HorsesAss.Org

“You were specifically instructed”

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A little tip to anybody who ever communicates with government officials via email… all your private communications are available via a public information request, so you better be on your best behavior. Take for example initiative profiteer Tim Eyman’s embarrassingly snotty tone in an email to Lori Anderson of the Public Disclosure Commission:

Subject: You were specifically instructed
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 16:39:57 -0800
From: “Tim Eyman”
To: “Lori Anderson”
CC: “Susan Harris”

Ms. Anderson, as you can see from the email below, you were specifically instructed to communicate with Mike Fagan and we would handle the situation with Karla Grogan. You specifically violated this specific instruction by calling Karla Grogan today. They charge us for your conversations with them. If you weren’t told to talk with them, that’d be one thing, but you were specifically instructed to not communicate directly with her.

You just cost us a lot of money because you decided to ignore specific instructions from me.

What do you have to say about it?

Regards, Tim Eyman, ph: 425-493-9127, email: insignia@greekwatch.com

I’ll tell you what I have to say about it, Tim: eat me.

The PDC charges us taxpayers for their time, so if the quickest and best way for Lori to do her job is to speak directly to your accountant, then I say too damn bad for you. That’s just a cost of doing business.

I’ve been known to criticize the PDC for their lax enforcement attitude towards Timmy’s many transgressions. But as somebody who has actually filed PDC reports myself, I have to say that their customer service to filers is outstanding. They bend over backwards to help people like me and Tim file our reports accurately and on time, and have always been polite, courteous and prompt.

Tim needs to check his attitude at the door.

(Oh… and why do I have a copy of this email? I’ll get to that later.)

Swimming with Snarks, Part II

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Carla and TorridJoe have posted to their respective websites part two of “Fisking Sharkansky”, an examination of the relative “discrepancy” rates in sixteen Washington counties. Their findings seriously undermine charges of gross negligence being thrown at King County by the Rossi campaign and our (un)friends at (un)Sound Politics. You can read the post at Preemptive Karma and Also Also.

Notice Spokane County. Rossi won this county easily. Total voters are fewer than one fourth of King County’s. But they have twice as many errors as King per voter. Moreover, their discrepancy represents more voters than ballots, a condition which Sharkansky claimed lacked plausibility as a type of honest error. However Spokane is apparently a Republican leaning county

Goddard on the P-I: quick on the draw, wrong on the facts

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Right-wing bloggers like to imagine themselves as watchdogs on the MSM. But who’s watchdogging the watchdogs? Oh well, I guess today, it’s my turn again. And the dog of the day is recently-knighted (un)Sound Politics contributor, Timothy Goddard.

Writing on his own blog (“PI on taxes: Slow on the uptake, wrong on the facts“), Timothy is so eager to cleverly debunk a Seattle P-I article as thinly disguised “propaganda”, that he makes himself look downright silly.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is bringing new meaning to the term “Post.” “Post,” as in “after,” as in “already happened,” as in “old news.” To set up the Democrats’ no-doubt forthcoming attempt to impose an income tax on the state, replacing the sales tax, the paper is reporting a nine year old study as breaking news.

The propaganda thinly disguised as an article entitled “Sales tax hits state’s poor where it hurts

Scratch this! Lottery plans for big expansion

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Initiative 892 — which would have put 19,000 slot machines into over 2000 neighborhood bars, restaurants and bowling alleys — was defeated this November by a 60-40 margin. So how does the Washington State Lottery Commission react to voters’ overwhelming rejection of what would have been the most dramatic expansion of gambling in state history? Well according to Peter Callaghan in The News Tribune, by preparing for the most dramatic expansion of gambling in state history, of course! [“Lottery prepares its computers for fantasy future“]

In seeking bids for a new computer system to operate its online games like Lotto, Quinto and Mega Millions, the Lottery wants the successful bidder to be prepared to run lots of new games that are currently illegal in Washington

HorsesAss Radio

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I’ll be on the air with Kirby Wilbur, KVI-570, Friday morning at 6:30 AM, breaking the news to Rossi supporters that he lost the election. (Somebody’s got to do it.)

Flawed election? Don’t bank on it

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I’ve already commented on Stefan Sharkansky — the Jeff Gannon Jim Guckert of the Washington press corps — rudely heckling Ron Sims at a press conference yesterday. The Snark snidely blogged about the “hails of derisive laughter” at Sims claim that the November election “had an accuracy rate that any bank would envy.” What Snark doesn’t tell his readers is that the laughter came solely (and deliberately) from him and one fellow malcontent.

Perhaps one of the reasons the assembled media didn’t laugh at the comparison, is that it’s not all that laughable. As TorridJoe and Daniel Kirkdorffer point out on their respective blogs (Also Also and On the Road to 2008), the banking system is not as error free as one might expect, and Washington state elections not quite so error prone as the righties make it out to be.

Both Joe and Daniel site an article by Bank Technology News, that says errors account for about 0.2 percent of online transactions.

“There is always going to be an error rate that they have to live with,” notes Beth Robertson, senior analyst at TowerGroup. But she says rates are remarkably low and roughly half of what they were in 2001. Nonetheless, a 0.2 percent rate is still about 3.4 million payment mistakes that occur either because of customer error or some other glitch in the system, including problems stemming from billers who may switch bank accounts and fail to notify banks so they can change the routing of customer payments. Banks also may fail to cancel a recurring payment either because the request wasn’t processed in time or the customer didn’t make the change correctly on the front end.

Hmmm… 0.2 percent? Doesn’t that come to a 99.8 percent accuracy rate, exactly the rate Snark claims for King County elections?

Daniel takes his analysis further, pointing out the similarities between the types of banking errors described, and those alleged during our recent election.

So the banking systems seem to be plagued the same type of errors we’ve seen in the elections:

-customer error , much like voters who couldn’t fill out their ballots correctly, or didn’t sign them.

-glitches , not unlike voting machines that counted wrong, or lost votes, or couldn’t read valid votes marked in pencil.

-switched bank accounts , kind of like change of addresses.

-failure to cancel a recurring payment , similar to deaths that went unrecorded, and felons who were kept on the voter lists.

That’s pretty uncanny!

The article sums it up by saying, “the equation will likely never be perfect.” .

Of course, online banking isn’t the only area where errors occur in our financial system. Identity theft has become the largest category of fraud, and the fuel behind our nation’s multi-billion dollar credit card fraud racket. The banks are reluctant to release actual fraud rates, but some foreign credit cards are estimated to have rates as high as 0.47 percent! And according to Jupiter Media Metrix, worldwide credit card fraud rates range between 25 cents and 28 cents out of every $100.00 US charged online.

If King County’s election truly was 99.8 percent accurate (as the mathematically infallible Snark argues) then Ron Sims and Dean Logan have the right to be proud. Not only was it more accurate than the banking system, but it was also far more accurate than the 0.5 percent margin the Caltech/MIT Voter Technology Project recommends as the threshold for automatic recounts.

I’m not saying there isn’t room for improvement. The King County Council will be holding an open session on election reform (Monday, 9:30 AM, Council Chambers), and I encourage everybody who cares about this issue to be there. Hopefully, those attending will contribute more to the discussion than just jeers, heckles, and derisive laughter.

Hail Columbia(n Watch)

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Columbian Watch does itself a great disservice with the blog’s modest tagline: “Keeping an eye on the Worst Little Newspaper West of the Mississippi.” CW’s scope is actually much larger… and it is surely one of the best researched, best written political blogs in the state. I’ve bookmarked it, and so should you.

For example, take today’s latest installment in CW’s multi-part expose on the exploits of Vancouver’s M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, and the right-wing faux-think-tanks it funds. Amongst the Murdock Trust’s beneficiaries are a rogue’s gallery of Washington state propaganda mills, including the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, the Washington Policy Center, and yes… Seattle’s very own Archbishop Wilberforce Discovery Institute.

The battle over so-called “Intelligent Design,” the far right’s latest attempt to shove their religion down our throats, is not being advanced by lone fundamentalist lunatics showing up at school boards. It is being financed and promoted by wealthy right-wing foundations, none more so than Washington’s own Discovery Institute, headquartered in Seattle.

“Intelligent Design” has become such a focus for the Discover Institute, that they have actually created a separate division devoted to the cause, the Orwellian-named Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

And the “Center for Science and Culture” found its target last year in Clark County by publishing an anti-evolution screed in The Spring Hill Review, which Clark County residents may recognize as the free “arts” tabloid they find lying around auto-body shops and elsewhere:

Curiously, guess who wrote that screed? None other than (un)Sound Politics co-conspirator Seth Cooper. (Who, to his credit, did root for the Eagles in the Super Bowl.) Ah, what a tangled web we weave.

The whole point of CW’s expose is summed up nicely in the closing paragraph of the first installment:

Philanthropy has a long history in this country, but someone is going to have to explain to me how it constitutes “charitable giving” to support the overtly political operations of EFF, and perhaps more importantly, how progressives are going to convince the media to stop giving EFF and their funders a free ride.

In fact, just the other day I nearly choked when I heard Paul Guppy introduced on KUOW as being from the “non-partisan, free-market think tank, the Washington Policy Center.” Um… doesn’t that description imply that it is partisan towards free-market policies?

These fake think tanks have been setting the terms of the debate in our state for far too long. We need to either convince the MSM to cover these jokers as the propagandists they really are… or we need to create our own “non-partisan progressive think tank.”

Anybody have a couple million dollars lying around?

So who would be governor if we had Instant Runoff Voting?

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Apparently The Columbian isn’t the only paper being watched over at Columbian Watch. I was intrigued by a link to The Oregonian about a HB 1447 which would allow Vancouver, Spokane and Tacoma to experiment with Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). [“Lawmaker promotes new form of voting“]

In an IRV system, voters rank the candidates. If no candidate receives a majority of votes, the bottom candidate is eliminated, and those who voted for him have their second choice counted. This continues until somebody receives a true majority.

Longtime readers may be familiar with my infatuation with IRV, which I see as an opportunity for voters to vote for the candidate they like best, rather than for the lesser evil they think has the best chance of winning. And given a choice between our new, stupid-ass “top two” primary, and eliminating the primary entirely and going to an IRV general election… I much prefer the latter.

HB 1447 would simply authorize local governments to use IRV for local elections. Spokane and Tacoma would have to amend their city charters. Vancouver has already done so.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jim Moeller (D-Vancouver) also makes the following timely observation:

Moeller said he thinks the method would have made the winner in the recent gubernatorial election “crystal clear.”

While an undisputed election might have been bad for us bloggers, I’m pretty sure it would have been good for the rest of Washington’s citizens.

Go to IRVWA.org for more information on efforts to implement IRVs in Washington.

Quibbling with the Weekly

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I enjoy The Seattle Weekly. And I really like frequent contributor Geov Parrish. But his current piece, “Eyman’s Good Idea“… um… oy.

Geov writes, well… glowingly about Tim Eyman’s latest products, I-905 (the “Hands Off Tim’s Business” initiative) and I-900 (which would finally enact performance audits… six months after they’re enacted by the Legislature.)

Suspicious as I am of Eyman’s intentions, I cannot for the life of me think of a reason this would be a bad thing.

You’ve got my phone number, Geov… I wish you would have asked me.

I could have told you that by automatically requiring a referendum on legislation that alters the initiative process, I-905 is blatantly unconstitutional. And I could have explained how I-900 would quadruple the auditor’s staff, add $90 million to the budget, and take as long as 12 years to implement. I could have also explained the realpolitik of Timmy’s flagging initiative prowess.

After a lackluster 2004, during which he backed a failed gambling measure that was far afield from his usual turf, Eyman will in all likelihood have two initiatives on the ballot in 2005.

Not a snowball’s chance.

In his absolute, best-case, fundraising scenario, Timmy struggles to get one initiative on the ballot, let alone two. In mentioning the gambling measure, which cost $600,000 of industry money to buy the signatures, Geov forgets Eyman’s last two “grassroots” petition drive failures: I-807 and I-864. Indeed, Tim hasn’t qualified one of his own initiatives for the ballot since 2002.

If I-864’s 25% property tax cut couldn’t excite his base, I wonder how the wonkish (and redundant) I-900 can break his two-year drought? As to I-905, I stand by my original analysis: it’s just a publicity stunt. Tim knows he can’t run two simultaneous signature drives without a sugar daddy, and he’s already financially committed to I-900. (He even paid for a gorilla graphic.)

And finally Geov, don’t take it personally, but your closer really hits a sore spot:

But if this initiative came from anyone else, it would be seen as a good government reform. Instead, because it’s Eyman, politicians and editorial boards have been suspicious. But I-900 is what it is

Lossi Rossi speaks

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Since I’m blogging the blogs today, I thought I’d pass on this, from the always amusing Carl Ballard at Washington State Political Report:

Dear Dino Rossi,

No matter how many times you declare victory, you’re still a loser.

Love,

Carl Ballard

PS Since you got the judge you were hoping for, and he still said your idea to have a re-vote was bat-shit-insane, do you think now that maybe just maybe you should give up?

And while we’re on the subject, I also direct you to Neil Modie’s report in today’s Seattle PI on Rossi’s press conference. I particularly enjoyed the opening paragraph:

Dino Rossi, stumbling over an earlier vow to refuse to become governor by court decree, suggested yesterday that he might do so — but minutes later said he wouldn’t.

Yup. Of course it’s a total fantasy, but that’s exactly the type of decisive leadership we’d expect from a “Governor” Rossi, huh?

(Note to Mary Lane: next time you let Rossi hold a live press conference… don’t.)

Irregular Stefan

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TorridJoe and Carla over at AlsoAlso and PreemptiveKarma respectively, have published the first part of a joint critique of the work of (un)Sound Politic’s prickly, right-wing numerologist, Stefan Sharkansky: “Fisking Sharkansky“.

To sum it up quickly, the Snark’s “definitive analysis” proves definitely wanting.

By Sharkansky’s own admissions, he struggled to create a file that he believed would match what King worked with to reconcile their data. But his struggle was futile from the start, which he must have known: King didn’t reconcile their data at the precinct level, they did it voter by voter, pollbook line by pollbook line. How can you claim you’ve done the definitive analysis, when you don’t even have the right file defined? We don’t think you can.

Sounds reminiscent of my statistical pissing match with Stefan over his claim that a several hundred vote victory by Gregoire in the hand recount, would still leave Rossi the statistical winner, based on plotting the first two counts. As we say in the software biz: garbage in, garbage out.

Carla and TJ hope “ignorance is the excuse” for Snark’s own irregularities, but I’m not so charitable. I think Snark’s a smart guy. And thus he knows he’s misleading his readers.

I look forward to reading their follow-up.

Setting free the “felon vote”

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Forgive me for being impolitic, but the whole “felon vote” thing… it’s really little more than a technicality.

I base this statement on the following theses: A) if Rossi can’t prove these votes went to Gregoire, they’ll have no impact on his contest, B) there really weren’t all that many felons voting illegally, and C) who the hell cares?

My guess is the vast majority of felons who voted illegally did so unwittingly… after all, why risk going back to jail just to cast a ballot? Plus, many of these disenfranchised felons could have had their voting rights restored if only they went through the confusing process of filing the paperwork.

Yes, I know… the law is the law, and ignorance of it is no excuse. But the same can be said of the contest statute, which clearly states that Rossi must show that illegal votes went to Gregoire in order to set aside the election, a burden of proof his lawyers have argued they cannot meet. Indeed, of the six felons who have revealed their ballots in press accounts I’ve seen, five voted for Rossi, and one for Bennett.

Republicans claim that over 400 convicted felons voted illegally statewide, though the number is probably much smaller. For example, of the 64 names provided to Snohomish County elections officials by the BIAW, only 18 have been found to have voted illegally. And GOP efforts to use the felon vote as evidence of incompetence on the part of county officials ignores the fact that tracking these felons is impossible without a central, statewide database.

But while we argue over how many felons voted, who they voted for, and who is to blame, we fail to ask ourselves the most important question: So what? As The New York Times points out in a plainly titled editorial today (“Why Felons Deserve the Right to Vote“), none other than the American Correctional Association (ACA) has called for ending the practice of withholding voting rights from parolees and people who have completed their prison terms.

These laws serve no correctional purpose – and may actually contribute to recidivism by keeping ex-offenders and their families disengaged from the civic mainstream. This notion is clearly supported by data showing that former offenders who vote are less likely to return to jail. This lesson has long since been absorbed by democracies abroad, some valuing the franchise so much that they take ballot boxes right to the prisons.

The GOP’s emphasis on the felon vote has always been more of a moralistic PR argument than a legal one… a cynical attempt to insinuate that felons overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. That they have absolutely no evidence to back up their thesis (indeed, the anecdotal evidence suggests the contrary), does not seem to dissuade them from contending that these votes alone are enough to call the election results into question.

But that’s not the point.

According to the ACLU, 3.7 percent of otherwise eligible Washington voters are disqualified due to felony convictions, roughly twice the national average. And this policy of disenfranchisement disproportionately impacts minorities, with an estimated 25% of black males disqualified.

And for what?

State Sen. Pam Roach proposes routinely purging the voter rolls in an attempt to make it more difficult for felons to vote. But this would surely disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters, if through nothing but inconvenience alone.

Rather than making it more difficult for everybody to vote, it is time to follow the advice of the ACA and ACLU and others, and automatically restore voting rights to felons upon their release from prison. If we want these people to productively contribute to our Democracy, we need to make them part of it.

I concede the Super Bowl

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It was a close game. There were some disputed calls. But I concede. The Patriots won the Super Bowl, and while my beloved Eagles came closer than anyone expected, we’ll just have to wait until next year.

I’m not going to ask for a recount or a replay or a re-anything… I accept the decision of the officials as final. Even though the Eagles won the first 5:05 minutes of the game, and were tied until 1:16 minutes into the 4th quarter, I understand that only the final score counts.

There is little doubt that if we closely examine the video tapes, we will find that the officials made many mistakes… so many perhaps, that these “irregularities” may have changed the outcome of the game. But I refuse to let my deep disappointment cloud my reason, and despite the fact that I continue to believe that Donovan McNabb is the better quarterback, I accept that Tom Brady has legitimately won the Super Bowl.

And so with heavy heart I congratulate the Patriots, move on, and look forward to the next election season.

A pundit is a pundit is a pundit

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The funniest thing about political blogging is that people actually take us seriously. Especially us partisan flame-throwers. Accuse a sitting governor of being a thief and a fraud — or call somebody a prick from time to time — and people pay attention.

To show you how silly it all is, I’m going to turn from political punditry and exercise a bit of sports punditry. Anybody can do it, so why not me?

Goldy’s 5 Keys to the Superbowl

1. Special teams – It takes a really special team to win the Super Bowl.

2. Score in the “red zone” – Most teams just score in the end zone; if you can score in the red zone, you shorten the field by twenty yards.

3. Turnovers – A little known factor in New England’s victory over Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship game was when Ben Roethlisberger severely burnt his throwing hand eating a hot apple turnover during the pre-game meal. Both Donovan McNabb and Tom Brady must be disciplined, and stick to cold cuts.

4. Control the clock – The team that controls the clock can pretty much end the game the second they’re ahead.

And finally, the “Key to the Superbowl” most overlooked by sports pundits:

5. Score more points than the other team – Need I say more?

And my bold, partisan prediction? Eagles 27, Patriots 17.

(Fly Eagles, Fly)

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