By now I’m sure most of you have heard the story King County resident Jane Balogh, who thought she was being clever by registering her dog to vote. It was supposed to be a protest against supposedly lax voter registration standards. It’s likely going to get her a misdemeanor conviction.
Our good friend Stefan, normally a fierce proponent of throwing the book at anybody who misses a statutorily required comma on a voter registration form, excuses Balogh’s stunt as “a noble act of civil disobedience to call attention to ineffectual voter registration standards that allow real fraud to occur.”
If it weren’t for the paw print stunt, which she used to deliberately give herself away, she could have gotten away with casting the dog’s ballot.
But she didn’t. In fact, she was caught.
It’s impossible to know how many ballots from non-existent people are cast and counted…
Just like it is impossible to know when Stefan stopped beating his wife.
… but we do know there have been hundreds of illegal votes that were counted for which nobody was ever prosecuted.
Of course, by “hundreds of illegal votes,” Stefan is referring to the infamous felon voters from 2004. They weren’t prosecuted because they didn’t know they were violating the law; they properly filled out registration forms, which elections officials improperly approved, due to incomplete records. (A problem by the way, that has since been largely fixed by the statewide voter registration database, that was well in the works before the notorious 2004 election.)
So what we have here is a woman who fraudulently registered her dog, and was caught, the failure to disprove something that we have no evidence exists, and a problem that has already been solved. And for this, Stefan advocates an overhaul of voting and voter registration systems to make it much more difficult for citizens to cast ballots.
I’m not sure exactly what motivates Stefan. Lingering resentment over Dino Rossi’s incredibly disappointing (for Stefan and Dino) and narrow loss in 2004? A genuine belief that it is better to suppress a thousand legitimate votes to stop a single case of fraud? A cynical program to suppress the vote in order to benefit Republicans?
It doesn’t matter. The fact is, what Stefan and his cohorts continually fail to do is prove that there is a significant incidence of voter fraud in King County or elsewhere in the state. Yes, there is the occasional double voter, or spouse voting the ballot of a recently deceased partner (problems, by the way, also largely fixed by the statewide database) — eight such perpetrators were convicted in King County in 2005. But there is no evidence at all of widespread, endemic or chronic voter fraud.
It’s a clever rhetorical device. Stefan warns that Balogh “could have gotten away” with voter fraud, even though she didn’t. Stefan opines that “it’s impossible to know how many ballots from non-existent people are cast and counted,” while providing no evidence that any such ballots have been cast or counted at all. He constantly uses voter registration irregularities and isolated cases of prosecuted fraud to suggest the possibility that voter fraud is widespread and rampant. But all the real evidence suggests that it is not.
Stefan, the EFF and other right-wing operatives are desperate to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. The question I have is: “Why?”
“A cynical program to suppress the vote in order to benefit Republicans?”
Bingo. Karl Rove was running this scam for years, long before Katherine Harris threw thousands of legitimate voters off of Florida’s rolls. This shows their deep dislike of democracy, which in their minds, works only if their side wins. Their loss is proof of fraud, at least to them. Note that EFF and Soundies want “reform” only in King County, not in Republican counties. Governor Gregoire received 58% of King County’s vote; even a tiny amount of voter suppression here would have denied her victory.
There’s also their psychological immaturity, constantly shown by their threats and name-calling. These people cannot admit that a government of which they disapprove can have legitimacy. Next year, we’ll see if even a statewide landslide can cause EFF or the Soundies to call her “Governor Gregoire.”
We all know why… Voter suppression has been a staple of conservative forces in this country since Reconstruction and probably before then as well. Simply put, conservatives have figured out that the more people who vote the worse chances they have.
They will do anything and everything to try and get people to stop voting. If they can target these efforts at people and places that generally vote against them then so much the better. That is all this is and nothing more. They are fascists playing at democracy.
1) We don’t know when Steffy stopped beating his wife or raping his kids. Let’s get that straight
2) We DO know that the only illegal votes found out during the trial in Chelan were PUBLICAN votes
3) We DO know that Publicans want to keep people from voting since the GOP prefers a dictatorship to a democracy
This jerkoff has to be a Republican; and, being a Republican, it’s very unlikely our partisan prosecutor will charge her with a misdemeanor or anything else. As long as a Republican controls the King County prosecutor’s office, no Republican will be prosecuted in King County for voting fraud, no matter how many counts are against him/her.
Exhibit A: Lori Sotelo
Voter registration, like many things in life, is based on the honor system. For example, you can’t possible have enough cops on the streets to keep everyone from speeding, so we depend on the voluntary compliance of citizens who see the value of being law-abiding to keep traffic from turning into total sheet-metal-bending chaos. Likewise, we depend on people to be honest when registering to vote.
If Stefan and his GOP cohorts don’t like the honor system of voter registration, and want every single registration researched and verified by election workers, we will have to hire an army of election workers — and, of course, pay them to work.
Let’s see, whooooose taxes should we raise to pay for this? Ummm, I have an idea …
The fallacy of wingnut reasoning is they’re not honest, so they assume no one else is, either.
Three times the dog cast a ballot, three times. It took KCRE three elections to question the paw print.
I think roger needs his bunny meds’. This “jerkoff” is a grandma, and a regular citizen (retired army) who thinks the system reeks with holes.
She maybe on to something. Her dog is still a registered voter in KC. She checked the dogs voting status yesterday….
I’ll pay Stefan $100 if he can provide proof of a single instance of a dog successfully impersonating a legitimate voter at any polling place in King County within the last 3 years.
BTW Rog
She votes the “I” ticket, and so did the Dog.
Another thing the wingnuts haven’t explained is, if a dog can register to vote, what’s to keep a dog from getting a photo ID? http://tinyurl.com/2jsstx
Now, I’m a pollworker, and I guarantee that if a dog shows up with an ID card at my polling place, I’m going to question it! Fer chrissakes, from a rabbit’s point of view, why should dogs be allowed to live let alone vote?!!
Unfortunately, the GOP pollworkers at my polling place aren’t as reliable as I am, so yeah, I can see how a dog with a photo ID might be able to vote.
So, wingnuts, I repeat: How will a photo ID stop a dog from voting?
Roger Rabbit Quiz
WOW! is the latest incarnation of
[ ] 1. MWS
[ ] 2. Momus (a/k/a prr)
[ ] 3. Rufus (a/k/a Doofus)
[ ] 4. Kevin Carns (a/k/a all of the above)
“It doesn’t matter. The fact is, what Stefan and his cohorts continually fail to do is prove that there is a significant incidence of voter fraud in King County or elsewhere in the state. Yes, there is the occasional double voter, or spouse voting the ballot of a recently deceased partner (problems, by the way, also largely fixed by the statewide database) — eight such perpetrators were convicted in King County in 2005. But there is no evidence at all of widespread, endemic or chronic voter fraud.”
It’s fascinating how Stefan (and other wingnuts) extrapolate “widespread voting fraud” from occasional acts of isolated individuals (whose partisan affinity is unknown but it’s a good bet many of them cast their illegal ballots for Dino Rossi). According to wingnut reasoning:
Balogh registering her dog to vote = crooked county elections department = Gregoire stole the election
More intellectually-minded individuals would, of course, conclude that you can’t get from here to there.
How do I know many of the illegal ballots in 2004 were cast for Rossi? Simple. Of 10 ex-felons who agreed to press interviews, 9 said they voted for Rossi and 1 said she voted for Gregoire. This was reported in the P-I at the time.
So, what was the lady’s punishment for attempting to register her dog to vote?
Republicans often cite studies from other states as “proof” the ineligible ex-felons voted for Gregoire. However, if these out-of-state studies prove anything at all, what they actually prove is the reverse. Why? Because Washington has a much high proportion of white males in its felon population, and a proportionately lower percentage of minorities, and those studies show that minority ex-felons tend to vote Democratic but a very high percentage of white male ex-felons vote Republican in those states. So, if you’re going to extrapolate from those studies, you have to extrapolate that our white male ex-felons — which is most of Washington’s felon population — vote Republican, too. Such actual evidence as exists, e.g. the press interviews with felon voters after the 2004 election — strongly bear this out. The net conclusion is that it is virtually a lead-pipe certainty that Dino Rossi got the lion’s share of the 1,100 or so illegal felon votes.
@9 “She votes the ‘I’ ticket, and so did the Dog.”
There is no such thing. Besides, how would you know?
@7 “Three times the dog cast a ballot, three times. It took KCRE three elections to question the paw print.”
Your proof of this is what? That the dog was registered through 3 election cycles? This equates with voting? Are you saying the dog showed up at the polls and was allowed to vote in 3 elections? Yes, that’s what you’re saying.
“This ‘jerkoff’ is a grandma, and a regular citizen (retired army) who thinks the system reeks with holes.”
Anybody who registers a dog to vote is a jerkoff, not a regular citizen. She committed a crime. Regular citizens don’t submit voter registrations for their pets.
Roger Rabbit Poll
A person who registers his/her dog to vote is a:
[ ] 1. Regular citizen
[ ] 2. Jerkoff
Roger Rabbit Poll #2
A person who thinks someone that registers a dog to vote is a “regular citizen” is:
[ ] 1. a wingnut
[ ] 2. a Republican
[ ] 3. a jerkoff
[ ] 4. an idiot
[ ] 5. all of the above
Man wingnuts like WOW! sure make it easy to make fun of them … this isn’t even challenging.
I wonder if Stefan put Balogh up to this? Maybe the KCGOP did. It smells like part of the rightwing propaganda effort to support their voter suppression campaign.
Funny how Stefan knew about this before it was reported in the media.
Republicans send American kids to die in Iraq to give Iraqis the right to vote, but they deny Americans the right to vote in our own country. I can’t figure that one out.
Of course, they don’t send their own kids to die in Iraq or anywhere else.
And Republicans wonder why we despise them …
I’ll pay Stefan $100 if he can provide unquestionable proof that he has stopped beating his wife.
#26 is, of course, a clever and dishonest rhetorical trick! Hey, if Stefan can use clever and dishonest rhetorical tricks to make his point, why can’t I use clever and dishonest rhetorical tricks to make my point? My point being, of course, that Stefan uses clever and dishonest rhetorical tricks to make his point.
Hmmm … WOW! isn’t posting here anymore … either he fled or drowned in rabbit shit.
Either way, good riddance.
Roger
Better quit while your behind. She stated she was an independant on KOMO this morning. So was her dog.
I read the article, which is something you obviously didn’t.
I will repost here what I post just minutes ago on Open Thread for your reading pleasure.
WOW says:
Here ya go Mr. Rabid:
—————————————————
“Duncan is the dog Balogh registered as a voter seven months before the November 2006 election.
Duncan’s absentee-ballot envelope was signed with a picture of a paw print.
“You can’t sign with a paw print,” the election worker told Balogh on Nov. 9.
“I said, ‘he can if he’s a dog,’ ” answered Balogh, a 66-year-old grandmother and Army veteran who lives in Federal Way.
The election worker told her a supervisor would call, but she never heard from anyone.
She submitted ballots in his name in the September and November 2006 and May 2007 elections. She wrote “VOID” on the ballots, and didn’t cast any votes.””
—————————————————–
Lets see, on Nov 9th 2006 they contact her, and she admits to them it is a DOG. Their reply, a supervisor will call you.
6 months later KCRE sends the DOG another ballot. Dog votes again (another voided ballot), and in June she gets a letter from KC Court charging her with a Felony.
So Mr. Rabid (rabbit)
If they keep sending ballots to DOGS knowingly, I am sure that all those people living in those itty bitty mailbox places are most likely Ants. But unlike the DOG who Voided his ballot, the Ants cast a REAL vote, and it gets counted.
Lets prove those registered Ants are real people. A real street address, with a roof line taller than 4 inches.
I am not sure what your line of reasoning is with the photo ID issue. You don’t need Photo ID to vote by mail. Proof of that is in the Doghouse.
06/23/2007 at 10:42 am
One more thing, what is your pre-occupation with Poll Voting……No such thing anymore in KC. It’s all in the Mail.
@30 “She stated she was an independant on KOMO this morning. So was her dog.”
Let’s review:
1. We don’t register by party affiliation in this state.
2. She doesn’t vote “independent” because there’s no such option on the ballot.
3. Calling herself “independent” doesn’t change what she actually is.
4. “Independant” is spelled “independent.”
5. If you can’t get the spelling right, you probably didn’t get the reasoning right, either.
6. The only rabbit “behind” you saw this morning ws the crack between my butt cheeks when I pulled down my fur to moon you.
was
A person who thinks the 2004 vote count for governor was fishy in King County is probably:
[ ] 1. a Republican
[ ] 2. an Independent
[ ] 3. wondering why it too 3 counts for the assholes to
get the vote they wanted
[ ] 4. not a flaming Seattle progressive asshole
[ ] 5. all of the above
@31 “One more thing, what is your pre-occupation with Poll Voting……No such thing anymore in KC. It’s all in the Mail.”
Really? I just got a yellow card from KCRE asking me if I plan to work at the polls for this year’s primary and general elections. Thanks for playing, sap.
@31 I’m pretty sure Balogh committed perjury somewhere on that voter registration form. As I recall, you have to attest to a good-faith belief that the person you’re registering to vote is eligible to do so, or something like that. In addition, since the dog obviously can’t sign the registration form himself, Balogh had to either forge the “voter’s” signature or sign it as a witness. Any way you slice it, Balogh knowingly falsified a voter registration form. Jail is a good place for her.
@31 “If they keep sending ballots to DOGS knowingly”
Knowingly? Bullshit. How would KCRE know they were sending ballots to a dog, when the dog’s owner submitted a false voter registration form that gives the dog a human name (including given and surnames; how many dogs have surnames?) and a phony birthdate (how many dogs born in 1978 are still alive today?). The only reason KCRE ever sent any ballots to the dog is because of Balogh’s fraud. The remedy for that is to prosecute Balogh.
So, according to WOW!, if a dog owner submits a fraudulent voter registration form for her pet, on which she tells a number of lies in order to falsely represent the dog as a human being, KCRE is at fault for sending ballots to the dog? Where is the dog owner’s fault in this?
As I’ve said before, wingnuts shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they lack the judgment, maturity, and intelligence to be entrusted with something as important as selecting our leaders.
Here’s a solution for you: Charge Balogh with felony voting fraud, so she’ll lose her voting rights. That way, if neither she nor her dog is allowed to vote, KCRE will know that no one at her address is entitled to vote and it’ll be easy for them to just red-flag that address.
I’d lay money that Balogh votes Republican, because this is exactly the kind of stunt that publicity-seeking Republicans love to pull in furtherance of their dishonest campaign to disenfranchise minorities and Democratic-leaning voters. Why do these people work so hard to keep American citizens from voting in their own country? Republicans hate America, and hate democracy.
Balogh and Sotelo should be in a cell together licking each other’s cunts.
They’re two of a kind.
I’ve heard this song-and-dance about mailbox voters before. Newsflash for wingnuts: Homeless people are allowed to vote in this state. Here’s another newsflash for you wingnut liars: As I recall, of the 138 voters challenged by Sotelo, none of them were ineligible to vote or illegally registered. You guys are full of shit, and that’s been prove over and over.
proven
Looks like I ran off WOW! again. But he’ll come back. Wingnuts have an insatiable appetite for self-flagellation. They’re weird in other ways, too. They should all be locked up for the public’s safety.
@34 Here’s why there were 3 counts in the 2004 governor’s race, Yossarian.
1. The machine recount was automatic by state law.
2. State law gives the candidates and parties the right to request a manual recount.
Why do you have a problem with that? Dino didn’t when he voted for it as a state senator. Each successive count was more accurate than the previous one. What’s wrong with getting the most accurate count possible in a close election? Why are you against that? This cuts two ways, you know — it could have gone the other way. Let’s suppose King County hadn’t misplaced some ballots — in which case, Gregoire would have won the first two counts. Now let’s suppose further that Rossi had won the manual recount after Gregoire won the first two counts — would you be dissing the process then? I doubt it. You’re just a flaming fucking sore loser like all the rest of the Republicans in this state. You assholes behave like 4-year-olds on a playground — “if I don’t win, I’m going to take my ball and go home!!!” Bunch of whiny brats, that’s what Republicans are. Fuck you, you lost, get a life and move on.
WOW! is the latest incarnation of
[ ] 1. MWS
MWS IS/WAS PUDDYBUD.
The question I have is: “Why?”
SIMPLE. THE AGENDA OF THE FAR RIGHT IS TO INSTITUTIONALIZE VOTE SUPPRESSION.
Roger
Your lack of comprehension is actually cute.
I will repeat only the parts you don’t seem to GET…..
Lets see, on Nov 9th 2006 they contact her, and she admits to them it is a DOG. Their reply, a supervisor will call you.
6 months later KCRE sends the DOG another ballot. Dog votes again (another voided ballot), and in June she gets a letter from KC Court charging her with a Felony.
Lets recap here for YOUR review (I’ll even make it a timeline for you):
Sept 2006 election: Dog Votes by Absentee
Nov 2006 election: Dog Votes again by Absentee
Nov 9th 2006: Election Dept calls Dog Owner, Dog owner admits the voter is a Dog. Election Dept advises dog owner that a supervisor will be contacting her.
May 2007 election: Dog receives ballot from KCRE and votes again.
My God Roger, Did you EVEN READ THE FRIGGING ARTICLE?????
Your posts and all their assumptions above point to the obvious….. You Didn’t!!!
Go read the article again, and come back and play OK???
Roger @ 42
Lay off the C-Word, I thought you were better than that…..
Just goes to show you what a liberal will do to get their point across…..
@42 ” I thought you were better than that”
Whatever gave you that idea?
@50 The only thing this proves is KCRE is understaffed and we need to raise taxes to pay for more elections staff.
I say Balogh should go to jail. But I don’t see Stefan, WOW!, or any other wingnuts saying, “prosecute her for submitting a fraudulent voter registration form.” Why? Because they know damn well she’s one of theirs.
How do I know? Because only a Republican would pull a stunt like this to make a spurious point in furtherance of the GOP’s scheme to make it harder for American citizens to vote in their own country. Why do they want to do this? To “win” elections they can’t win honestly. Balogh’s stunt had “made in GOP” written all over it.
Has anyone researched Balogh’s political donations? This is a job for HA’s peripatetic Democratic sleuth, Richard Pope.
Balogh’s stunt reminds me of a news article I read many years ago. A guy held up a gas station attendant with a gun, but didn’t take any money — he just ran off. When the culprit was apprehended, he turned out to be a college student, and explained to the job he had no intention of robbing the gas station. He said he only wanted to see what the attendant’s reaction was, because he was “doing research” for a writing assignment in a college class. The judge was not amused and sent him to prison. Which is where he belonged. Balogh may have been “doing research” to see if she could slip a dog past KCRE, but she — like the guy who staged the fake gas station robbery — committed a crime and deserves the same fate … a jail sentence.
If acting prosecutor Dan Satterberg doesn’t prosecute Balogh, it proves he’s a partisan hack who only enforces election laws against Democrats and looks the other way when Republicans commit voting fraud.
@52 “Just goes to show you what a liberal will do to get their point across…”
I behave like a Republican. So what? If Republians can behave like Republicans, why can’t I? Why should they have a monopoly on behaving like Republicans? After all, I used to be one.
Roger @ 59
You need to read the fucking article…….
Satterberg is quoted in it….but you wouldn’t know would ya, cause you haven’t read it yet….
They have offered her a plea deal. But you will have to read the article to find out what it is.
Better yet roger
Google her name and see what you get….
“Balogh, who lives with Duncan, an Australian shepherd-terrier mix, and four other dogs and four cats …”
Balogh is a serial scofflaw. Not only did she illegally register a dog to vote, the dog itself is illegal! According to Federal Way city code, Article I, Sec. 4.1, (http://tinyurl.com/2sy2x9), she needs a kennel license to keep more than 3 dogs. Anybody who registers a dog to vote probably doesn’t have a kennel license, either. We should turn her in to Federal Way code enforcement. They should prosecute her for operating an unlicensed kennel.
“She put her phone bill in Duncan’s name, then used the phone bill as identification to register him as a voter. ‘I wasn’t trying to do anything fraudulent. I was trying to prove that our system is flawed. So I got myself in trouble,’ she says.”
Let’s see. She files a voter registration form for her dog. She puts her phone bill in the dog’s name to create a phony ID for the dog. Then she claims she “wasn’t trying to do anything fraudulent”?
(raucous bunny laughter in background)
We have a voter registration system that depends on citizens’ honesty and voluntary compliance with voting laws because it would be too costly to have government employees investigate and verify every registration. It’s a reasonable way to do things in a world of limited taxpayer resources. The system isn’t flawed. Balogh is flawed. Don’t throw out the system; throw out Balogh!
Balogh is nothing less than a person who broke the law and committed voting fraud for the express purpose of making it harder for legitimate voters to vote. She deserves our contempt. She also deserves a felony conviction and jail sentence, and to be stripped of her voting rights. She’s exactly the kind of irresponsible individual with no respect for society’s laws that we don’t want voting.
It’s utterly ludicrous for Balogh to blame her lawbreaking on the voter registration system. The only person to blame for Balogh’s illegal behavior is Balogh herself.
The only thing Balogh’s stunt proves is the honor system doesn’t work when you’re dealing with wingnuts. With those scumbag liars, you have to verify everything.
I guess the solution is for the legislature to pass a law requiring background checks of all Republican voters.
I wonder how many dogs and cats voted for Dino Rossi in 2004?
Roger
It appears you have read the article. So what do you think KCRE should do about this registered dog? Keep sending him ballots knowing he is a dog, like they did in the May 07 election?
She proved the system needs improvement. What do you suggest??
@69 I think the Federal Way animal control officer should go to Balogh’s place and ask to see her kennel license and the license tags for all 8 of her dogs and cats — and impound every unlicensed pet.
Fine her $250 for each violation.
@69 “So what do you think KCRE should do about this registered dog?”
See #67.
Let me get this straight.
1. We have an honor system in King County that relies on the honesty of people registering to vote, because it’s too expensive for taxpayers to hire enough workers to verify every registration.
2. A wingnut registers her dog to vote, committing perjury in the process, and goes even further by putting her phone bill in the dog’s name to create a phony voting ID for the dog — all to show that King County’s honor-based voter registration system can be circumvented. (Well … duh.)
3. Because a wingnut managed to register her dog to vote by lying on the registration forms and creating a phony ID, the wingnut argument is that we should make it harder for legitimate voters to vote.
Is that it? Yes, that’s the essence of what they’re arguing.
Fuck you, WOW! If you want to live in a banana republic, move to Mexico or Guatemala, but stop trying to turn our state into a banana republic.
This whole thing is like a Republican driving 90 mph in downtown Seattle to prove we need tougher traffic laws. The trouble with this reasoning is the only guy doing 90 in downtown Seattle is the Republican.
They want Photo ID for voters who don’t have drivers liscenses? Fine, drop the cost of the State ID card. I don’t drive, but I have the ID card, because I do occasionally buy a beer(every once in awhile, and being 29, I still do get carded). The ID Card is about the same as a drivers license. There should not be barriers to people voting due to financial status. Poll Taxes are illegal, and should not be revived through the back door.
And the only person in the entire state of Washington who registered a dog to vote is a wingnut who did it to “prove” there’s a problem of people registering their dogs to vote.
What’s Balogh going to do next? Rob an espresso cart to prove we need more cops?
Balogh is a jerk. It’s not more complicated than that.
We don’t need to change our voting registration laws, but Balogh needs to change her attitude and behavior.
Well, the 2004 election really looked suspicious. Rossi wins, initially, and there’s a re-count up in King County. Rossi wins again, so there another re-count. This time Her Highness, Queen Chrissie, wins, so then it’s time to stop re-counting ’cause ther liberal Democrat won. The WEA and other special interest groups can relax – the fix is in, and the Queen will be re-paying her loyal subjects for their support. I especially like that end-run around the Supreme Court decision that hammered the WEA for being a corrupt organization and spending its members dues on its own political agenda without those memebers’ permission.
As far as I can see, the average Washington State Democrat is only slightly less corrupt than the average Republican. It’s like one crook saying he’s morally superior to another crook because he has onle robbed ten liquor stores whereas the second crook has robbed eleven.
“Stefan, the EFF and other right-wing operatives are desperate to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. The question I have is: ‘Why?'”
To keep Democrats from voting because they can’t win an honest election by campaigning on issues.
@80 Yawn … another whining sore-loser Rossi supporter who knows nothing about election law … or, more likely, maybe it’s just the same old wingnut using a new screen name …
FYI, the recount laws have been on the books since before you were born.
I could also mention that Rossi voted for that law as a state senator, but facts and logic are wasted on these people. They’re going to whine anyway, simply because they like to hear themselves whine.
soooooore loooooooosers
The recounts switched virtually no votes from one candidate to another. What the recounts did was pick up ballots missed by the counting machines or misplaced by election workers. Why should an eligible voter have his/her ballot not counted because of a mechanical defect of a counting machine? The object here is to count all the votes, not worship machines or enshrine the screwups of election workers in the official results.
If it were up to me, we’d scrap all the voting equipment and require voters to mark Xs in boxes [ ] on paper ballots, then count them all by hand. If it takes 2 weeks, then it takes 2 weeks. We don’t need to know who won 15 minutes after the polls close. All this computerized vote counting crapola is driven by media demands to know who won as soon as the polls close. Fuck the media! It’s more important to get it right.
Folks your lovers up North is stealing your lover!
Clinton touched my shoulder!
Shinan Govani, National Post
Published: Saturday, June 23, 2007
And in completely unrelated news: Belinda’s first official date with Tie!
The most charismatic man in the universe quietly slipped into town this week, and I managed to have a quick yak with him about democracy.
“Congratulations on the Celine Dion song,” I smirked to Bill Clinton when I met him at the Four Seasons on Wednesday. “For keeping it Canadian ?,” I trailed off, unable to finish my sentence because I found myself being zapped by that famous Clinton voodoo-gaze.
I was referring, at that point, to the news that had erupted this week: Hillary Clinton’s official campaign song had been chosen, and it was set to come from Quebecoise chanteuse quarters. Celine’s You and I, to be precise. This, following a contest on YouTube where online crawlers were asked to select a winning Democrat ditty.
“The people spoke,” Clinton said to me in that all-too-familiar, ex-commander-in-chief drawl.
“It’s democracy!” he spieled with a small pat on my shoulder –at which point I really thought I was going to break out into another Dion tune all together. The one that goes: Where Does My Heart Beat Now?
http://www.canada.com/national.....7ecf877c31
What a fun conversation I had with a tourist from overseas:
“This is the State where they had all the fuss about the election, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“You only have two parties here?”
“Yes, mostly Democrats and Republicans. . .”
“Republicans? They’re the corrupt ones, aren’t they?”
Roger Rabbit @ 57, 06/23/2007 at 12:15 pm:
“Has anyone researched Balogh’s political donations? This is a job for HA’s peripatetic Democratic sleuth, Richard Pope.”
PERMANENT OFFENSE 11/23/1999 $34.00 G BALOGH JANE MURRAY FEDERAL WAY WA 98023
PERMANENT OFFENSE 12/10/1999 $30.00 G BALOGH JANE MURRAY FEDERAL WAY WA 98023
PROTECT OUR PETS & WILDLIFE 10/13/2000 $20.00 BALOGH JANE MURRAY FEDERAL WAY WA 98023
PROTECT OUR PETS & WILDLIFE 10/19/2000 $5.00 BALOGH JANE MURRAY FEDERAL WAY WA 98023
Good work, Richard! Balogh donated money to Tim Eyman’s outfit. Nuff said. “Independent”, my ass! She’s a wingnut.
More precisely, a LYING wingnut. Balogh lied on her dog’s voter registration form. She LIED about being n “independent.” What else has this scofflaw LIED about? Probably lots of things.
After calling Balogh’s fraudulent voter registration a “noble act,” Stefan will never again have any credibility on election fraud issues.
Show me a dog registered to vote, and I’ll show you a Republican dog owner.
These GOP scumbags couldn’t find a dog registered to vote by a Democratic dog owner, so they staged this incident to make it look like we have a problem of people registering pets to vote. The only problem is them.
Until these wingnut yahoos came along, the only dog I could find that’s registered to vote is in New Zealand.
My take on this:
1. The King County Prosecuting Attorney is responsible for filing official challenges to doubtful voter registrations. It takes that office FOREVER to do anything, except when prosecuting violent crime. They have obviously known about this bogus canine registration for over six months, and have not gotten around to filing an official challenge. Until this happens, the dog will remain on the voter registration rolls, and King County Elections will continue mailing absentee ballots to that address.
2. The King County Prosecuting Attorney is also responsible for filing criminal charges. Except for violent felonies, it usually takes that office at least two to six months to file criminal charges. In this case, they evidently found out sometime around November 9 that a dog had been registered, and have just now gotten around to filing charges (the case is only a few days old, and not yet indexed on the on-line King County Superior Court docket).
3. There is a good possibility that Norm Maleng and Dan Satterberg have delayed filing an official challenge against the canine voter, or criminal charges against the canine’s owner, just so that King County Elections can look bad. It is much easier to blame King County Elections for continuing to send absentee ballots to a known canine, than it is to understand the role of the King County Prosecuting Attorney in all this.
DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING!
Ladies and gentlemen, your winner by unanimous decision, and still undisputed champion……
Roger Rabbit!
(With props to the Popemeister.)
Richard, for the life of me, I don’t understand why Democratic organizations are dissing you! How many times do you have to prove your worth? With Democrats like that, we don’t need Republicans to lose elections. Our own party leadership can do it by themselves.
She’s probably lying about being an Army veteran, too.
Republicans have a long and sordid history of lying about being veterans. For example, Dan Quayle put a bumper sticker saying “Vietnam Veteran” on his briefcase. The only thing Quayle is a veteran of is an Indiana National Guard journalism unit that never left Indiana, which he joined to avoid going to Vietnam. A group of real Vietnam veterans made him remove the bumper sticker.
And for Bush to don a flight suit and land on an aircraft carrier was nothing but a tinny publicity stunt. Bush, like Quayle, used pull to get into an already-overstaffed stateside National Guard unit to avoid Vietnam. After the taxpayers shelled out over a million dollars to train him to fly fighters, he went AWOL and rendered no useful service. At least Bush didn’t claim he’s a “Vietnam Veteran” — like Quayle did — but probably only because he knew that he couldn’t get away with it.
I wonder if there’s a way to find out if Balogh is lying about her claimed veteran status. Calling yourself a veteran doesn’t make you one.
Looks like I ran Puddy out of this thread again, but he’ll be back. He enjoys doing this to himself.
Wow! This thread is already up to 100 comments! That’s five times as many as Stefan’s pathetic little blog has.
Here’s a good example of the mindset on (u)SP:
“16. Frankly, I’ve been tempted to do the exact same thing this woman did. Just to prove a point of how insanely easy it is for dishonest people to screw other voters with fraud. Posted by: Michele on June 22, 2007 06:26 PM”
Roger Rabbit Commentary: You go, Michelle! The county needs your $250, and they can find 10 hours of litter for you to pick up.
There’s a weird sameness to the comments on Stefan’s pathetic little blog. For example,
“Congratulations Speaker Pelosi, now let the bombs fall where they may. My prediction: terror attack on domestic soil passenger aircraft within the next six months. Casualties in the 2-300 range. And, unfortunately, maybe that’s just what we need. It’s obvious people don’t remember what happened 5 years ago. Posted by FullContactPolitics at November 8, 2006 10:52 AM”
http://blog.usefulwork.com/cgi.....ry_id=7430
See the similarity? Frustrated GOP legislative candidate Mark Griswold (aka FullContactPolitics), who took an 85%-15% ass-whupping at the polls, thinks the solution to Democrats winning elections is more terrorist attacks against America. Michele thinks the solution to Democrats winning elections is more Republicans registering their dogs to vote. Those two should get married … except I would fear for their children … that is, if they could figure out how to make children.
We can always hope that Michele’s dad doesn’t let her vote, based on the obvious fact she has the maturity of a 13-year-old.
Unfortunately, being 13 years old might not keep her from voting. If Republicans register their dogs to vote, we have to assume they let their kids vote, too.
Roger Rabbit Riddle
Q: How do you know you’re having dinner with a family of Republicans?
A: The father is yelling at his 13-year-old daughter for smoking at the dinner table because it sets a bad example for her kids.
Roger @ 100 Don’t pat yourself on the back, you just might Belch.
Roger @ 101 Could it be that the at other blog has 24 posts that actually mean something, whereas, it took you 70 posts just to read the damn artcle in reference. Looks like the reading comprehension on SP is a bit better than yours. Meaning you have posted 75% of the posts or more. Meaning, It isn’t healthy to talk to yourself, and then provide the answer.
Roger @ 105
Speaking from experience I see……
Roger @ 100
Grasping at straws again?
Richard @ 94- I can attest to the fact that the King Co. PAO puts a very low priority on non-criminal matters. And since Records and Elections is a CX funded agency it does not have resources (or likely authority) to hire outside attorneys.
Puddybutt @107
13 is old for a rabbit; but for you humans, being a mom at 13 is just plain sicko.
Jane Balogh is one of the rightwing geniuses who give $64 to Tim Eyman to get out of paying $60 for roads to drive on.
The only thing “independent” about Balogh is she likes the Constitution Party because Bush and Cheney aren’t rightwing enough for her.
I see you’re back, puddy. Can’t go more than 60 minutes without a verbal ass kicking? Maybe it’s time for therapy.
@106 “Could it be that the at other blog has 24 posts that actually mean something”
No.
In Wingnut World, you come out ahead by donating $64 to initiative campaigns to avoid paying $60 in taxes that pay for pavement.
Bad news for the right wing traitors. In the new Newsweek poll EVERY Democratic contender smashes EVERY GOP contender in EVERY possible head to head matchup. Bend over you assholes. We’re gonna run it all in 08. Then we’re coming for you. HE HE!a
King County Records & Elections leaves bogus voter registrations on the books, because the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is their legal adviser. The legal advice from the KC PAO is that bogus registrations have to remain on the books, unless they are challenged in accordance with the RCW’s. The KC PAO takes on the duty of doing official challenges, since they advise KCRE that it would be a conflict of interest for KCRE to do official challenges themselves. Basically, they tell KCRE that their Director should be an adjudicator of official challenges, which makes being a prosecutor of these same challenges incompatible. Evidently, KC PAO takes their sweet time in filing official challenges. The canine voter is still on the books, and I bet whichever phony voters were submitted by that ACORN worker last fall are still on the books too.
12
There are scattered, isolated cases of winning the lottery in king County. I guess under wingnut reasoning, that means that lottery winning is widespread and endemic. So what I want to know is, where’s my money?
116
The real question right now is whether we can sustain veto-proof majorities in one or both chambers, or barring that, at least a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Of course there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, but for now it sure feels good to be kickin’ ’em now that they’re down.
Richard
what ya talkin about willis !!! Those acorn voters are surely legit. You are democrat now, suck it up buttercup, all registered voters are legal…..until proven otherwise. Even those little people who live in little mail boxes at Mail Box Plus. In fact, you should be shaking hands with those lil people, what a way to win a vote or two.
I am gonna sign my next ballot with a paw print, this way KCRE will have to call me and request my real signature ( 8 months from date of election).
Roger Rabbit said:
Because our party leadership isn’t much happier about having honest, diligent, independent folks running for office than the Republicans are.
Oh, we have a lot more candidates like that, but that’s just because Democrats seem to be a more independent bunch in general, and we don’t listen to our party leaders as much as the Republicans seem to.
If it was up to some in our party, we’d be sending out our own versions of the “Speaker’s Roundtable” mailings telling parents that the Republicans want to let child molesters teach elementary school and we’d be looking for ways to hack the Diebold machines to change Republican votes to Democratic.
Mr. Pope makes a very good point that the folks screaming about the invalid registrations seem all too willing to ignore.
King County Records & Elections has been told by their legal advisor, the King County Prosecutor, that they cannot remove a voter registration without an official complaint.
Since it was the Republicans that knew about the bogus registration, and the Republican controlled office of the Prosecutor that has told KCRE that they cannot cancel the registration, it seems a bit odd that the Republicans are now making the most noise about the issue, implying that it is somehow the fault of the Democrats.
Oh, and Richard. Please post a link to your campaign website.
Imagine if Roger started registering all those little bunnies.
We’d need yet another billion dollar diabold Butt Sniffin reader.
@120 “all registered voters are legal…..until proven otherwise”
Actually, that’s probably an accurate statement of the law (in your case, purely by accident), because we have this thing called due process (which you rightys don’t understand).
Now that we know Jane Balogh gives money to Tim Eyman, we can be pretty sure she’s not a Democrat.
@122 “Imagine if Roger started registering all those little bunnies. We’d need yet another billion dollar diabold Butt Sniffin reader. 06/23/2007 at 6:18 pm”
You could save the county time and expense by conceding before the election.
Criminy, GS can’t even spell “Diebold” right! Another homeschool dropout.
Please note that when John Barelli says “our party” he does NOT represent the REAL Democratic party. He represents the suck the GOP dick party and give in to the GOP in the name of getting along while they cheat and rob the country blind party.
RES- Barelli represents just some of the folks you ( or hopefully “we” ) need to win elections.
We don’t know when Steffy stopped beating his wife or raping his kids. Let’s get that straight
2) We DO know that the only illegal votes found out during the trial in Chelan were PUBLICAN votes
We also know that votes counted in KC were more than ballots cast.
We know KCRE can not be trusted in elections.
We also know dems want voter fraud since they have repeatedly blocked voter ID initiatives.
There is never a national election where the republican candidate has more fraudulent votes then the dem. I guarantee you that Gore lost the popular vote in 2000 if we were to take out all the fraudulent votes. Democrats always cheat.
Hehehe Ah these post from you angry donks are hilarious. You dems sure dont like it when someone shines the light of truth on your corrupt,commie loving KCRE. heehehhehehe
Balogh should get a medal.
@129 “We also know that votes counted in KC were more than ballots cast.”
Just like you “know” evolution is bunk and global warming doesn’t exist …
Slow news day, Doofus?
OK Dan, I’ve tried this before and I’ll try it again, the local county prosecutor was a Republican, the State Attorney General is a Republican, the Federal Prosecutor was appointed by a Republican, the trial venue was chosen by Republicans, and Republican’s don’t like the result.
Perhaps because they are wrong?
Give me another credible explanation.
The silence speaks volumes, Dan
well, I guess if you can register a dog and get away with it, you could “unregister Democrats” or cancel their registrations and get away with it also…
KCRE would never know the difference.
(Sigh…)
“Well, the 2004 election really looked suspicious. Rossi wins, initially, and there’s a re-count up in King County.”
State law mandates a re-count when the margin of victory is less than 2,000 votes. Therefore, we knew on election night that Rossi’s lead of 261 votes would probably not be the final result. The re-count, which no one could legally stop or avoid, was statewide.
“Rossi wins again, so there another re-count.”
He hadn’t “won” anything yet. The mandatory re-count cut his lead from 261 to 42 votes — out of 3 million! When most of his “lead” evaporated under closer scrutiny, we again suspected that he might not actually have won. State law allows the trailing candidate(s) to request a hand re-count. Attorney General Gregoire did this.
“This time Her Highness, Queen Chrissie, wins, so then it’s time to stop re-counting ’cause ther [sic] liberal Democrat won.”
Each count was fully completed. State law does not allow another re-count — but, in the subsequent court case, the judge deducted four illegal votes from Rossi’s total, one from Bennett’s total, and none from Gregoire’s total. Thus, her final margin of victory is larger than the results of the final count. (And, larger than Rossi’s lead, after the mandatory re-count.)
“The WEA and other special interest groups can relax – the fix is in, and the Queen will be re-paying her loyal subjects for their support.”
The WEA had nothing to do with any of this. The national Democratic Party paid for the final count (as allowed by state law) and had their money refunded (again, in strict accordance with our state’s law) when this count reversed the preliminary counts.
If you have any evidence for a “fix”, please present it. (You might also need to explain why you withheld this evidence for more than two years.)
re 131: If fake registrations could help Republicans win elections, you can be sure they would be doing it en masse.
130 You mean in the last millenium, “Dan”. The claims of our local GOPers seem pretty silly in light of the growing body of evidence of massive fraud and coercion elsewhere in the country, from 2000 onward.
In fact, the only difference here may be either the state Republican conspirators were too hopelessly incompetent to pull it off, or that the RNC and Karl Rove didn’t consider Washington important enough to waste the resources on. Then again, they also had a couple of (probably unexpected) obstacles in the form of John McKay and Sam Reed, who turned out to be too much of the old school to act as obedient little stormtroopers.
@136 Interesting that a wingnut poster mentions two specific election fraud crimes, and both of them were committed by Republicans.
I bet Karl Rove wouldn’t have fired John McKay for refusing to indict a Tim Eyman supporter who submitted a falsified voter registration for her dog.
@137 “Rossi wins, initially … ”
Rossi didn’t “win, initially” or at any other time. Why? Because there is a legally-defined process for determining who “wins” an election, and nobody “wins” until that process is completed — including recounts provided by law.
By your reasoning, every close election in history whose outcome was changed by a recount is “suspicious.”
Bullshit.
@137 Let me ask this, PaddyMac. If you won’t recognize Gregoire as a legitimate elected governor, why should we recognize Bush as a legitimate elected president? There were far more irregularities in Florida and Ohio than in Washington — that’s not even close. This cuts two ways, pal. If Rossi “won,” then so did Gore and Kerry.
Oops … I think PaddyMac is responding to someone else, but I don’t know who … my comment @143 is directed at the origional poster of the comments that #143 is responding to.
Roger, the miscreant is Dan Blather.
Republicans have no intellectual or moral substance. They are whores by nature, not by necessity.
Good for her for showing how easily Queen Crissy got illegitimately elected. Truth hurts, doesn’t it Goldy? Hopefully the Queen’s fiscally irresponsible and arrogant reign will come to an end come next election. Good riddance!
Look, the EFF isn’t evil. They’re trying to make sure that electronic voting machines aren’t used because it makes election fraud trivially easy to accomplish and impossible to discover or trace. Stopping that is a really good thing. I’m not sure why they’re doing it primarily in King County in Washington (maybe King County uses more electronic voting machines than other counties), but the goal they have across the country is definitely a liberal one in that they are working for transparency in government and removal of ridiculous restrictions on copyright and the Internet.
Hopefully the Queen’s
KEEP HOPING NUMBNUTS. ESPECIALLY IF YOU LOSERS PUT UP DINO AGAIN.
RE: Post # 146- Headless Lucy- the Paris Hilton of Seattle. It takes a whore to spot one.
@149:
Losers-no. Queen Crissy and buddy Dean “Imcompetence” Logan stole the election fair and square. Just ask all the felons, dead felons, dead folks, criminals, pets, apparitions, etc. that added the 139 vote difference on the THIRD try- all mysteriously found in the middle of the fucking night in the basement of KC Elections Office. Goldy asks “WHY?” at the bottom of this thread. Yeah, I can see that, don’t ask because the truth of the Queen’s supposed reason for reigning might be discovered. Truth hurts don’t it libs?
all mysteriously found in the middle of the fucking night in the basement of KC Elections Office.
YOU’RE TOO STUPID. MANY COUNTIES IN THE STATE HAD FELONS VOTING INCLUDING COUNTIES LIKE CHELAN. ONLY A HANDFUL OF DEAD PEOPLE AND ALL THE ONES I HEARD OF WERE REPUBLICAN VOTES.
IF THE “LARRY PHILLIPS” VOTES WERE PROPERLY ADMINISTERED, GREGOIRE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE WON ON THE FIRST COUNT.
YOU LOSERS HAVE TO GET A CANDIDATE WHO THAT PEOPLE OF THIS STATE CAN SUPPORT. DINO WAS YOUR BEST SHOT AND HE’S BLOWN IT WITH HIS SORE LOSER ATTITUDE. FAMILIARITY WITH HIM HAS BRED CONTEMPT.
PUT HIM UP AGAIN AND HE WILL LOSE – BIG TIME. HE’S THE BIAW’S PUPPET AND UNTIL YOU FIENDS ABANDON YOUR EXTREMIST AGENDA YOU WON’T HAVE A PRAYER IN THIS STATE.