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Wow… it’s amazing what one can learn listening to the BBC.

As reported yesterday in The Sunday Times (still the UK’s paper of record, despite the fact that it is owned by Rupert Murdoch,) a secret memo, conveniently leaked during the final frenzied days before parliamentary elections, has thrown a wrench into the campaign of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his ruling Labour Party. Marked “Secret and Strictly Personal — UK Eyes Only,” the memo discusses a July 23, 2002 meeting between Blair and his top advisors regarding the impending war with Iraq. I say “impending” because it is clear from the contents of the memo that both the US and Britain had already decided on their course of action, at least eight months before the invasion, at a time when President Bush was routinely pooh-poohing talk of war as media speculation.

The big scandal for Blair is that he apparently ignored warnings by his Attorney General and Foreign Office that the war might be illegal. But Americans should be outraged that a President who likes to portray himself as a “straight shooter” was, surprise… blatantly lying.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

(Emphasis added.)

Of course, as we now know, Saddam had no connections to Bin Laden or 9/11, and had no WMDs. As to the lack of discussion about the war’s aftermath, well, I think this fact was made abundantly clear by the war’s aftermath. But the truly criminal revelation confirmation is that the Bush administration was fixing the intelligence to fit the policy. This war wasn’t the result of an intelligence failure… it was made possible by a complete and utter disregard for the intelligence we had.

The other scandal this memo reveals is its nearly total lack of coverage by the US media. One Murdoch mouthpiece, The Times, is eager to plaster it on the front page if it helps bring down a Labour Party prime minister. But here in the US, where the memo could harm a Republican president, another Murdoch mouthpiece, Fox News, apparently has never heard of it. Nor has anybody else.

So much for “fair and balanced.”

A real reporter, David Postman of the Seattle Times, gets the scoop on the real news, although it’s not really much news after all:

In Chelan County Superior Court, Bridges denied a Democratic Party motion to exclude the evidence, saying he did not see anything in law or court precedent that would prohibit the use of expert testimony to show how illegal votes were cast.

But Bridges said he was not yet accepting the statistical analysis as valid for the trial set to begin May 23. He said the Republican evidence is subject to a separate hearing where Democrats can challenge its scientific value.

So the general consensus of HA’s comment threads was borne out. Judge Bridges has not ruled out a statistical analysis, but he has not ruled it in. He will hear the evidence and then decide.

Still waiting to hear on the Republican motion to exclude offsetting votes. That’ll be the doozy.

UPDATE:
Postman has updated his story, and thus so shall I. In a potentially significant ruling, Judge Bridges has said that he will not accept voter-credit records as evidence that someone voted.

In granting a Democratic motion, Bridges said that any party alleging illegal votes will have to produce in court a copy of the voter’s signature in a polling place book or on the envelope of an absentee or provisional ballot.

Bridges said crediting is a “post-election administrative exercise” and “does not bear upon the authenticity of election results.”

This not only puts the burden on the parties to show that their respective felons actually voted, but it also eliminates much of the basis for Rossi’s “total mess” argument, the discrepancy between ballots counted and voters credited.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
Stick a fork in it:

On another issue, Bridges sided with Democrats, saying he would allow them to introduce evidence of election errors that benefited Rossi. Republicans had made a motion to prohibit Democrats from introducing evidence of any of those “off-setting errors.”

I cannot overstate the degree of confidence to which the Democrats’ attorneys believe they have enough offsetting errors, so that Rossi cannot prevail even given the most favorable “proportional deduction” methodology.

Also from Postman’s latest update:

Bridges denied motions from both parties regarding the burden of proof that will be required at trial to show illegal votes had been cast by felons. But he set a standard much more to the liking of Democrats.

Republicans said it was enough to show a voter had been convicted of a felony and that there was no evidence in the court file that the felons’ voting rights had been restored.

But Bridges said Republicans will have to present “clear and convincing” evidence that a felon voted, a higher standard than Republicans had hoped for.

Bridges also set out six standards, similar to what Democrats had proposed, that will have to be shown for the court to consider a vote illegally cast.

“Clear and convincing.” Hmmm. If Judge Bridges requires clear and convincing evidence that a felon voted, doesn’t that also hint that this might be the standard for proving that Rossi won?

More analysis later.

For those who long for the dulcimer sounds of my voice (Stefan describes me as “sweet”), tune in to The Kirby Wilbur Show, 570-KVI, Monday morning at around 6:30 AM. Kirby and I will be discussing tomorrow’s hearing in Chelan County, which has the potential to make or break Dino Rossi’s election contest.

There are two major issues at stake: whether the court will accept the GOP’s “proportional reduction” method of subtracting illegal votes from the candidates, and whether it will consider offsetting illegal votes uncovered by Democrats. As is his wont, Judge Bridges will likely issue a ruling from the bench, but I’m not entirely sure that it will be definitive. For example, he could leave the door open to some sort of a statistical analysis, but not necessarily accept the GOP’s precinct-level methodology.

In any case, this is an issue that will ultimately be decided by the Supremes, so no one should get their undies in a knot by tomorrow’s ruling, one way or the other.

UPDATE:
Well, it was short (and as Stefan would say, “sweet.”)

One point I don’t think I emphasized on the air was that really, the R’s need to prevail on both issues to stay alive in this contest. If Judge Bridges allows the D’s to put offsetting illegal votes into evidence, it’s all over, even with a precinct-level proportional analysis. By fighting the admission of offsetting illegal votes from pro-Rossi precincts, Rossi is essentially admitting that he lost.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
News is coming out of the Chelan County Courthouse, and I am reporting it here. So far, nothing earth shattering… Judge Bridges will consider a statistical analysis, but has not yet ruled it in or out, and votes by non-citizens will be excluded.

All snideness aside, after reading some of the comments on the previous two threads, I thought it might be time to once again summarize and reiterate my position on this election and the subsequent contest.

As I have repeatedly and consistently stated since before the hand recount, this election was a statistical tie… the margin of victory too far within the margin of error to confidently determine the outcome. Ties happen, statistical or otherwise.

A tie does not result in a so-called “revote” (a new election.) When an actual numerical tie occurs for most offices, the winner is determined by lot; in Washington state, when a numerical tie occurs for an executive office, the winner is determined by the Legislature. If neither of these tie-breaking methods strikes you as particularly fair… too bad. The collective wisdom of the world’s oldest democratic republic is that settling things and moving on is more important than absolute certainty. And these are the established rules for settling things and moving on.

Likewise, there are established rules for settling the outcome of a statistical tie: one or two recounts. The very presence of a recount statute is an implicit acknowledgment that vote counts are never entirely accurate, but that a recount — being more carefully conducted — is less inaccurate than the count that preceded it. The very fact that the statute specifies a limited number of recounts, is an implicit acknowledgment that we are willing to accept some degree of uncertainty in the final results. Our statutes clearly consider a hand recount to be the most reliable tally (a position supported by the scientific literature, if not common sense) and thus a hand recount is specified as the final remedy to an extremely close election. So those are the rules for settling a statistical tie: count, machine recount, hand recount.

Christine Gregoire won the hand recount. Thus, by the rules both candidates agreed to prior to the election, Christine Gregoire won.

Of course, there is also a contest statute, and Dino Rossi has every right to utilize it to press his case. But we must be clear that the purpose of this statute is not to settle close elections, and not to provide certainty… for all extremely close elections are uncertain. Rather, the contest statute is intended to provide a remedy when it appears that illegal votes and other irregularities actually changed the outcome. It is not enough to show that the outcome is uncertain; we already know that, and our election statutes have no qualms with this. To set aside an election, it must appear that due to illegal votes and other irregularities the wrong person was declared the winner. That is Rossi’s burden in this contest.

And it is, admittedly, a very high burden of proof.

I have read comments here and elsewhere that express disbelief that a court could possibly permit the election results to stand when the number of disputed ballots is apparently so much greater than the margin of victory. I have been told that it would “offend common sense,” that it would be “unfair” and “unjust.” But I hate to break it to you: nobody ever said justice was fair, or vice versa.

TV crime dramas are chock full of story lines where some miscreant is set free on a technicality — often the inadmissibility of illegally gathered evidence. While it does indeed offend our sensibilities to see a clearly guilty criminal avoid justice, the entire system relies on the rule of law, and without strict adherence to it, the whole justice system could collapse. No judge has the power to determine when the rules should or should not apply.

Similarly, an individual election contest is not about fairness… it’s about following the rules set out in the contest statute. Mistakes alone — even the failure by officials to follow the letter of the other election statutes — are not enough to set aside an election. To prevail, Rossi must prove that he was likely the real winner, or that there was the intent to fraudulently swing the results towards Gregoire, or perhaps, that the margin of error was so far outside the accepted norms, that there is no way we can reasonably accept this as a free and fair election (the “total mess” strategy.) To date, I have seen no evidence to strongly support any of these assertions.

This election was a statistical tie; fortunately for those on my side of the aisle the coin toss came up Gregroire, but it could easily have flipped the other way around. Did the hand recount provide a significantly greater degree of certainty than determining the winner by lot? In this election, no. But then, as I have stated again and again and again, our election statutes prefer finality over certainty, and for very pragmatic reasons… because otherwise, every close election would end up being settled by the courts, a policy that would be costly, disruptive and untenable.

While many die-hard Rossi supporters can’t imagine the courts ruling against him, I haven’t talked to single attorney who has studied the statute, who believes the courts would be willing to set such a dangerous precedent.

Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. While errors tend to occur in every election, they tend to occur in a random distribution. This is illustrated by the county by county breakdown of the mishandled provisional ballots and votes cast by felons alleged by Democrats.

County	Votes Cast By Felons	Unverified Provisional Ballots
Adams		117
Benton	25	37
Chelan	5
Clallam	9
Clark	35	1
Cowlitz	2	17
Douglas	4
Ferry	4
Franklin	4
Garfield	1
Grant	8
Grays Harbor	1
Island	5	27
Jefferson	2	16
King	31
Kitsap	23
Kittitas		25
Klickitat	2
Lewis	17
Lincoln	2
Mason	1
Okanogan	7
Pacific	1
Pierce	49	164
Skagit	11	1
Snohomish	27
Spokane	65	3
Stevens	1	400
Thurston	25
Walla Walla	5	331
Whatcom	4	17
Whitman	1	783
Yakima	55
Total	432	1939

That’s 2371 disputed ballots in all, most from precincts that heavily favored Dino Rossi.

Yes, most of the mishandled provisional ballots were legally cast, but then so were most of the mishandled provisionals in King County. If you are interested in more than just inflammatory rhetoric, the important number to look at is the votes cast by felons, as this is the heart of the Republican’s lawsuit. In the outside chance the court might accept a “proportional reduction,” the 432 illegal ballots alleged by the Democrats are more than enough to offset the GOP’s King County felons, and still maintain Christine Gregoire’s lead. And Democrats promise that there are more coming.

All in all, not a good day for the Rossi camp, though I doubt it was much of a surprise. Their research clearly cherry-picked irregularities in pro-Gregoire precincts, and it would have been silly to expect the Democrats not to fight fire with fire.

I should, however, note one difference between the way the Democrats have gone about this and the way the Republicans have. The Democrats have not released the names of the alleged felons to the media, only the numbers. They have issued subpoenas, seeking to determine if any of these people should be removed from their felon list, before their names are unfairly made public. For this they should be commended.

The Seattle P-I reports that the Democrats have sent the GOP a list of 428 felons who cast illegal votes in the November election, mainly from pro-Rossi parts of the state.

Eventually, state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said, his side expects to meet or beat the total of 946 felon voters the GOP has claimed in its legal challenge to the election.

What…? In a state where meth labs are popping up faster than Starbucks, you didn’t expect to find a few felons outside of Seattle city limits?

Hopeless Senate hopeful and GOPolitburo Chair Chris Vance tried to put the best spin on it:

“The more the better,” Vance said. “They’re just proving our central point, which is that this election was so messed up, there’s no way to tell who won.”

Yeah… and that would be a great central point Chris, if the standard for setting aside the election was uncertainty. But the statute and case law are pretty damn clear that Rossi has to actually prove that Gregoire lost… and that’s why the GOP pinned their hopes on the court accepting a proportional analysis.

Yup, for the past couple of weeks its been proportional analysis this and proportional analysis that… and now that somebody’s bothered to look at the rest of the state for illegal votes, all of a sudden Vance is back to the “it’s a total mess” bullshit. Hoo-boy… sure sounds like an admission of defeat to me.

UPDATE:
And for those of you who don’t trust the P-I, the Seattle Times says the Democrats found 432 felons in 31 counties, including:

65 in Spokane, 55 in Yakima and 35 in Clark. In King County, Democrats say, they found 31 felons from Rossi strongholds.

Now how’d the BIAW Rossi camp miss those 31 felons in King County? They weren’t cherry picking, were they? Naaww… that would be dishonest.

Ooops. Almost forgot to give you guys your weekly sandbox. Hey… let’s see if we can try to keep some of the off-topic stuff in here where everything is on-topic.

[NWPT42] This morning I received a phone call from Detective Melinda Wilson, of the Seattle Police Department’s Internet Crimes unit, investigating allegations that I have repeatedly made “online requests” to “engage in sex with minors.” Apparently, one or two individuals have anonymously made three separate complaints to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) CyberTipline.

I cannot tell you how deeply disappointed I was to receive that call.

But of course, I’ll try.

I understand that I piss people off, and have come to terms with the fact that if I am to continue to honestly, openly and passionately express my views, I am going to attract the occasional threatening phone call or antisemitic email. And since my lack of anonymity makes me an easy target, I am aware that there is always a risk, however slight, that some rhetorically hopped-up right wing wacko — unable to effectively combat my words with his words — may resort to a deadlier weapon.

But this… this is beyond the pale.

There are few crimes more heinous or despicable than molesting children. But it is not the false accusation that offends me most, but rather, that precious resources have been diverted from investigating real crimes against real children… all so that my anonymous accusers could enjoy some sort of petty, political retribution against me for having the gall to speak my mind. In their mad rush to crush dissent, these conscienceless, cowardly brownshirts were even willing to exploit the exploitation of children, making themselves accomplices to the worst sorts of sexual predators.

You want to fuck with me…? Use a little imagination! There are plenty of ways to do it without harming innocent children in the process. But this shameless harassment not only shows how little my accusers care for the lives of innocents — and how much they truly hate democracy, hate free speech, and hate America — it is also a sad illustration of how fat and lazy some righties have grown on their spoon-fed media diet of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

What the fuck were they thinking? … “I don’t like what this guy writes on his blog, so I’ll just accuse him of being a pederast. After all, he’s a dirty, immoral liberal… everybody will believe it.”

[Deep breath.]

Before I continue, I should take a moment to reassure my friends (and respectful enemies) that I am not under any criminal investigation, so I should suffer no repercussions from this incident beyond this morning’s disturbing phone call. The police have a responsibility to follow up on all such allegations — as they should — and I appreciate how informative and supportive Det. Wilson was in explaining the circumstances. I was relieved to learn that the NCMEC actually receives very few fraudulent complaints, and these, like mine, tend to clearly stand out as such. I did not ask Det. Wilson whether she would investigate my accusers for criminally making a false complaint — in truth, I’d prefer the police use their limited resources to investigate the types of crimes of which I was accused.

I do not know if these accusations were the work of one or two isolated wackos, or the dirty trick of one of the right-wing organizations I frequently skewer. But either way, we should not lightly dismiss this incident, as I think it is representative of the growing mass hysteria emanating from some on the hard right’s angry fringe. Listen to talk radio, or read the posts on the right-wing blogs, or even in the liberally moderated comment threads here, and you’ll see that there is no crime, no moral outrage of which some on the right believe their opponents are not capable. This demonization of “the other” not only provides the justification for attacks such as I have suffered, but I fear it also represents a kind of mass projection that gives us a disturbing glimpse into what these people are capable of themselves.

Still, I suppose I should be flattered by the attention… or even grateful. For while the likes of Michele Malkin and Matt Rosenberg apparently feel the need to manufacture outrage over alleged left-wing conspiracies, my accusers have obligingly provided an example of how low some on the right are willing to go to punish those who dare to disagree with them.

I suppose there’s a reason the right-wing blogs are so intolerant of anonymous trolls… if they don’t know who you are, they can’t get you.

As reported Thursday in the King County Journal, Dino Rossi has once again firmly denied that he plans to run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Sen. Maria Cantwell:

Rossi, however, seemed to slam the door on that possibility Wednesday.

“I have four small children and I’m not sure how I’d make it work with the family without upheaval and difficulty for the kids. So, that really is not my focus,” Rossi told the Journal during an interview at his campaign headquarters in downtown Bellevue.

“My focus is running for governor and being governor of the state of Washington and turning the state around. So I’m not running for the U.S. Senate. I’m running for governor.”

Indeed, Rossi officially launched his 2008 gubernatorial campaign back on December 8, 2004. And I take him at his word that he’ll continue running for governor for another three and a half years. At least.

Of course, not everybody puts as much faith in Rossi’s honesty as I do. GOPolitburo Chair Chris Vance is such an accomplished liar himself, that he gets dizzy with cognitive dissonance at the thought of believing anything that comes out of a fellow politician’s mouth. And so he equivocates:

“There are people and organizations who will want to change his mind,” Vance said. “The senate campaign committee will try to persuade him otherwise.”

Or so Vance fears.

I have long speculated on Vance’s own comically grandiose quest for his party’s Senate nomination, an ambition I’m told he impetuously let slip as early as last election night (possibly after tipping back a few too many celebratory toasts.) But with the eventual nominee being chosen via a caucus in Karl Rove’s office, the odds of a Vance candidacy are about as good as that of Rossi winning his lawsuit. (Translation: “not good.”)

And finally, for those of you who think I’m just a partisan, flame-throwing windbag, I’d like to toot my own horn for a moment by congratulating myself on my sharp, analytical skills. While others have dwelled on the dynamics of a Rossi-Cantwell horse race, I have repeatedly stated that Rossi would not run for the Senate in 2006, (to borrow Marsha’s self-referential methodology)… here, here, and here. One can come off looking awfully foolish putting one’s political prognostications on the record, so you can’t blame me for patting myself on the back when one of my predictions comes true.

Speaking of which, you heard it here first: Maria Cantwell 52%, Rick White 47%.

Of all the contributors to (un)Sound Politics, Matt Rosenberg is perhaps the one who I kinda, sorta, maybe, almost respect the most. His politics are less predictable, his vitriol less vitriolic, and his writing more writerly than his fellow Drudge wannabes. But judging from his most recent post, I fear his coconspirators may be driving him snark raving mad.

Following the lead of conservative blogger-babe Michele Malkin, Matt bravely alerts the public to the latest threat from the vast liberal “moonbat” conspiracy: a nationwide plan to vandalize newspaper boxes on May 9!

Yes, if there was ever rock-solid evidence of the ever-present dangers emanating from us “Left Coast Lunatics,” it would be the um, anonymous posting of a poorly spelled call to arms, on Seattle IndyMedia’s “open-publishing wire,” that at last check has received fourteen comments… all of them negative. Meanwhile, the thread on Matt’s own (u)SP post contains several comments supportive of vandalizing the liberal press, including one idiot who suggests targeting “blue” businesses in general. Okay… that last comment was facetiously posted by me, but that’s besides the point.

The point is that the normally kinda, sorta, almost responsible Matt apparently has no qualms about casting aspersions on “Seattle moonbats” by citing a bullshit post of unknown provenance on an open blog, as evidence that the left is filled with idiots, sociopaths and common criminals. This would be like concluding all of HA’s readers are homophobes, because one of my anonymous, whacked-out holy-trollers apparently gets a kick out of typing the word “bunghole.”

It’s dishonest, misleading, and just plain lazy. And I would assume, embarrassing.

You’re better than this Matt.

Graphic courtesy of Mike Tidmus via The General.

I’ve laid off this story for a couple days, and there’s really not much information I can add to it that you won’t already find in the concise, fact-filled, link-laden, blog-like summation by Chuck Taylor on the Buzz page of The Seattle Weekly. Except maybe that Microsoft pays God Squad pretty boy (and hypocritical con-artist) Ralph Reed $20,000 a month in consulting fees.

Taken aback by the media storm over the company’s reversal of their longtime support for HB 1515 (and subsequent revelations,) Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates seemed almost apologetic — at least for Gates — promising The Seattle Times that um, next time… maybe, uh… they’ll reconsider, um… we’ll see.

The response to the stories surprised Microsoft. “Well, we didn’t expect that kind of visibility for it,” Gates said. “After all, Microsoft’s position on a political bill

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I scan the Philadelphia Daily News online almost every day. Well… the sports pages, at least. But HA reader Spyder pointed me towards a column in Tuesday’s edition, by Temple University statistics professor Josh Mitteldorf: “My Election 2004 bad dream.”

Working with the National Election Archive Project, Prof. Mitteldorf co-authored a controversial statistical analysis of the November 2004 exit poll discrepancy; the exit polls predicted a Kerry victory by 3.0%, whereas the official tally had Bush winning by 2.5%… a discrepancy that cannot be attributed to chance. The report concludes that there is a strong case that “significant irregularities” occurred.

“The absence of any statistically plausible explanation for the discrepancy between Edison/Mitofsky’s exit poll data and the official presidential vote tally is an unanswered question of vital national importance that demands a thorough and unflinching investigation.”

Writing in the Daily News, Prof. Mitteldorf addresses straight on the common perception that people like him are conspiracy theorists:

On a recent flight to Nashville, I sat next to a man who asked what I was writing. Preparing a talk, I told him, for a conference of people sharing evidence that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. Without missing a beat, he asked. “Isn’t that next door to the convention on UFO sightings?”

Prof. Mitteldorf then proceeds to describe the “sober professionals, none who seem overtly loony” he met at the conference, who have reported to have uncovered massive voting irregularities throughout the nation.

I met David Griscom, a retired physics prof who spent months with colleague John Brakey poring over election tapes, signature rosters and “consecutive number registers” from Brakey’s Tucson home precinct.

They audited and verified, one by one, the 895 votes in the precinct and found: 12 innocent and unsuspecting voters who had their names duplicated on the roster and their votes for Bush counted twice. Twenty-two “undervotes” where the machine had failed to register a preference for president, and these had been dutifully and meticulously converted to 22 votes for Bush.

The “Republican” and “Democratic” co-directors of the polling place were a local fundamentalist preacher and his wife. Thirty-nine of their parishioners from another precinct had cast provisional ballots, which were (illegally) converted to regular ballots and passed through, all 39 for Bush.

I met Richard Hayes Phillips, a geologist from New Hampshire who was invited to Ohio to study the integrity of the vote, and realized that a complete inventory of lost and miscounted votes was needed. To date, Phillips has analyzed 15 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and by his most conservative estimate has found 101,000 uncounted Kerry votes – 136,000 is the margin by which Bush officially defeated Kerry.

I heard Clint Curtis talk about working in 2001 as a programmer for Yang Enterprises in Florida. He was assigned to a meeting with State Senate Speaker Tom Feeney, who asked to have a program written into the software that controls voting machines so that the totals could be manipulated without leaving a trace. Curtis, the whistleblower, is now unemployed. Feeney, the politician, is now the U.S. representative from Florida’s 24th Congressional district.

I was inspired to hear the travails of Ohio lawyer Cliff Arnebeck. After the Green Party raised $200,000 and obtained authorization for a recount in Ohio, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell staged a charade in which every state rule about the conduct of the recount was thrown out, and two hand-picked precinct captains emerged from behind locked doors to report that yes, indeed the numbers were exactly right and all was hunky dory.

As my regular readers know, I have been reluctant to report on allegations of a stolen presidential election, but it is clear that there were significant voting irregularities in Ohio and elsewhere. Likewise, I have said little about a controversial statistical analysis of the results from Snohomish County, which by the way, is now rumored to be quietly considering scrapping their touch-screen voting machines (over the objections of County Auditor Bob Terwilliger) after numerous incidents of “calibration errors” and a number of election day complaints from voters, that screens registered a vote for Rossi when they intended a vote for Gregoire.

I have shied away from these allegations because there is no proving them, and I did not want to engage in the same sort of rumor and innuendo that passes for news on the right-wing blogs.

But as we prepare to head into the seventh month of unprecedented scrutiny of King County Elections, I’m just getting sick and tired of a double-standard that permits somebody like Slade Gorton — a former U.S. Senator and WA State Attorney General — to get away with the ridiculous “conclusion” that “King County has the worst election administration” in the nation.

Fuck you.

Many of the problems discovered in King County were systemic statewide, including mishandling of provisional ballots, and an inability to sufficiently screen the voter rolls for felons. And while there were dozens, possibly hundreds of potentially valid ballots left misplaced and uncounted in King (as well as other counties,) they represent a tiny fraction of the total ballots cast.

But for all the problems, it was nothing like the shit that went on elsewhere. It was in North Carolina where a computer inexplicably and irretrievably erased thousands of votes. It was in Ohio where tens of thousands of voters in urban precincts were forced to wait for hours in the rain, and where one precinct gave George Bush 4,258 votes out of 638 ballots cast. It was in Florida where tens of thousands of legal voters — mostly minorities — were wrongfully purged from the rolls, and where some voting machines were found to have actually counted backwards!

Yet question for a moment whether Bush actually won either of his elections, and the righties will laugh you off as “aluminum hat boy.” Meanwhile, the paranoid, partisan shills on the right-wing blogs and talk radio freely use words like “fraud” and “corruption” to describe our so-called “stolen election”… going so far as to suggest that Dean Logan deserves jail time.

What’s lacking from the Republican’s steady attack on the integrity of Logan and King County Elections, is perspective. There is no evidence of fraud, no evidence of conspiracy, and no evidence of official misconduct. The election was conducted in an extraordinarily transparent fashion, and has been excruciatingly scrutinized… and while a number of disturbing mistakes have been uncovered — mistakes that can clearly be fixed — they would have been insignificant if not for the bizarrely close gubernatorial election. Thus to attack our election as a “total mess” while dismissing the massive problems reported in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, is an act of shameless hypocrisy.

If Rossi’s attorneys can prove that irregularities cost him the election, then he will prevail in court. But if they want to continue to characterize King County as having the “worst elections” in the nation, then it’s the Rossi folk who should be wearing the aluminum hats.

Oh my God… another 50 uncounted ballots have been discovered in incredibly corrupt and incompetent King County. No wait… they were discovered in Pierce County. Sorry. But King County Elections did just stunningly reveal another 164 unverified provisional ballots… oh wait… that was in Pierce County too. But there were another 37 unverified provisionals, right? Um… yeah… but that was in heavily pro-Rossi Benton County.

Wait… I’m confused. I’ve been reading the right-wing blogs and listening to talk radio, so I thought only Democratic King County made mistakes. My brain hurts!

In the aftermath of a sometimes contentious legislative session, Ken Vogel reports in The News Tribune today on a heartwarming display of bipartisanship… plans by the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties to reach out across the aisle(s), join hands, and sue the state in federal court to scrap the “Louisiana style” Top-Two primary system enacted by Initiative 872 last November.

Rarely does an issue serve to bring political foes so close together: Democrats and Republicans, Paul Berendt and Chris Vance… Goldy and the Snark?!

Yeah, that’s right… both Stefan and I came out against I-872, and rather strongly. Stefan called it a “dumb idea,” cogently arguing that it would weaken parties.

Those who don’t like political parties might think this is an attractive outcome, but bear in mind that parties provide important services to the democratic process (that’s why all democracies have them). These services include: organization, fund-raising, coalition-building, candidate recruitment and training, and most importantly the development of stands on issues and the ability to help voters identify candidates with a particular set of positions. If the parties wither away, other institutions will step in to fill the void.

Yeah, um… like the BIAW. Just look at their influence in the so-called “nonpartisan” race for the Supreme Court, where they single-handedly got Jim Johnson elected to the bench. And as Stefan explains:

In the absence of party organizations that tie candidates to platforms and identifiable coalitions of interest groups, elections will degenerate even more than they are into personality contests. Candidates who already have, or can purchase name recognition will have an even greater advantage than they have today: incumbents, wealthy individuals, moneyed interests and celebrities will all come away with even greater advantages than they have today. So will those who control media organizations and would be in an even stronger position to promote their favorite candidates.

Of course, the tool that he is, Stefan might just have been acting as a mouthpiece for his GOP overlords, but I choose to take him at his word (as long as it suits my purpose.)

In my own pre-election endorsements, my stated opposition to I-872 was decidedly more blunt:

“Waaahhhh! I want my blanket primary!”

That’s pretty much what voters and editorialists have been crying ever since the Supreme Court threw out Washington’s odd “blanket” or “open” primary.

Well get over it!

Besides, contrary to popular belief, I-872 does NOT restore the blanket primary… instead it replaces it with the equally odd but decidedly more stupid “Louisiana-style” top-two primary. Yes, I-872 gives you more choice in the primary, but it does so by giving you less choice in the general election… and that, after all, is when the majority of people actually vote.

I always felt reducing choice in the general election was the most compelling argument against top-two, but it would inevitably reduce choice in the primary as well. As it stands, Vance strongly discourages primary challenges in key statewide races (I don’t call him “GOPolitburo Chair” for nothing,) and the top-two format only serves to incentivize this antidemocratic trend towards strict party unity. For example, Democratic runner-up Mark Sidran nearly out-polled Rob McKenna in the September primary. If this had been a top-two primary, and McKenna had faced a serious challenger, only Sidran and Deborah Senn would have made it to the November ballot.

As the TNT reports, the parties understand this, and that is why they are planning to opt out of the primary system while they wait for their lawsuit to wend its way through the courts.

In the meantime, in the eight counties holding partisan elections this fall, the parties are trying to bypass the September primary, the first one under the new Top Two system. Instead, they’re pledging to use caucuses and conventions in which party activists pick candidates.

“That’s not what the voters thought they were voting for,” said Chris Vance, the state Republican Party chairman.

Yeah, no kidding Chris.

This maneuver will likely spark a second lawsuit. The state GOP has sent a letter to King County Elections:

“Only the candidates nominated by the Republican Party will be eligible to use the Republican name in the September primary,” the letter reads.

Not so, said King County elections director Dean Logan. He plans to send a response this week stating that anyone who files to run as a Republican will appear on the primary ballot as such.

As soon as Logan puts his decision in writing, Vance plans to sue King County, arguing the top-two violates his party’s First Amendment right to associate… and both the Democrats and Libertarians plan to join in. They will ask the court to reinstate the Montana-style system, or at the very least, allow the parties to chose their nominees via convention or caucus.

What I find most fascinating about this whole issue is that despite their rare show of bipartisan unity and cooperation, the parties have managed to blunder their way into the current disaster. The old blanket primary is probably starting to look pretty good to Berendt and Vance right about now.

Don’t get me wrong… I thought the old primary sucked. An open primary is an oxymoronic method for a party to choose its nominees, and ridiculously susceptible to gaming the system with cross-over votes for weak candidates. I should know: I’m an unrepentant Ellen Craswell and John Carlson voter.

But while I was as happy as anybody to see the old system tossed, you’d think the geniuses who challenged its constitutionality might have thought a little bit ahead about what might replace it. Was it really so hard to imagine that in a state that routinely uses the initiative process to send a big “Fuck You” to Olympia, the electorate might finger the party bosses with something worse?

If anything, this whole debacle just serves to prove the value of divisive, partisan politics. After all, just look at the shit they get themselves into when the parties are in total agreement.

I hope the Seattle P-I forgives me for pushing the “fair use doctrine” beyond its limits, and reprinting this Letter to the Editor from Monday’s edition, in its entirety:

I am a correctional officer at a major state correctional institution. I am a supporter of Gov. Christine Gregoire.

Reading of the Republicans’ assertion that statistics support the likelihood that felons voted for Gregoire, I have to raise a big red flag.

Based upon my observations of felons in prison, it is highly unlikely that most felons voted for Gregoire. It is more likely that felons would have voted for Dino Rossi.

During the long election contest, many inmates expressed their opinions to me. Inmates seemed attracted to Rossi because they would rather vote for a man and also because Rossi was promising to shake up state government.

The biggest reason felons are unlikely to have voted for Gregoire is her former occupation: state attorney general. Convicted felons do not support prosecuting attorneys. Many felons expressed concern that Gregoire might be too tough on them.

As one of my history teachers used to say, “Facts lie, and liars have facts.” The statistical analysis of the Republicans is not valid, because there are too many other factors that affect the way felons vote. Criminals do not support attorneys general.

Greg Senderhauf
Forks

Senderhauf’s comments reminded me of a Letter to the Editor in The Olympian, back in February. Brydon Stewart, recently released from a federal prison after serving 16 months for growing marijuana, wrote that the vast majority of his fellow inmates favored Republicans. Why?

Because in their view, Republicans were the virile, tough, action-taking, man’s-man party, while liberals and Democrats were reviled as soft, weak, passive, femme

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