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The Seattle P-I reported yesterday that according to a GOP statistical analysis, Dino Rossi won by about 100 votes, when accounting for ballots cast by felons, dead voters and non-citizens. How convenient.

How very, very convenient.

Indeed, to achieve this stunning reversal of fortune, several extremely convenient events would have to take place. First, the Republicans would have to prove that the number of illegal votes is anywhere near the thousand-ish they have alleged (not likely considering their track record thus far.) Second, the court would have to ignore offsetting errors from pro-Rossi counties… like the 1793 provisional ballots that were improperly counted without matching signatures. Third, the court would have to accept a statistical analysis. And fourth, the court would have to adopt the rather unscientific methodology the Republicans are proposing for their analysis.

As the P-I explains, Republicans are relying on a precinct level analysis to pad Rossi’s numbers.

For example, if Gregoire received 60 percent of a vote in Precinct A and Rossi 40 percent, and there were 100 improper votes from that precinct, Gregoire’s total would be reduced by 60 votes and Rossi’s by 40.

In most cases, the number of improper votes traceable to a single precinct is very small — often, as few as one. In that case, using the same percentages, Gregoire would lose 0.6 votes and Rossi 0.4.

The problem is, a single illegal vote per precinct is not a statistically significant sample. This results in what statisticians call an “ecological fallacy,” a logical flaw whereby aggregate statistics collected for a group are used to make inferences about an individual member.

For example, Democrats have argued that the majority of felons are male, and men tend to disproportionately favor Republicans, thus complicating any statistical analysis of the felon vote. One could also argue that felons tend to be, um… felons, and as such, would be less likely to vote for the state’s leading law enforcement officer.

Republicans, on the other hand, argue that such a demographic analysis would be absurd… that the only accurate means of deducing a voter’s behavior is to simply look at the totals for his precinct. But the absurdity of the Republican’s favored methodology can be clearly illustrated by using it to infer the ballot of a single voter: Stefan Sharkansky. If right-wing poster-blogger Stefan were an illegal voter casting a ballot in his heavily Democratic Greenlake precinct, the Republican analysis would subtract .78 votes from Gregoire, and only .19 votes from Rossi.

Of course, Stefan is not your typical Greenlake voter… but then, neither is a felon. And that’s exactly the point. The fact that Stefan is an angry, selfish, right-wing, extremist prick a Republican, is a helluva lot more predictive of his voting behavior than his precinct.

Thus any court judicially active enough to read statistical analysis into a contest statute that clearly doesn’t envision it, would be faced with a quandary: if statistical analysis is to be used to determine the winner of this election… which statistics should be analyzed?

No court is going to put itself into that kind of a quandary.

I tuned in late to catch the score of a World Series game back in 1989, only to find coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. I was somewhat confused by overhead footage of what reporters kept describing as a massive freeway collapse, that to me appeared to show an elevated freeway still standing. Unfamiliar with the Bay area, I had no idea that this was the remnant of a double-decker freeway, the top deck having collapsed onto the bottom, crushing cars and their occupants underneath tons of steel and concrete.

Since moving to Seattle a couple years later, I have always been wary of this doomed freeway’s kissing-cousin, the Alaska Way Viaduct. Whenever I drive across the Viaduct or walk beneath it, I do so speedily, with images vividly in my mind of the dead being pried from between the decks of San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway. While I know my chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time is exceedingly small, my discomfort is not the product of irrational paranoia. A major earthquake will hit the Seattle area, and left as-is, the Viaduct will collapse, killing dozens or even hundreds, depending on the time of day.

And if this tragedy occurs due to the partisan bickering currently transgressing in Olympia over funding the Viaduct’s replacement, I will personally blame these deaths on the petty, heartless legislators who are clearly willing to risk sacrificing the lives of innocents in exchange for a few extra dollars of spending in their own districts.

This exploitation of regional tensions is politics at its most disgusting… and incredibly stupid and shortsighted. House Transportation Committee Chair Ed Murray (D-Seattle) sums it up bluntly:

Murray said complaints that state spending is too concentrated on Seattle-area projects were misguided. “We’ll come back here in two years when that thing falls down and we’ll get all of it.”

Lives are at stake. The Viaduct is a human and economic tragedy waiting to happen… as is the 520 floating bridge, one of the oldest structures of its kind in the world. In a region that has witnessed not one, not two, but three major bridges collapse or sink, it is absurd to pretend that it could not happen a fourth time, especially with a structure so in need of repair or replacement.

To oppose this transportation package because the spending is too “Seattle-centric” is an arrogant, absurd and dangerous fiction. Transportation spending is Seattle-centric because Washington state is Seattle-centric. Seattle is our cultural, economic and population center… it produces the lion’s share of the tax dollars, and currently has the most immediate transportation needs. If Republicans want more money for projects outside of the Seattle area, then they should propose raising additional tax dollars to pay for them.

Like most Seattle voters, I’m willing to pay my fair share to fund needed transportation projects in the rest of the state. But personally, I’m not willing to die to save a couple pennies on a gallon of gas.

Congratulations to Rep. Mark Miloscia (D-Federal Way) for finally, finally getting a performance audits bill through the Legislature, after years of trying. HB 1064 passed the House today by a 75 to 22 margin, after having passed the Senate 30 to 19 earlier in the month. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the bill into law.

(A curious note… the always luscious Sen. Pam Roach voted against the bill, while her son Dan voted for it. Hmmmm.)

Of course, professional initiative sponsor Tim Eyman is still pushing his bullshit performance audits initiative, I-900, but then… he wouldn’t be Tim if he didn’t. I imagine it’s kind of hard to feign outrage about the need for performance audits, when we already have them, but I suppose Tim will find a way.

Anyway… it’s a kind of boring topic I’ve written about on way too many occasions, so if you’re interested in my take on performance audits, you can find my previous blogs here.

I haven’t spent much time dwelling on papal politics, but the choice of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany wasn’t much of a surprise to anybody.

Of course, if the Irish Catholic family I married into had any say in the matter, it would have been somebody else. Judging from the dinner table conversation the other night, the only choice less acceptable to the extended family (only slightly smaller than the College of Cardinals) would have been Cardinal Law.

Personally, I could care less. Though I am a bit disappointed he adopted the name Benedict XVI instead of sticking with Ratzinger. It would have been amusing to have a Pope Ratzinger.

I suppose one explanation for why the WA state GOP is so unwilling to join Democrats in moving the primary back three weeks, is that they don’t actually intend to hold primaries anymore.

At least that was the gist of news reports yesterday, all over the radio and in the Seattle Times, about how former U.S. Rep. Rick White, state GOPolitburo Chair Chris Vance, and Safeco CEO Mike McGavick all hope to win the primary, um… capture the nomination, uh… be hand picked by Karl Rove to run against U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell in 2006. As the Times succinctly put it:

There will be a primary of sorts

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The Seattle P-I chimes in tomorrow with an editorial I could have written myself, if… you know… I was a bit more even-handed… and not quite so verbose… and, um… on the P-I editorial board:

Strangely, key elements of the Republicans’ “real reform” have little relevance to the issues in last fall’s controversial election. Included in the price for Republican votes in the two-thirds majority required to move the primary have been a massive voter re-registration and requirements for photo identification, birth certificates or passports for voter registration and voting at the polls.

Among the problems that cropped up in the November election, there were hardly widespread allegations of voters claiming to cast ballots for someone they’re not or of non-citizens attempting to vote. The Republican proposals seem to echo last fall’s attempts across the country to intimidate certain groups of voters.

Oh… and as Jon helpfully pointed out in the previous thread, another good reason not to purge the rolls, is that it would violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. So, Republicans are fighting for an illegal provision that fixes a problem that doesn’t exist.

Come on guys… quit the grandstanding and move the primary.

There were several votes in Olympia last week that clearly illustrate the philosophical difference between Democrats and Republicans on election reform: Democrats are focused on fixing the problems we know exist, whereas Republicans are focused on fixing the problems they fear might exist.

I’m not going into the details of what the various bills do, except to say that they standardize and streamline registration, elections, and canvassing procedures statewide, while enabling the secretary of state to better screen for felons and non-citizens. What interests me are the most contentious points of disagreement between the two parties.

Republicans are angry that a voter registration and record-keeping bill did not include two provisions they consider the heart of their election reform proposals: 1) require picture ID at the polling place, and 2) completely purge the current rolls, forcing all voters to re-register. Meanwhile, Democrats are struggling to get a bill through the Senate that would move the September primary date back three weeks, to August.

The primary date proposal was the number one priority for Secretary of State Sam Reed, as well as every county auditor to whom I have talked. All of the Republican bluff and bluster over military ballots during the early days of the contest (Rossi has since quietly dropped the issue from his lawsuit) will prove to be just that, unless they get on board and support the only reform that assures these ballots are mailed on time. Moving the date is also the only way to avoid the catastrophic electoral meltdown that will occur in the inevitable event of a razor thin primary contest.

Ironically, while Republicans block the one reform elections experts say we need most desperately, they stubbornly cling to the one reform the experts say would be most counterproductive: purging the rolls. Forcing 3.5 million voters to suddenly re-register would be a logistical nightmare that our state and local elections departments simply don’t have the resources to handle; if you want to introduce errors and illegal voters into the system, this is exactly the way to do it.

Likewise, requiring a picture ID to vote, places an unreasonable burden on the six percent of voters without a drivers license or passport — predominately seniors and the very poor — adding little upfront security in return. The Democratic measure does require identification at the polls, but allows a utility bill or voter registration card to suffice. Last time I checked, it was a helluva lot easier to get a fake ID in your name than an account with a local utility.

But such arguments miss the point, for the most outrageous part about the Republicans’ feigned outrage that the Democratic measures don’t go far enough to stop the illegal voter problem, is that they have presented absolutely no evidence that we have an illegal voter problem in the first place. With all the time, money and effort that Republicans have put into uncovering illegal votes in the 2004 election, the only substantial numbers found were that of felons who have not had their voting rights restored… and this problem would be largely solved without further legislation, once the statewide voter database (two years in the making) goes live in 2006.

The first-ever computerized state voter database will replace 39 separate county lists, some meticulously kept on file cards.

Once it comes on line in January, it will enable election officials to make sure that felons, dead people and non-citizens aren’t allowed to vote and that people aren’t registered in more than one locale or voting more than once per election.

Secretary of State Sam Reed and state and local election officials are optimistic that the move will purge and protect the voting lists and guard against illegal votes.

By merging voter registration and drivers license data with felons lists and data on deaths from Social Security and the Department of Health, this database would have eliminated nearly every illegal voter uncovered thus far. The Secretary of State is also trying to get access to federal databases on non-citizens… both legal and illegal aliens.

But even in this last election, the number of illegally registered voters was statistically tiny… the SOS estimates maybe 2,000 out of 3.5 million registered voters… about 0.05 percent. And the vast majority of these were the felons the database will be most capable of purging.

Republican rhetoric about polling-place vote fraud is not only unsupported by the evidence, it is implausible. A picture ID at the polls is intended to stop an individual from casting a ballot under another voter’s name — a crime for which there was not a single allegation from the last election — and which in any case, would be a logistically impossible means for individuals to skew a typical election.

That Republicans would focus on imagined problems while ignoring the known ones, suggests an unfortunate willingness to continue to politicize what should be a bipartisan issue. Clearly, purging the rolls is intended to wipe out years of Democratic voter registration efforts, while a picture ID requirement would mostly inhibit voting by the very poor and the very old… a predominately Democratic constituency.

But of course the Republican’s main motivation for harping on voter fraud, is that it fits so neatly with their ongoing PR campaign, painting Gov. Christine Gregoire as the illegitimate beneficiary of a stolen election. To view the Republican focus on fixing non-existent problems in any other light, would be naive.

UPDATE:
Actually, the state Democrats do a pretty good job of explaining their stance on election reform.

I didn’t really feel like doing much blogging today, so I started scanning Daily Kos, looking for a quick link to fill some space. It didn’t take me very long: UPDATE: It’s the Jews.”

That’s how close we are.

Watching Frist join the “religious persecution” bandwagon brings to mind the Nazis.

I’m sorry if some of you may think I’m overstating the case. But I see it all to clearly…

Hollywood is evil.

Hollywood? That’s the Jews.

The liberal media is evil.

The liberal media? That’s the Jews.

Folks, we are at a critical turning point in our nation’s history. Make no mistake about it.

Oh, I wish I could just leave it that, and spend the day tending my much neglected garden. But recent events have left me with a head full of dark thoughts, just aching to spill out through my fingertips and onto the screen. Yes, it would be counterproductive hyperbole to call the Republican leadership and their Dominionist backers “Nazis”… and I’m not sure if our nation is quite at the critical turning point that DKos diarist Bob Johnson fears.

But clearly, something is happening in America, reminiscent of the early days of McCarthyism, and we would be foolish to shy away from discussing it for fear of appearing alarmist or paranoid. Something is happening in America, that has given a strange confidence to mainstream politicians to publicly ape the hateful and divisive rhetoric of right-wing Christian extremism. Something is happening in America, where emboldened by Bush’s reelection, and inflamed by the Schiavo case, the Dominionist forces are suddenly willing to openly flex their theocratic ambitions.

It is thus ironic that respectable pundits and editorialists so cautiously and carefully avoid the use of the word “fascism” at the same time the ascendant political elite so callously embraces its tenets.

Still, I take issue with Johnson on one point: it is not the Jews, per se, for the antisemitism has always been there, lurking just beneath the surface. Antisemitism is not an end in itself, but rather the canary in the coal mine of political discourse… an early warning system that tells us that something is happening in America.

When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist steps to the national pulpit and declares that Democrats are “against people of faith,” he gives aide, comfort, and political legitimacy to religious extremists who preach that people like me are less moral, less human, less worthy in the eyes of God than they. These are people with a devout, unshakeable faith that I am going to Hell (a subject I’ve also touched upon here, here, and here.) These are people who believe that their political opponents are doomed to burn in the eternal flames of Hell… so is it really so alarmist to wonder what stops them from preheating the oven here, in the Kingdom of God on earth?

Yes, something is happening in America, where even my non-Jewish friends nervously joke about their “exit strategy”… imagining what nation they might seek refuge in, should the worst case scenario occur at home. And that worst case scenario is not nearly as far-fetched as we might want to imagine.

A few months back, a former high-level Clinton administration official told me that it was the consensus of analysts he respected — people with higher security clearance than his — that some time over the next five to ten years, there is a fifty-fifty chance that a small nuclear device will be set off in a major American city. In its wake, he suggests that in exchange for a promise of increased security, the American people will be more than willing to surrender their civil liberties. And who can argue that the current administration wouldn’t be more than willing to take them?

Something is happening in America that sets the stage for something much worse… and now is the time to discuss it. Just like we should have imagined terrorists flying jetliners full of fuel and people into buildings, we must imagine an extreme right-wing — un-American and anti-Constitutional — seizing the reigns of government, imposing their theocratic dictatorship, and silencing the opposition through whatever means.

I’m not saying it is imminent. I’m not saying it is likely. But if the genocidal history of the 20th Century teaches us anything… it is possible.

No… really…

VOA says the move could save at least $300,000 in salaries and benefits each year.

I’m not really a chain-letter type of guy, but since Carla asked so nicely, I suppose I’ll take part in that Book Meme thing that’s been going around. I hope she’s not too disappointed with my answers.

You are stuck inside “Fahrenheit 451.” Which book would you be?

For very pragmatic reasons I think I’ll have to choose Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. There is a lyrical quality to the prose that should make it easier to memorize (though all those weird Indian names might pose a problem,) and… it’s mercifully short. While Steppenwolf may be the Hesse classic more appropriate to our times, if I’m going to have one book stuck inside my head for the rest of my life, I don’t want anything that’s going to drive me nuts, and the couple times I’ve read Siddhartha, I found the experience rather peaceful.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Every woman I have ever had a crush on was fictional, in the sense that we always imbue the objects of our desire with our own romanticized ideal of “true love.” Is that not the nature of infatuation?

What is the last book you bought?

Um… I’m more of a library person. I just reserved a copy of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America… does that count? Other than that, I think, maybe, my last personal purchase may have been a paperback of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

What are you currently reading?

I’m guessing “these words as I type them” wouldn’t be an original answer, huh?

I’m finally reading Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities as part of my futile, life-long quest to eventually read all of the books I didn’t read in school when I was supposed to. To that end, I also occasionally pick up a copy of Hannah Arendt’s Totalitarianism, but I keep forgetting which parts I’ve read and which parts I haven’t, so I’ll never finish.

Other recent books have been Gary Hart’s The Fourth Power, and Darwin’s Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson. Oh… and as a joint venture, my daughter and I are currently enjoying Lemony Snicket’s The Miserable Mill.

Other than that, it’s the usual array of way-too-many online blogs, newspapers and magazines.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.

Assuming this is a long term, Castaway-like situation, I’m going to cheat and take along some anthologies: The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll, Plato’s Socratic Dialogues (not illustrated,) The Complete Prose of Woody Allen… and to really pass the time, Will & Ariel Durant’s eleven-volume The Story of Civilization.

Finally, while great literature may feed the soul, it doesn’t fill the belly, so I’m going to throw in a copy of the U.S. Army’s Illustrated Guide to Edible Wild Plants.

Tag, your it…

As I understand it, now I have to pass the curse of the Book Meme on to three fellow bloggers. Hmmm… well how could I not be curious in seeing how The General might answer? And using the term “fellow” loosely, wouldn’t it also be fascinating to see what our friends Stefan and Marsha are reading?

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows….

The time will come for the men responsible to answer for their behavior.

So spoke Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) after state and federal judges failed to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case. To read this merely as a veiled threat would be naive, for there was nothing veiled about it. Nor was the judiciary its only target. That DeLay left both the implied retribution and its intended target unspecified, comes as yet another example of the extreme right-wing’s increasing willingness to threaten the lives and livelihoods of all those it perceives as the opposition. And as this threat comes from the House Majority Leader, it should be taken seriously by all Americans, for it demonstrates how disturbingly comfortable the Republican leadership has become in adopting a rhetorical tone that can only be described as fascistic.

And as the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly pointed out today (“Religious rightists using scary tactics to pad courts“), DeLay is not the only Republican embracing “ugly extremism” in the wake of the Schiavo case. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) raised the specter of recent courthouse shootings, warning in a speech before the Senate that the judges’ decisions could lead people to “engage in violence.”

Well… it was not really a warning was it? It was more like a threat. And that is how it was understood.

And now the New York Times reports that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is joining the chorus of Dominionist voices intent on reframing the battle over judicial confirmations into a religious war: “Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Judicial Issue.”

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as “against people of faith” for blocking President Bush’s nominees.

The event takes place as Frist is threatening the “nuclear option”… changing the Senate rules to eliminate the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees. But as Connelly points out, Frist’s feigned outrage is nothing more than “rank hypocrisy.” Ninety-five percent of federal court seats are filled… the lowest vacancy rate in 13 years. But while Democrats have blocked only 10 of President Bush’s 215 nominees, Republicans blocked as many as 50 of President Clinton’s.

But that hasn’t stopped Frist, DeLay and the rest of the leadership from converting a political contest into a supposed holy war between the enemies of faith and God-fearing Republicans.

The telecast also signals an escalation of the campaign for the rule change by Christian conservatives who see the current court battle as the climax of a 30-year culture war, a chance to reverse decades of legal decisions about abortion, religion in public life, gay rights and marriage.

“As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group’s Web site. “For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.”

What a load of hateful, manipulative crap. Apparently the “thieves in the night” now include such well-known enemies of faith as conservative Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee and devout Catholic, who was the target of calls for impeachment from a conservative conference titled “Remedies to Judicial Tyranny.” Let that be a warning to other Republicans who fail to strictly toe the party line… as the extreme right continues to consolidate its power, you too could become the victim of the latest putsch.

I understand why the MSM is hesitant to raise the specter of fascism… it is an emotionally loaded word, used more often as a political smear than a description of a political philosophy. Connelly avoids the word himself, but comes awfully damn close in his poignant and frightening conclusion:

During the recent Lenten season, this writer read the great pro-life sermons of Clemens von Galen, the Catholic Bishop (later Cardinal) of Muenster. Galen used his pulpit in 1941 to reveal the Nazis’ euthanasia program, and detail human rights abuses by the Gestapo.

Along with the Ten Commandments, Galen cited statute after statute of Germany’s penal code in assailing Nazi abuses.

“Our brothers and sisters, all these things cause me today to recall the old truth, ‘Justitia est fundamentum regnorum,’ justice is the only secure foundation of every form of government,” Galen declared.

Bishop Galen was calling for a totalitarian society to return to the rule of law.

Our religious rightists would subject an independent judiciary, in a free society, to mob intimidation and tyranny of the majority.

We must resist these people.

We must resist fascism.

The New York Times reports on Merry Stephens, a successful girls basketball coach at a rural, East Texas school, where townsfolk rumored she was a lesbian.

Though it was true, Stephens denied it for five years while she was the coach of a championship high school basketball team in Bloomburg, afraid the truth would cost her a job.

It did cost her a job. As it did the job of Stephens’ partner, the school’s bus driver.

And thanks to Senators Hargrove and Sheldon and the entire WA state Senate Republican caucus, this kind of employment discrimination is perfectly legal in Washington state. Makes you proud, huh?

You righty trolls are going to love this one. You know how I’m always promoting a state income tax? Well… today’s my birthday!

Yes:

“I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that’s nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn’t stop them.”

That’s not some lefty twisting his words… that’s a direct quote from an interview he gave to the ultra-right-wing Looney-Moony Washington Times. (Via Daily Kos.)

I hate to say it, but honesty impels me… whether he embraces the label himself or not, Tom DeLay is, quite technically, a fascist.