HorsesAss.Org

I’d heard from a couple woeful Greg Nickels supporters this week who hadn’t bothered to vote in Tuesday’s primary election, figuring the incumbent mayor was a shoe-in for the general… but you know, one always hears stories like this, so I hadn’t given it much thought. But yesterday I heard from a Nickels volunteer who told me a story that gave me pause.

The volunteer (anonymous to you, but well known to me) had been working the phone banks over the last couple days of the campaign, encouraging likely Nickels supporters to mail in their ballots, and he talked to “at least a dozen” voters who said they planned to vote for Nickels in November but were intending to game the primary by voting for who they perceived to be the weakest opponent (usually, but not always, Mike McGinn). The assumption was that Nickels was a shoe-in to make it through to the general, and so they could afford to divert their vote to game the system.

Oops.

Of course, this anecdote is merely, um, anecdotal, so unless I hear from other phone bank volunteers who report similar conversations with voters, I’ll have to leave it at that. But it does make me wonder how complacent Nickels supporters might have been, and if the broader public had understood that the mayor might really come in third to Mallahan and McGinn, whether he really would have come in third at all?

Speculation, sure. But that’s a lot of what I do.

Did you know that a round trip ticket bought at a Link light rail station is actually a day pass for the fare zone purchased, good for as many rides as you can fit into the current calendar day?

Riding the Link to the mayor’s press conference yesterday I bought a roundtrip ticket between Othello and downtown, and happened to run into one of the Sound Transit inspection teams while on the train. I flashed my ticket, and that was that, and apparently none of the other passengers on the roughly half-full train had any problems either. But it got me thinking.

My ticket had the date and the $2.00 zone value printed boldly on the card, with “Adult $4.00” in smaller print along with the names of the starting and destination stations. But there was no time stamp or expiration printed anywhere on the card… and really, how could there be? I might return any time, and the same ticket was issued as valid fare in both directions. And since the ticket is never punched, scanned or collected, I could use it multiple times throughout the day, getting on and off at various stations within the purchased zone.

So I asked folks at Sound Transit whether I had discovered a flaw in their fare system, and was flatly told no. They don’t seem to advertise it, but these tickets are day passes; in fact, it says “Puget Pass” on the front of the ticket, and clearly states on the back: “Pass is valid during the day(s)/week(s/month(s)/year(s) shown.” Furthermore, it’s valid for face value service throughout the region, on Community Transit, Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, Metro and Sound Transit. In that sense it’s even better than a bus transfer; one can ride the light rail, and then use the same ticket repeatedly throughout the region’s bus and commuter rail system, paying the difference between the face value and the fare where need be.

At least through the end of the year.

When I asked why anybody would use an Orca Card, which dings you for every boarding, rather than an all-day Puget Pass, I was told that a) few commuters take more than a single roundtrip ride a day; and b) come January, paper tickets and bus transfers would no longer be accepted as valid transfers, while the Orca Card would continue to seamlessly operate as such.

Fair enough. But for the moment, these roundtrip tickets are one helluva bargain, and will still be a pretty damn good deal after the first of the year, especially for folks looking to explore the neighborhoods along the Link line.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA0GG-mIW90[/youtube]

(There are more media clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

A variant on Chris Rock’s “Another kid?” routine started playing in my head as I read David Ammon’s post at the SoS blog last night…

“Another change?”

“ANOTHER CHANGE???”

“Get the fuck outta here!”

(* Sigh *)

Look…it really isn’t about the roller coaster ride, where R-71 was losing and then winning and then losing and now winning again. It’s that I thought the Secretary of State’s office understood after the first time we went through this that we wanted real numbers of rejected signatures; not the number of signatures awaiting another check.

In other words, I didn’t simply want a pile of numbers to spin, fold and mutilate for my own amusement. I wanted numbers that had some valid analytical utility. And that means well-defined numbers. Numbers that, when attached to the label “Rejected: Registration Not Found”, gave the number in this category that were…well, actually rejected. That’s not what we got.

Okay…so how do things stand now, with some unknown number of signatures being shuffled from the reject pile to the accept pile? (See this and this for an update; something over 35% of the third-phase checks have been completed, based on progress made through yesterday.)

Today’s batch of R-71 “data” have the total examined signatures at 97,287 (about 70.7%). There have been 11,315 invalid signatures found, for a cumulative rejection rate (uncorrected for the final duplicate rate) of 11.63%.

The invalid signatures include 9,347 that are not found in the voting rolls in at least two check phases, and an unknown number who have made it through a third and presumably final check. There were 1,021 duplicate (or triplicate) signatures found, and 947 signatures that did not match the signature on file. There are also 52 “pending” signatures awaiting signature cards—I ignore these for now.

The 1,021 suggest a duplication rate for the entire petition of 1.78%, down from 1.90% yesterday.

If the numbers were final, we could use the V₂ estimator to project the number of valid signatures for the final petition and learn that there should be about 122,642. This gives a 2,065 signature margin over the 120,577 needed to qualify for the ballot. The overall rejection rate is down to about 10.93%. Yesterday this figure was 12.47%, but the phase 3 checks have returned formerly rejected signatures to the accept pile.

A Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 simulated petitions, using the rates we have now, give the measure a 99.11% probability of qualifying for the ballot. Quite a change from yesterday.

Here is our graph showing the results from each data release for the last two weeks:

I am inclined to think this is the worst case scenario for R-71 proponents. That is, as the third-phase check is completed, the measure will gain on the margin of votes needed for qualification.

There is one other twist. Apparently there is some evidence that 7% to 15% of accepted signatures belong in the reject pile. I haven’t tracked down the details, and I have no idea what the SoS office intends to do about this. But, I’m sure the lawyers have their ears perked up! Way, way up.

On election night, Dow Constantine’s people were just thrilled to see him break away from the rest of the Democratic pack and break the 20-percent mark. So they must be absolutely ecstatic to see him closing the gap with Republican Susan Hutchison as the late arriving ballots are tallied.

What started as a 37-22 margin on election night has now shrunk to a mere 33-27 Hutchison lead with about 90-percent of the expected turnout tallied. Not too shabby considering Hutchison was the only Republican and only woman, while Constantine had to compete with three other Dems.

So, how bad is Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033? So bad, apparently, that the Washington Realtors’ Tax & Fiscal Policy Committee has reportedly voted unanimously to oppose I-1033. Apparently something to do with it being poorly crafted, ill-timed and a job killer.

The final endorsement decision won’t be made by the Realtor’s Legislative Steering Committee until September, but the fact that there is so much opposition within the Realtors for chrissakes, to an initiative that promises steep property tax cuts, tells you something about how obviously stupid and dangerous I-1033 really is.

One of the things I’ve bemoaned most about our mayor’s race, is that unlike our neighbors to the south in Portland, our City Hall has never seemed to produce a juicy sex scandal.

Or has it?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBGmnqcMGOI[/youtube]

Standing there in the room during his concession speech, you could almost feel the heat of their passion as Mayor Greg Nickels and Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis stared briefly, but lovingly, into each other’s eyes. Who knew?

Paul Krugman’s column about how President Barack Obama has lost the trust of progressives is justifiably being widely noted this morning. Definitely worth a read if you have a moment to click through.

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

As Krugman notes, the coddling of the financial industry and hanging progressives (and many members of Congress, it should be noted) out to dry this August have created a very bad situation. As always seems to happen, Democrats will take your money, your time and your energy, and then sit down and give everything away before any real bargaining has even taken place.

It seems to be some kind of congenital disease in the party. The only thing saving Obama right now is House progressives, who are refusing to be taken hostage by the petty clown shows around the country.

Now, there is a lot to be said for party unity and being team players. But the players need confidence that the coaches aren’t secretly making deals with the other team (cough Billy Tauzin cough,) or they won’t play hard, if at all.

You can’t negotiate with lying asshole scumbags whose only goal is to ratfuck you, this is pretty basic stuff. And all across this land, the lying scumbag Republicans are busy ratfucking. You have to admit, it’s a skill they learned long ago, and from Nixon’s time to ours, it’s the one consistent thing about them. If only ratfucking cured people, we’d be in Paradise.

And while I don’t usually begrudge politicians some well earned rest and relaxation, the president going on vacation now when millions of Americans are taking “staycations” is incredibly tone deaf. Sorry, but politics isn’t always fair, and the righties are going to do everything they can to exploit it. Send the wife and kids, and get back to the White House or go out to some districts and help some of these Congress-critters.

Facts don’t matter in America any more, so I’m not down with the counter- argument that Bush took 80 gazillion days of vacation, nobody cares. We’re in a post-reality twilight where it’s okay to bring guns to political events and spread lies about how health care reform would be just like Nazi euthanasia programs and otherwise behave like uncivilized fools. The traditional media tends to lap it up like dogs, never noticing that the ones actually holding the needle are eyeing them as well, with a gleam in their eye. If the lunatics take over the pound, the dogs will be the first to go.

And yes, please tell me how awful it would be if Republicans win big in 2010 or 2012, I know, I know. We might wind up with two quagmires abroad, a massive deficit, a hollowed out manufacturing sector, a financial system that amounts to a kleptocracy, no gains in civil rights for gays, or of all things, no meaningful health care reform.

That would be terrible.

As Bob Dylan (the real one) used to sing, “How does it feel?”

Mayor Nickels has conceded, and gracefully. (And no, he’s not all that fat; I just liked the pun.) More later.

UPDATE:
I’m back home now, after conveniently riding light rail back and forth to City Hall (you know, the light rail line Mayor Nickels staked his political capital on building), and while I’m waiting for some video to load, I thought I’d just add a few more observations.

As I initially wrote, Mayor Nickels’ concession was quite graceful, but it was also self-effacing, forthright, and at times both funny and touching. There’s no doubt a lot of of folks don’t much like the mayor—Tuesday’s election was a testament to his unpopularity—but had more voters seen this downright likable side to Nickels, I wonder if he would have been giving a concession speech this morning?

I for one thought this race would in the end come down to competence, and thus I never really believed Nickels would lose in the primary, as despite the incessant whining about snow removal and a few bad curbs, he’s proven to be a pretty damn competent mayor, with no hint of personal corruption. In terms of basic infrastructure—roads, rail, schools, fire stations, parks, play fields, etc.—Seattle is a better city than it was eight years ago, and so I guess I never really took seriously public discontent with the mayor himself.

I guess I should’ve known better.

Voters elect people, not issues, and apparently, not enough primary voters liked the mayor enough to get him through to the general. Perhaps if his campaign had done a better job of defining Nickels as a human being, the results might have been different. Or perhaps it was already too late.

Whatever.

I can think of a lot of reasons why one might want to kick out the mayor. I just come away thinking he was kicked out for the wrong reasons.

Word on the street, and from multiple sources, is that former Western Wireless CEO John Stanton has been telling folks he’ll raise a million dollar “independent” expenditure on behalf of closeted-Republican Susan Hutchison in this November’s race for King County Executive.

In addition to Stanton, you can expect the usual Republican suspects to pony up (Kemper Freeman, Skip Rowley, the various McCaws, et al). And don’t be surprised to see a big chunk of change from the normally apolitical Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi, who has long had a strangely close relationship with the former KIRO-7 anchor.

I’m one of those who strongly believes that demographics and party alignment strongly favors Dow Constantine in the race, but I’m also one who believes in the power of money to sway votes, especially in the face of our weakened political media. So as bizarrely unqualified and out of step with mainstream King County values as Hutchison really is, we can’t afford to be complacent, especially with R-71 potentially bringing conservative voters out to the polls in force.

This is an open thread…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gCUufJKAKE&feature=channel[/youtube]

Perhaps there are lessons from the 1960’s to be learned for today’s leftists: policy is nothing without passion and creativity, although in the case of the video above a laundry list of fantasy grievances set to canned guitar chords may not be the way to go.

While there are many aggravating things about today’s conservatives, none are as aggravating as their attempts at artistic expression.

If you’re going to make a policy issue about culture, you should make sure you have some.

(Stumbled upon at the site of Ethan Persoff, who also hosts a web version of the “Official Pogrom” for the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy Trial.)

Today’s R-71 data have been release by the Secretary of State’s office.

The total signatures examined has reached 88,191, which is 64.1% of the total petition. To date there have been 10,510 invalid signatures found, for an apparent rejection rate of 11.92%. This rate underestimates the rejection rate for the entire petition because it doesn’t account for the increasing rate of duplicates found as more signatures are examined.

The invalid signatures include 8,822 that were not found in the voting rolls, 867 duplicate signatures, and 821 that did not match the signature on file. There are also 44 signatures “pending” that I’ve ignored. The 867 duplicate signatures found thus far, gives a projected total duplication rate of about 1.90% for the petition.

Using the V₂ estimator, the number of valid signatures on the petition is projected to be 120,519 leaving a shortfall of 58 signatures from the 120,577 needed to qualify for the ballot. This projection assumes that the signatures examined so far reflect a random sample of all signatures on the petition. As I discussed yesterday, this isn’t the case. In the last several days, there appear to be an unexplained, systematic increase in the rate at which signers are not found in the voting rolls.

If we correct the apparent rejection rate of 11.92% for duplicate signatures, the total rejection rate for the petition should be about 12.47%.

The extent of uncertainty in the outcome of R-71 can be seen from the results of a Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 simulated petitions using the rates observed through today. The red bars show the mass of failed petitions and the green bars show the mass of petitions that made the ballot:

In the simulations, the petition qualified 41,520 times and failed 58,480 times, suggesting that, if today’s rates hold, R-71 would have a 41.52% chance of qualifying for the ballot. But, as we have seen for several days, the rejection rates aren’t holding—they have systematically increased.

Finally, here is the big picture over the last couple of weeks. The blue symbols are projected median numbers of valid signatures for the petition and 95% confidence intervals. The red line is the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

If the rejection rates were constant over time, the blue line would be mostly straight (bouncing around a little). What we actually see is a decline in the projected signatures suggesting the rejection rates are increasing.

Why are the error rates increasing with time? It is hard to know. Yesterday I mentioned the possibility that there could be temporal correlation, so that signatures collected later are being examined later. Dave Ammons (communications director for Secretary of State) suggests it isn’t so. I’m not completely convinced.

Whatever the reason, R-71 has now made the transition from qualifying to failing. Sure…it’s just barely failing, but should the rejection-rate trend continue, it will soon transition to a “safe fail”.

At least until the rate trends reverse….

Update: And then there is this. A substantial number of “not found” signatures are now being located in a more current voter roll. This third phase check has upped the uncertainty….

Not much good news for Greg Nickels in this afternoon’s ballot drop, with the gap between him and second place finisher Mike McGinn growing, if only slightly, to 1170 votes. I suppose it ain’t over until the fat mayor sings, but with about three quarters of the expected ballots already counted, and the trends not going in his direction, it sure does look like Mayor Nickels will be entering the private sector come January.

One thing I can say for certain is that the Seattle Times editorial board will have an easy time endorsing Mallahan. (Think tunnel.) As for me, I guess I’ll have to start paying closer attention to McGinn and Malahan as opposed to just complaining about their awfully uninspiring campaigns. (And really, all around, this his been a truly disappointing campaign thus far on the part of all the candidates.)

In other election not-quite-news, it looks like the late ballots haven’t trended quite so well for Susan Hutchison as the early ones, with her lead over second place finisher Dow Constantine shrinking from 37-22 on election night, to 34.6-25.0 after today’s drop. I guess the more you get to know Hutchison, the more you, um, know her.