY FRIENDS IN THE MEDIA:

CalTech/MIT studies confirm accuracy of hand recounts

In asking for a new election, Dino Rossi continues to make the unscientific charge that hand recounts are less accurate than machine counts. However, there happens to be quite a bit of research on this topic by the CalTech/MIT Voter Technology Project. [http://www.vote.caltech.edu/]

Of particularly relevance is the published study “Using Recounts to Measure the Accuracy of Vote Tabulations: Evidence from New Hampshire Elections 1946-2002.” [http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/vtp_WP10.pdf] In this study the authors assert:

“Tabulations may change from the initial count to the recount for a variety of reasons: ballots may be mishandled; machines may have difficulty reading markings; people and machines may make tabulation errors. Because recounts are used to certify the vote, greater effort is taken to arrive at the most accurate accounting of the ballots cast. The initial count of ballots, then is treated as a preliminary count, and the recount as the official.”

In measuring tabulation error rates, the CalTech/MIT investigators clearly start from the assumption that recounts are more accurate because greater care is taken in arriving at the result. The study concludes that recounts should be mandatory whenever the margin of victory falls within 0.5%.

But Mr. Rossi has attacked the integrity of hand counts in particular. The researchers at CalTech/MIT speak directly to that issue in a paper titled “Residual Votes Attributable to Technology: An Assessment of the Reliability of Existing Voting Technology.” [http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/vtp_WP1.pdf]

The “residual voting rate” is considered the primary metric for measuring the relative performance of voting technologies. According to CalTech/MIT:

“Similar jurisdictions using different technologies ought to have the same residual vote rate, on average. By this metric, hand-counted paper ballots and optically scanned ballots have shown the better overall performance than punch cards, lever machines, and electronic voting machines.”

The study finds that punch cards and electronic voting machines have a residual voting rate for president of about 3 percent of all ballots cast, whereas paper and optically scanned ballots produce rates of only 2 percent… “a statistically significant difference of fully one percent.” Indeed, when comparing jurisdictions that have switched from one voting technology to the other, the researchers conclude:

“Paper might even be an improvement over lever machines and scanners.”

The scientific literature clearly supports the notion that hand counts are accurate, and that recounts are more accurate than the initial, preliminary count. For Mr. Rossi to continue to insist that the first count was the most accurate, not only flies in the face of science, but of the clear intent of the governing statutes. It should be remembered that as a state senator, Mr. Rossi voted for an overhaul of RCW Title 29A, that reaffirmed the primacy of hand recounts in determining the outcome of our elections.

I encourage you all to go to the source material and evaluate the research for yourself. I believe you will agree that it is one thing to make specific allegations of fraud and error, and quite another to impugn the integrity our voting system in general.

###

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed today officially certified Democrat Christine Gregoire as governor-elect, declaring her the winner of the closest gubernatorial election in state history. While historical records are incomplete, it is likely the closest gubernatorial race percentage wise, in the nation’s history.

While Republican Dino Rossi continues to call for a new election, claiming the results of a hand recount cannot be trusted, Reed — a two-term Republican — continued to defend the integrity of the electoral process.

“I do not feel like this has been a botched election,” Reed told a news conference. But he said that because it was so close, any error discovered took on great significance.

“I saw serious mistakes being made. I saw them being corrected,” Reed said. “That’s part of the process. The system itself has worked well.”

“Nothing that I have been informed about rises to the level of fraud,” Reed said. “There have been human errors. There have been mistakes. At this time there is nothing that appears fraudulent.”

While Reed defends the integrity of the election, Rossi’s proxies on the right-wing blogs continue to slog innuendo on top of conjecture on top of downright lies, in a concerted effort to undermine public confidence. The accusation du jour is that a “very prominent” King County Democrat is fraudulently registered at an illegal address. I can only assume that the villain’s identity is being withheld as an attempt at political extortion.

I don’t need to provide a link to the blackmailers… you know who I’m talking about.

While state Republicans continue to vilify Christine Gregoire for forcing and winning a hand recount, our governor-elect is starting to acquire folk-hero status amongst national Democrats. Writing in The Nation (“Rule One: Count Every Vote“), John Nichols points out that “politics is a game played by rules” and he lauds Gregoire for showing the kind of fight during the recount process that Al Gore and John Kerry failed to muster.

Maybe someday, if the Democrats really want to win the presidency, they will nominate someone like Christine Gregoire. Gregoire is the Washington state attorney general who this year was nominated by Democrats to run for governor of that state. She is hardly a perfect politician — like too many Democrats, she is more of a manager than a visionary; and she is as ideologically drab as Gore or Kerry.

But Gregoire had one thing going for her, and that was her determination to win.

Nichols rightly ridicules Dino Rossi for ridiculing Democratic demands for the “fuller, sounder” manual recount provided by law:

Rossi claimed that Gregoire wanted to count and recount the ballots until she was declared the winner.

In a sense, Rossi was right.

Gregoire did want to keep counting until she won. But, of course, that is the point of the recount process: If you think that the votes are there to assure your victory, you keep demanding that they be counted and tabulated. This is the fundamental rule that neither Gore nor Kerry ever quite got.

Of course, the law also provides that Rossi can contest the election, but thus far he has failed to show convincing evidence of any legal grounds. Indeed at his press conference yesterday, he focused his criticisms on the concept of a hand recount, rather than providing proof of any fraud or error in the actual recount itself. Nichols concludes:

The fight may not be over yet. Rossi is crying foul. But the likelihood is that, in Washington state, the Democrat, not the Republican, will be taking the oath of office in January. There are two reasons why this is the case. First, Christine Gregoire got more votes. Second, she demanded that they be counted.

As I’ve pointed out before, it is ironic that the hand recount that Rossi now attacks was sanctioned by a statute that he voted for. Criticize these rules all you want, but they were Rossi’s rules. Gregoire played by his rules. And she won.

At a press conference broadcast live during the local evening news, Dino Rossi read from a letter asking Governor-elect Christine Gregoire to agree to a new election.

What does that tell me? He ain’t got squat.

I have been saying for weeks that the margin of victory in this election is just too far within the margin of error of the voting technologies to confidently determine who really got the most votes. And I find it ironic that Rossi agrees with me… now that he is behind.

Oh, he and his GOP handlers would like you to think that suspicious “voting irregularities” are to blame for the uncertainty, but the truth is… this is simply a damn close election. Fortunately, state statute — a statute Rossi voted for — provides a means of determining the outcome of these damn close elections: the winner of the hand recount wins.

To say now, that we need a new election because the first one was too close, calls into question all close elections. It would be untenable, bad policy.

It is also ironic that Rossi claims his sole purpose of asking for a revote is to restore confidence in the system. How exactly is he restoring confidence in the system, when he’s telling voters the system is so flawed we need to go outside of the system, throw out the results, and hold a new election? And how does repeating the unscientific claim that hand recounts are inaccurate, possibly restore confidence in a system that clearly relies on hand recounts as the most accurate count?

I have never understood Rossi’s reputation as a straight shooter, but if you had any doubts as to whether he is anything more than your typical politician, this performance should put them to rest. Let’s be honest… does anybody really believe that Gregoire is going to join Rossi’s call for a new election? And does anybody actually believe that Rossi thought there was a snowball’s chance she would?

So which is it? Is Rossi stupid? Or was this whole press conference just a transparent PR ploy?

Rossi ain’t got squat, and he knows it.

And I can’t help but think that we’ve just witnessed him filming the first TV commercial of his 2008 gubernatorial campaign.

UPDATE:
The Seattle Times has just posted one of those stupid, lame-ass, online polls, asking whether we should have a new election. You must know how much I loathe these worthless things by the way I mock them on my website. But please click on over and vote “No” as many times as you can.

And if you know an easy way of casting multiple votes, please share it with the rest of us. As long as Republicans are going to accuse us of stealing elections, we might as well start with this bogus load of crap.

Washington state media:

Dino Rossi will make a statement to the media this evening at 5:40 PM in the lobby of our campaign headquarters building in Bellevue — 330 112th Ave NE, the “Wallace Properties” building on the corner of 112th NE & NE 4th.

Mary Lane
Communications Director

The statement is timed to be shown live during the local evening news. It doesn’t make sense for him to announce an election contest in this way, at this time, so I’m guessing that if Rossi makes any news at all, this is a concession speech.

UPDATE:
KING-5 News reports that Rossi will not concede… today.

We’ve heard a lot of partisan squawking from Dino Rossi and his paranoid parrots on the right wing blogs, about corrupt Democrats trying to steal the gubernatorial election. And some of it is beginning to cross the line from mean to weird.

Over on (un)Sound Politics, our friend Stefan — angered that Snohomish County won’t deliver its voter registration database in a more convenient file format — has regressed to calling Auditor Bob Terwilliger a “snot nosed jerk.” Meanwhile, co-unSounder Jim Miller continues to calmly push his theory that Democrats stole the election through “distributed vote fraud,” a pseudo-scholarly term (coined by Jim) that relies on the thoroughly insulting premise:

6. Cheaters are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.

Yeah… right, Jim. Way to add to the public debate.

Unfortunately, while both sides focus on partisan spin, we are missing an opportunity to address some bipartisan issues. For example, obscured in all the hyperbole over voter fraud and enhanced ballots, is the longtime problem of disenfranchised overseas military personnel.

As Robert Jamieson points out in his column in today’s Seattle P-I (“In the military, out of the ballot loop“) hundreds of military voters may have received their absentee ballots too late to vote. There was a lot of big talk from Republicans for a couple of days, about protecting the voting rights of our troops, but the issue seems to have been forgotten once the facts inconveniently got in the way of pinning the blame on evil Democrats. According to Jamieson:

The Secretary of State’s Office tells me it hasn’t received even a trickle of complaints. Ballots were mailed out in time — on Oct. 8, more than three weeks before the election.

Delays or snafus could have occurred once the ballots hit the postal network or entered the military mail-handling system, conceded Pamela Floyd, assistant elections director for voter services.

She said military and overseas ballots are not subject to usual postmark rules; the ballots, provided they were signed and dated by Nov. 2, just had to arrive in a county elections office by Nov. 16, the day before certification.

That’s right, despite all the bluster we heard that malfeasance or incompetence on the part of (presumably Democratic) county officials had denied our troops the right to vote, it turns out that ballots statewide were sent out “in time.”

Unfortunately, “in time” isn’t timely enough.

While we certainly need to explore some technological solutions, I’m guessing that if the creative minds in both parties put as much effort into solving this problem as they do into propagandizing it, they just might come up with a simple, immediate fix, like… gee, I don’t know… mailing out the ballots a couple of weeks sooner? Of course, this would require moving our primary from September to the spring — like most of the rest of the nation — a change that has been resisted by legislators on both sides of the aisle.

It may come as quite a surprise to those of us living through the election-that-would-not-die, but a dispassioned (that rules out Stefan) statistical analysis of the error rates will likely show that the procedures in place functioned relatively well. Still, the excruciating closeness and scrutiny of the vote count has clearly uncovered flaws that can and must be fixed.

Ensuring that our military receive their absentee ballots on time should be a noncontroversial addition to the top of our election reform “to do” list. It’s not only the right thing do… we already know how to do it.

According to KING5 News, Grays Harbor, Kittitas and Lewis counties have already rejected state GOP requests to reconsider rejected ballots, while the Clark County canvassing board is currently meeting to review the issue. Considering how sloppy the R’s have been in researching these “rejected” ballots, it’s no wonder even all-Republican canvassing boards aren’t taking the request seriously:

The GOP had submitted nine affidavits from voters in Lewis County, who said their votes hadn’t been counted. But late Tuesday morning, Lewis County rejected the Republican request to review those ballots.

The canvassing board determined that five of those nine votes had been counted already. The board voted two to one to refuse to reconsider the other four because it would be expanding the parameters of a recount.

Let’s see now, that’s five of nine “rejected” ballots have already been counted… for a 56 percent error rate. Maybe Stefan will correct me if I’m wrong, but if Chris Vance had been running elections in King County, we can confidently predict that Dino Rossi would have won by approximately 500,000 votes.

The R’s are just going through the motions on this one folks. It’s on to the formal contest.

UPDATE:
The AP reports that the Clark County canvassing board has unanimously decided not consider 24 affidavits brought forth by the GOP. No word yet on how many of these were actually from people whose votes weren’t counted.

Also in the news, Christine Gregoire’s lead has dropped to 129, after the Secretary of State’s web site backed out one vote that Thurston County had attempted to add after it had officially certified its results. This is consistent with the SOS guidance that says counties can’t reopen the results once they certify.

An article by Kenneth Vogel in The Tacoma News Tribune, suggests that Dino Rossi may soon have to give up the perks of office he’s been enjoying since being certified governor-elect after the first recount. [Rossi may have to give up perks of being Gov.-elect]

Since he won the first recount by 42 votes, Rossi has taken four trips on the state plane, he and his family have been chauffeured by a state trooper in a state car, they had state police protection stationed outside their home in Sammamish and his transition team has maintained a taxpayer-funded office in Olympia.

Sweet.

It’s not clear if he’ll be cut off entirely while he contests the election, but once Christine Gregoire is certified the real governor-elect on Dec. 30, Rossi may have to sharpen up his driving skills. Don’t worry Dino… an elephant never forgets.

According to Vogel, Rossi took his family on a tour of the living quarters at the governor’s mansion last Tuesday, which perhaps explains his determination to fight on until the bitter end. Rumor has it his eldest daughter already picked out her bedroom… disappoint a 13-year-old girl, and he may really need the police protection.

[I got such a kick out of this comment from Wyethwire, that I thought it deserved its own post.]

SoundPolitics weather forecast for tomorrow:

Seattle has on average 272 rainy days.
To date, there have been 260 rainy days in the Seattle area.

Therefore, we expect it to rain tommorrow, and every day for the rest of the year.
That still leaves eight rainy days unaccounted for.
In keeping with annual rainy days totals in Seattle it should have rained today, and every day last week.

The fact that it did not rain is an anomaly that must be accounted for before I will accept the legitimacy of this climate.

Phone call to God and Mother Nature have gone unreturned.

The Rossi campaign and their cheerleaders at (un)Sound Politics need to get together and iron out a consistent message. While Rossi spokesperson Mary (Matalin-wannabe) Lane has adopted the Democratic mantra of “Count Every Vote”, the unSounders are warning us that too many votes have already been counted.

The unSounders are at least consistent. They apparently prefer to count votes the way Princeton University plays basketball: score first and then run out the clock.

Okay, maybe that isn’t fair. (To Princeton.) But by consistently arguing for tougher standards on voter registration and signature matching — and by ridiculing the notion that imperfectly marked ballots should be reviewed by humans when they don’t register on machines — the unSounders have made it clear that they believe the risk of fraud far outweighs any harm from voter disenfranchisement. I think it is fair to say that they would like to make it harder to vote. Unless you’re in the military.

The Rossi campaign has been more equivocal. They were apparently comfortable with the standard practice that canvassing decisions not be revisited… at least while Rossi was ahead. But now we’re hearing passionate pleas that a simple signature matching problem (you know… like not having signed one) should not be used to disenfranchise an otherwise legitimate voter.

The problem with a PR campaign that emphasizes these two competing messages — “count every vote” vs. “beware of fraud” — is that they represent two sides of the same cost-benefit equation. Apart from administrative convenience, the only reason King and most other counties adhere to such strict deadlines and signature matching procedures — the reason we require voter registration at all — is to prevent and deter fraudulent votes. To argue that signature matching requirements should now be loosened not only contradicts the Rossi campaign’s prior position, it contradicts the argument that there is a significant risk of fraud. And to argue fraud, undermines GOP efforts to recanvass rejected ballots.

At the risk of providing free advice to the opposition (or of feeding Stefan’s ego), I think the unSounders have the sounder media strategy. Dishonest and deceptive… but strategically sounder. Out of 3 million ballots cast, I’d be surprised if the R’s couldn’t turn up evidence of at least a few suspicious — if not downright fraudulent — votes.

Thus I think we’ll shortly see the GOP give up its quixotic attempt to reopen canvassing decisions on rejected ballots, and instead, narrowly focus their legal and media arguments on voter fraud. They won’t necessarily allege corruption by election officials, but rather, negligence and incompetence that led to widespread voter fraud. And presumably, the argument goes, only Democrats commit voter fraud.

Not that I believe this will carry the day in court. But skillfully argued, the court of public opinion apparently requires a substantially lighter burden of proof.