The other day I conducted an informal poll of a dozen of the most respected political reporters and columnists in the state. I asked them via email, whether they thought Dino Rossi would eventually contest the election or concede.
The results were informative:
Concede: 1 Contest: 2 On vacation: 4 Declined to participate: 2 Totally ignored me: 3
I think what we learn most from this poll is that journalists have a better benefits package than I do, with a full one third of those surveyed on vacation, while I’m left blogging in the Seattle rain. What we learn about this election is virtually nil.
The same can be said of those stupid, lame-ass internet polls that some people like to point to as valid indicators of public opinion… unless of course they don’t like the results, in which case they’re just stupid, lame-ass internet polls. My personal “favorite” at the moment is The Seattle Times poll that asks “Should we vote again?” I am particularly amused by the ironic result… a 50-50 tie.
Considering the public’s lack of trust in these stupid, lame-ass internet polls, and the extraordinary closeness of the Times survey, I am sending a letter to the Times editorial board asking them to agree to a new poll on the subject. And to give you the opportunity to show your support for a new poll, I have updated my own stupid, lame-ass internet poll to ask the all important question: “Should the Seattle Times conduct a new poll on whether we should vote again?”
Too bad we can’t try again to get Kerry elected. See if they would include that in the poll.
Goldy, sorry for off-topic, thought you might be interested in this:
http://columbianwatch.blogspot.....-away.html
(Tyler Farmer threw his ballot away.)
I’m pleased that my 129 votes on the Times poll were sufficient to get it to 50-50.
Stilwell, you seem to have missed the point. The ballot got there after election day. Of course he threw it out, Einstein.
The most disingenuous part of the episode was trying to blame Gregoire. Please Rossi explain how she had anything to do with the young man not getting his ballot in time, what she could have done as AG about military ballots. Perhaps the Legislature should have addressed it.
Zip—check out
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....ert29.html
“That means Farmer, the young man who tossed his ballot, probably had more time to send it in — if only he knew those rules.”
And as I point out in my post at
http://www.columbianwatch.blogspot.com/
I do not begdruge Farmer confusion in combat. At all. The military ballot issue is a real one, and it deserves work.
But Rossi is not telling the whole truth, which is that the flaw was not in Washington state with this ballot, but somewhere between Washington state and Iraq (or in Iraq.)
Robin–
However, this is yet another example of error or neglect. I mean there has to be some reason why that ballot didn’t arrive until after the election. When was it mailed out? where is the proof it was mailed at that time?
Robin, Nobody’s blaming Gregoire for the soldier not getting his ballot. This ballot is an example of the election being totally screwed up by incompetence and a system doomed to not “count every vote”. It is an example of a vote which the public will agree should have been counted that dramatically contrasts to the 300 street urinators who “reside” at the County admin building whose votes did count.
Goldy–
Just a thought…all that really matters now is the law pertaining to contesting an election. I recall reading a lengthy discussion about that quite awhile back. I think Richard Pope and Jim King both contributed but looking back, I can’t seem to find it.
Can we help jcricket out here? He can’t seem to support his rantings on the issue.
It would be kind of interesting to do a few “flashbacks” as things develop to see who really knew what they were talking about.
But the issue of Rossi contesting the results is really what this boils down to right now.
The Seattle Times reports, “895,660 votes counted, and ther were 899,199 votes certified by the county…County oficials are researching the differernce of 3,539” votes! You’ve got to be kidding! Seven weeks after November 2nd and King County is trying to figure out where 3,539 votes came from. My… Oh… My.
jcricket, I don’t believe you’re sleeping near as well as say.
paul daniel
zip–
Now don’t you be insulting “Hobo’s for Gregoire”!
They are obviously a major Political Action Committee and a group to be reckoned with. Since they pushed Chris over the hump, maybe she will bring in a few extra double-wides on the Governor Mansion grounds or better yet establish a “tent-city” to honor their key role in her victory.
zip—
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....ert29.html
“That means Farmer, the young man who tossed his ballot, probably had more time to send it in — if only he knew those rules. Some military people did not.”
I don’t blame Farmer. But how in the hell is this the Democrats’ fault? It doesn’t add up. If anything, it’s the Pentagon’s fault.
She’ll have a fight on her hands if she tries to remove tent city from King County. Oh, I forgot, “she’s a fighter”. Maybe she’ll want some voting felons to move in too.
Stilwell, (sorry I dissed you, I confess I didn’t know he had more time). The point is the “fault” belongs to the screwed up election/vote counting/vote canvassing process, not the demos or the repubs. And the screw ups are so blatant that nobody thinks Gregoire “really” won fair and square. The screw ups overwhelm the 129 vote margin. Farmer is just one example but a very compelling one.
My wife and I were thinking about spending a weekend in downtown Seattle but I’m having second thoughts now.
I have these visions of the panhandlers begging “got any spare change for Chris”?
Can you imagine what a group photo of Chris’ supporters who used the King County Administration Building as their residence address would look like zip? My God!!
Maybe she can invite them all to her inaugeration Gala!
A few dozen cases of Thunderbird at $20/case. Great PR for Gregoire.
I’ll bet the Limosine Leftist elite wouldn’t feel too good about mingling with those folks, would they zip?
The military ballot issue is nothing but a PR ploy… it is legally worthless in a contest… for oh so many reasons. If the GOP really cared about military ballots, they’d agree to move the primary to spring, so that we’d have time to mail them out a few weeks earlier.
I had an office in Pioneer Square for a while and finally moved because of the bum population. Take a whiff outside Doc Maynards on a summer day. That’s the smell of a democrat-controlled City.
My feeling is that the way the “Bush hater” crowd was running around Seattle this summer trying to register people, the 300 winos are just the tip of the iceberg. Time will tell.
zip–
I know the hideous smell you are referring to..the Dems ought to duplicate and bottle it…they could call it Eau De DonkeyAss! Anyone who doesn’t smell like a Donkey’s Ass could quickly be identified as a Fascist, Neo-Con or worse.
Of course folks like us could immediately run to the ACLU for help and accuse the Dems of “Smell-profiling”
Ah yes, the ugly Dino persona comes out. “Huff,huff, those people”- rabblefish. (lots of them are VietNam Vets, so much compassion for the destoyed lives of the vets)- Pioneer Square has been part of Skid Road for 70 years. Those folk should move to suit you?
Be polite- “Anybody But Bush” – old news. Vance was pleading for observers, Dems had 600 at trainings- two day notice, couldn’t use most.
Chance to hustle out to help your base voters to correct errors in a close election….Dems get in gear in one day, teams working all over the county, hundreds of votes contacted- strong and smart respnse, well executed. R’s sat on their asses and snickered about making phone calls…..The spirit of WTO would engulf this city again.
Goldy, from your earlier Military Ballots article: “Of course, this would require moving our primary from September to the spring – like most of the rest of the nation – a change that has been resisted by legislators on both sides of the aisle.”
Seems it’s not just the GOP’s fault that Farmer’s ballot didn’t get there on time. Don’t let the facts get in the way of blaming the GOP for something, it’s your site, just change the article I quoted.
And Stilwell: from the same article, it seems the ballot ahs to be signed and dated by Nov. 2, so Farmer had no choice but to throw it out.
Spirit of WTO???? Now that takes the cake. bby, you are nominated for a star on the wacked-out leftie urine impregnated sidewalk of fame.
bby–
The 60’s ended 35 years ago dude. So now we have to deal with “Anarchists for Chris”?
I can just see Gregoire supporters running thru downtown Seattle hurling her signs thru plateglass windows, destroyed innocent people’s property, looting etc. Isn’t that part of the “spirit of WTO?? I can just see the positive response of voters as Gregoire supporters shut down I-5, block routes for emergency vehicles. Yes bby—I encourage you to make that WTO theme the Greoire battlecry!
SUCH a puzzle — Still trying to figure how Gov elect Christine Gregoire stopped the solider from voting? Did I miss a lot? How do we know it was a Rossi vote- his mommie said so. No daddy, mommy did not get to talk…..at the big time, bad ass Rossi, have the ammo to sue press conf.
How can you count the ballot when he did not send it back? What did I miss? – please tell me Chuck and Mr C.
Another conspiracy?- just discovered undertheSound- Dems control the Post Office and the military post office, and STOP ballots from soliders? Is that it? –
Get real for once—we all want the soliders to get their ballots, when requested, vote when desired, and cout them always.
Where is the beef? My street needs gravel, Will Rossi stop Gregoire from not allowing it to be delivered and spread. And then there is the failure of the street light up on the other corner. Damn mother s****ing Dems, want to keep us down, no street lights.
Blather, blather blather. No ballot fraud, just blather, blather and more blather….ad nauseum.
I understand the lack of ability to use the phone vy R’s- genetic is it?- but the word metaphor is part of most 8th grade schooling – Aside from the vivid imagination you have of males urinating, look up metaphor.
C – been in Jefferson too long. Metaphor. Vision. Hard work. Thousand of people organizing- time,time,time and money, money, money. The fusion of 50 causes. I think you missed the point, but then, the R’s were all saying, huff, huff,huff, rabblefish.
Does that rhyme get thru the
Peter–
Ah, Ah, Ah!!!
You used the “F” word again (Fraud that is). You Lefty’s would just love it if the Statute on Contested Election’s required proof of Fraud, wouldn’t you? I mean we all know Fraud is very, very difficult to prove. What is required is hard evidence of “errors, neglect or WRONGFUL ACTS”. Now Fraud is certainly an example of a “wrongful act”…but unfortunately for you it isn’t nearly the high standard of proof Fraud requires. Pete-it seems to me that Lefty’s really believe if they say something long enough and loud enough they can literally will the law to change. Good luck Pete!
Peter, Nobody’s blaming Gregoire for the soldier not getting his ballot. This ballot is an example of the election being totally screwed up by incompetence and a system doomed to not “count every vote”. It is an example of a vote which the public will agree should have been cast and counted that dramatically contrasts to the 300 of bby’s sidekicks who “reside” at the County admin building whose votes did count.
#1. Marine Farmer threw it away because it was a day LATE and he wanted to play by the rules!
#2. “Comment by zip— 12/31/04 @ 12:30 am” says it best…
Don’t throw that crap on me. Did I say it was just the GOP’s fault? Did I ever say that? No. But in all this talk about protecting the voting rights of our troops, I’ve haven’t seen one constructive suggestion on how to fix the problem. Meanwhile, Republicans in the legislature have been at least as obstructionist as Democrats in moving the primary.
I at least devoted a blog trying to move the coversation towards fixing the problem instead of just affixing the blame. I also have tried to raise this issue over on (un)Sound Politics, and they attacked me as a troll.
Here’s the simple truth… the quickest, easiest way to address this issue is to mail out the ballots a couple weeks sooner, and the easiest, cleanest, quickest way to do this is to move up the date of the primary. (Or eliminate it altogether, and go to IRV… which in this election, probably would have given Gregoire a couple thousand vote lead after the first count.)
Zip, you know absolutely nothing about those “300” people registered at the KC admin building. Are the vets, their lives destroyed by the military, and abandoned by an underfunded VA? Are they missionaries teaching school in some far off impoverished land? Are the public figures, legally protecting their privacy from the types of assholes who send me death threats — yes, death threats — because they don’t want my voice heard?
You know zip about these people Zip! You know nothing about their lives, the sorrows, their personal stories, except that they are a number that Stefan viciously posts to his blog without concern for what the number really means. These are people, Zip… people like you and me. People you instantly dismiss as unworthy because it suits your rhetoric.
Goldy, you said “If the GOP really cared about military ballots, they’d agree to move the primary to spring, so that we’d have time to mail them out a few weeks earlier.” Still reads to me like you blamed the GOP. Perhaps you didn’t. And this military ballot issue right now is just PR, but will prove to be very effective PR if Rossi contrasts it against more examples of suspicious-seeming voters like the 300 winos.
Send the ballots via email or priority post. Simple. What is the big fuss? Rossi needs bogus issues….where is the fraud?
Just stop making it sound like Christine Gregoire who comes form a vet family, did something to curtail the voting rights of the armed forces.
And you can’t count a ballot that has not been cast.
even if you like the potential voter. Dad sounded a bit off the wall. And by the way, the service people are not kids, only to mommie and dada.
They have the perfect right to say to hell with voting, or to use their absentee as an emergency rolling paper/ maybe ass wipe.
Goldy, The 300 winos is effective PR. And every vote that seems suspicious that is highighted for the next few weeks is more PR.
Zip… it’s meanspirited, vicious, dehumanizing PR, and that can sometimes backfire.
You know what… I hate to say it… and it is a gross generalization… but Republicans are simply meaner than Democrats. I try to keep a dialog going, but sometimes I just feel so dirty from all the hateful crap slung my way.
I am a recent lurker here and at Soundpolitics. I notice the Rossi supporters seem to be convinced that all he has to do is find 129 illegal voters to win an election contest and overturn this result. I suspect that is incorrect. However, the ramifications of such a rule would be interesting. For example, if Rossi had won the hand count by 42, like the machine re-count, wouldn’t Gregoire have been able to successfully contest the election by showing just 42 illegal votes? The sanctity of the ballot means that we don’t know who the “illegal” voters actually voted for, so it would be impossible to determine whether they affected the result.
Wouldn’t this mean any election with a very small margin could be overturned by finding a few illegal voters who slipped through the cracks? That doesn’t seem to be a good idea, unless we just want to accept that any election within the margin of counting error has to be re-done.
Do you know what the standard is for deciding an election contest? I suspect if they could find 129 ballots that were wrongfully interpreted by the canvassing boards for Gregoire or taken from Rossi, or that different standards were applied in interpreting ballots for the two candidates, that might be enough. However, there is no evidence of a problem of that magnitude. Just showing 129 illegal voters voted isn’t likely to be sufficient.
Goldy, Unfortunately the meanness comes from both camps. Don’t let it get to you, you have an informative site.
Zip -timeline for attempts to upset the Gregoire applecart via PR is over. Sorry, failed media strategy. Makes KVI clones happy, nut wing blogers frenzied….means nothing more…..except the Dino as lamb sweet outsider becomes Dino – bad mannered attack machine.
You really need some PR experts. Costly, good ones out there, worth every peny. Throw out the amateurs. You need him in the future…..Maria Cantwell is now looking like Mona Lisa, soft smile as she watches Dino self – destruct in right wing hissy fits.
You seem somewhat tuned in. Think what he is doing with all this bogus stuff…spending precious “political currency”, making himself look silly and lightweight…called the John Carlson effect.
We don’t elect these people in this state, ever……sorry, only to the legislature, ie Val Stevens and Pam Roacha.
Peter, I am no PR expert, but I believe the PR at work for the next few weeks will be to pick apart the credibility of the election. The court fight is a whole seperate ball game. But if the election is seen as too screwed up to believe, I think that will reflect just as badly on Gregoire as on Rossi. Hopefully the Rosi advisors know how to insulate him from the fray. If the PR is successful, and if he wins or loses in court, he comes out fine.
He loses in court and is OK – for what? Has been interviews?
Al Gore is waiting for the call.
Wayne… I believe you are correct. It will take more than just showing 129 illegal votes. Here is the statute:
If they can’t show 129 illegal votes for Gregoire, their going to have to prove a much larger number to sufficiently question the outcome of the election. There is also the issue of what exactly is an “illegal vote.” According RCW 29A.08.810 “Registration of a person as a voter is presumptive evidence of his or her right to vote at any primary or election, general or special.”
There are procedures for challenging a voter… but it is not clear that this can be done during a contest. So even if there are registration errors, that doesn’t necessarily make the vote illegal.
The military ballot issue is nothing but a PR ploy… it is legally worthless in a contest… for oh so many reasons. If the GOP really cared about military ballots, they’d agree to move the primary to spring, so that we’d have time to mail them out a few weeks earlier.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OK Ill bite, the ponies the postmen run faster in the spring? Military action slows in the spring? What is it about the spring that would fix the military vote?
Comment for Zip: Life is full of changes. There are an incredible number of choices one must make, some of them turn out fine while others end up in tragedy. I have never looked down on those that are less unfortunate than myself (of for that matter us). If we would have made one little choice along the way that “wino” could be us. I have never been condescending to drug addicts because again, with one different choice that could be me. Wake up and see the real world Zip. Everyone has not had the advantages that the people on this blog seem to have had. Next time you see a beggar buy a sandwhich and give it to him. A drug addict deserves the same. I have been doing that since I lived in Puerto Rico with their terrible drug problem (brouhgt on to them by all of the drug users in these wonderful United States). Open your heart and don’t be so negative to the less advantaged. Mr Cynical…you could learn from this also
Happy New Year to all, never the less. PS. I am now living in Thailand, if you want to see tragedy come over here and look at the results of the tsunami/earthquake. You will quickly forget about the rivalry between the Democrats and the Republicans and maybe see what the real world is all about.
Now look here, what I said was:
I had an office in Pioneer Square for a while and finally moved because of the bum population. Take a whiff outside Doc Maynards on a summer day. That’s the smell of a democrat-controlled City.
My feeling is that the way the “Bush hater” crowd was running around Seattle this summer trying to register people, the 300 winos are just the tip of the iceberg. Time will tell.
Quit presuming that these statements mean I look down on anybody, am mean-spirited, or etc. Find another City that lets the street people drive business out and you’ll find democrats running it.
I’m as compassionate as the next guy, but I hate the way Seattle has always coddled drunks downtown. And I think it’s ridiculous that they registered to vote with the County admin building as their residence. So sue me.
Chuck, most states conduct their primaries in the spring, but we conduct ours in September. The reason some of the overseas voters didn’t receive their ballots on time is because it takes a while to create that many absentee ballots (over 60% of the state voted absentee). If we knew during spring which candidates will be on the ballots, there would be more than two months to create them and send them out. They were mailed out in mid-October, but it sometimes takes two weeks to mail something to the other side of the world, and then it takes another two weeks to send it back. The point here is that both parties have been reluctant to agree to moving the primaries to spring, and if the Republicans really care so much about the military vote, they should support moving the primary to spring instead of suggesting we spend $4 million on a runoff election.
“Goldy, The 300 winos is effective PR. And every vote that seems suspicious that is highighted for the next few weeks is more PR.”
—————————————————–
Looking over these posts after a couple days absence makes me sick to my stomach. Trashing Gregoire’s children and calculatingly clobbering ‘winos’. Have some freakin’ decency.
Comment by Goldy— 12/31/04 @ 2:30 am
King County will never be able to correct the errors between the number of ballots counted, and the number of people actually voting. If it were simply 3,539 more ballots than people, they could find another 3,539 people to list as voting — whether they were people legitimately overlooked to date in compiling the list of actual voters, or whether they were simply added to the computer list of people voting in order to make the numbers balanced.
Unfortunately, it appears that in 684 of the county’s 2,616 precincts, there are a total of 1,512 more voters than ballots (as opposed to having more ballots than voters, which is the predominant problem).
http://www.soundpolitics.com/archives/003338.html
Obviously, these precincts with 1,512 ballotless voters will never be reconciled. It will be impossible for King County Elections to come up with 1,512 new ballots at this time to make these precincts match.
In the county’s remaining 1,932 precincts (some of which must, of course, be in balance), there are 5,051 more ballots than voters. So to cover-up any possibility that ballots were counted that weren’t actually validly cast, King County will have to find at least another 5,051 people more people who voted in those remaining precincts.
Of course this will go to the courts.
And whichever side loses by the time the State Supreme Court rules will appeal to the US Supreme Court.
There, the decision will follow Bush v. Gore (with interpretations for localization) and Rossi will be our Governor.
Given this, shouldn’t Gregoire accept a revote now — and avoid the otherwise predictable outcome?
Am I missing something?
(I don’t buy the legal arguments will be any different…the base issues are the same and now the US Supremese have a recent ruling that they can mold to their 5-4 vote)…
KIRO TV still has poll on revote…..giving it big play on their news casts
In Seattle, KIRO TV 7 has tradition of conservative voice, but much less since the Mormon Church sold the station a few years back.
Tom – So far I have had a problem seeing the Fed Courts intervening. BUT the sense of turmoil in the whole proces, “mess” – might make a better case than I could see earlier.
It will be a fight to the end. Whatever it is. You don’t like partisian politics, but for good or bad, this is a classic example in the extreme. Once the Dems raied the 730,000 and became the fight back state for the ret of the country….they will keep fighting.
Rossi has decided the same thing. I think he is being goaded by his own right wing… but that should be no surprise…. KVI is making a fortune….and the neo cons are buzzing with a new fervor in this state.
Intrestingly, that fervor hardens and unites the very large and very strong progrssive base in the state, Seattle/King, but other counties as well.
The Democratic party has a new leader. We got used to Gary Locke, and his star was falling. Gregoire has different appeal, and could re-unite the 50 elments of the progressive voting base under the push from flat out neo con/ ultra right wing attack.
Also the election has freeded many power figures in the Dem party who have been very silent. Flat out fight- for the Gov.- they will mobilize from the courthouses to the US Senate.
Comment by tom— 12/31/04 @ 7:31 am
The relevant U.S. Supreme Court vote was 7-2 on the equal protection issue. They held that a statewide recount in Florida, without uniform standards, violated the equal protection of law. The only two justices dissenting on this issue were Ruth Ginsburg and John Stevens.
The 5-4 vote was on halting the recount altogether, since there was a need to quickly determine who Florida’s presidential electors would be. Souter and Breyer would have allowed a new recount to proceed, but with uniform statewide standards.
Neither of the two statewide recounts that we recently had were done under any sort of uniform statewide standards. Therefore, the results of the initial count should stand, with a 261 vote Rossi victory. Even if we take the 120 net Gregoire votes from the King County misprocessed ballots, that is still a 141 vote Rossi victory.
A bigger problem, of course, than the lack of uniform standards in recounting, is King County’s problems with having more ballots than voters overall, and more voters than ballots in certain precincts. This is a total of 6,561 discrepancies — 5,051 more ballots than voters in certain precincts, and 1,512 more voters than ballots in other precincts.
This is a very serious violation of equal protection and due process. The rights of some voters were denied, because their lawful accepted ballots were simply discarded. The rights of all voters were denied, because their lawful accepted votes were diluted by ballots that were not cast by voters at all. The right of the public to a legitimate election was denied, since these 6,561 serious errors (to put it mildly) vastly exceed the alleged 129 vote margin of victory for Fraudoire.
Gregoire has said that she does not want to have a revote. Gregoire should be held to her word. If the election results are nullified, a revote should not be ordered. Rossi should be declared the victor, and sworn into office immediately.
In RCW 29A.40.070 it clearly states:
(6) Failure to have absentee ballots available and mailed as prescribed in subsection (1) of this section does not by itself provide a basis for an election contest or other legal challenge to the results of a primary, general election, or special election.
So, first the Republicans have to prove that the ballot wasn’t mailed out on time as specificed in the statutes and other case law. Then they still have to meet the burden of proof that these errors would have changed the result of the election.
Sure, Cynical, there is a reason the soldier didn’t receive his ballot in time. The military didn’t get the mail to him fast enough. Or the post office delayed it accidentally. Neither are reasons to contest an election. Both can be mitigated by following Goldy’s suggestion (note that I didn’t say eliminated).
Richard – you are a fanatic supporter of Rossi – even to the cutsie name for Gregoire. No one who knows that would trust any thing you say. And/or trust the data you cite, lifted right from the very radical partisian howlers at the soupySounders blog. Same data which has been described in responsible discourse as not final.
Racing pretty fast Richard, do you see the ground
Comment by Peter— 12/31/04 @ 8:20 am
You have no evidence whatsoever to support your position. When the Shark gets the public record data that King County releases, and analyzes it, you simply call him a partisan liar.
If you think the Shark is wrong, you can get a copy of the same actual voter disk from King County, and compare it with the official election results (which can be obtained on disk, or downloaded from the King County website — for all three counts).
I would like to see some liberal supporter of Gregoire come up with a different result from analyzing the same data. Presumably, there are at least a few with the intelligence and training to do so. Especially since the CNN exit poll showed people with education beyond a bachelor’s degree favoring Gregoire by 59% to 38%. I would assume at least a few of those Gregoire supporters received their post-graduate education in math, computer science, or some other technology literate field.
So, anyway, I challenge any Gregoire supporter who is sufficiently computer and technical literate to do their own analysis and prove the Shark wrong. One shouldn’t even have to have a postgraduate education to do this — Bill Gates and Paul Allen didn’t even finish college.
I admit that it is possible King County has overlooked names, and will add more to the list. But please tell me how King County will deal with the 684 precincts that have a total of 1,512 more people voting than ballots cast? They aren’t exactly going to be able to find 1,512 ballots at this stage of the game …
Richard – the reason we call Snark and the unSounders “partisan liars” is that every theory they’ve floated up until this point has been proven wrong or turned out to have perfectly innocent explanations. They always impugn the motives of Dems or KC officials, with the slightest of evidence, and never apologize when proven wrong.
Not to mention how shot Snark’s credibility is since his “thorough statistical analysis of the election returns” turned out to be way-off)(or do you not remember that far back) which he attempted to brush away with post-hoc reasoning.
To quote another article I read, “He attempts to confuse us with a chin-high drift of factoids”. Which is why it’s not useful investigating every allegation he brings up.
He may have something. He may not. He may be misrepresenting the facts or presenting only part of the facts. I’d rather wait for an analysis by someone who has proven their willingness to wait for all the facts to come in before jumping ahead with a theory. The Snark isn’t that person.
“Are the public figures, legally protecting their privacy from the types of assholes who send me death threats – yes, death threats – because they don’t want my voice heard?”
Goldy, they come after you brother – they come after me. This blog gets shot down, I put it back up. And hire Jenny to run it. Don’t worry – Horsesass.org WILL live on…
AND as Governor-elect Rossi said: “The election is a complete mess”!
>Mr. Cynical and Zip, I’d watch what you say if I were you, especially about the homeless, . . . for the grace of God, and all that! And what was Rossi’s platform for stopping the homeless problem? I’m waiting to hear the answer to this question from either, or both of you.
Correction Josef, that’s Governor-elect Gregoire. You have to admit that now. The results have been certified. If Rossi wants to contest the election, he can. But Gregoire is legally the Governor-elect.
This is my third attempt @ this, am I being shunned?
Guess so :-(
jcricket: I know that, and I don’t.
Here’s 1 reason why I don’t: http://pullonsupermanscape.typ.....ra_32.html
Comment by DCF— 12/31/04 @ 10:00 am
In all due honesty, neither Rossi nor Gregoire considered it an issue.
Goldy, great post!
So what’s the chance of Goldy and The Shark getting together for a weekly radio show… a la PNW Crossfire?
“KIEV, Ukraine – Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych resigned Friday, making a grudging admission that he was unlikely to reverse the presidential election victory of his rival and saying he could not work under him.”
Rossi is obviously next. By their own admissions here, Washington is following the lead of the Ukraine, so that the totally corrupt and laughable, losing Republicans will finally fold up their tents and go off into the sunset!
Richard Pope–
Most excellent data…King County is a disaster. It’s fun watching the Lefty’s hanging on to this turd for dear life after you, Stefan and others have “flushed”. I laugh visualizing jiminycricket desperately hanging onto a turd spinning around and around screaming “no proof” until…sigh…jiminy disappears into the jaws of the porcelein bowl. Isn’t Denial a river in Egypt???
Richard – those advanced degrees you mentioned give us reasoning powers, as in, wait until the working data is all entered and correlated before processing to conclusions.
What is happeing, with partisian motive, is pure speculation which also seems posible with out numerologist sessions.
Time for some celebration. Did we all know it is New Years Eve, tonight. Get off the blog. Libationsare in order. Call some family and friends, go to a party somewhere.
Data crunching can wait for Monday in the Year of the Gregoire.
First of all, the Snark is a partisan liar. The partisanship is blatant, but the lying is often more subtle.
Second of all… THIS IS PRELIMINARY DATA! It’s like when Snark implied fraud because KC’s estimate of ballots left to count was 10,000 too low. Or the stupid-ass spreadsheets we both were using to project the final margin while the votes were still being counted. I don’t care how carefully he analyzes the data, if the data is bad. Garbage in, garbage out.
And of course, if these discrepancies disappear when the final data is released, you’ll be screaming cover-up, because it doesn’t agree with the Snark’s, oh-so-scientific lie-free analysis.
Tell it to the judge.
Goldy–
Jefferson County reconciled this data BEFORE CERTIFICATION of the original count, 1st recount & manual recount. The fact that KingCo has still not done this 8-1/2 weeks after the election and 4 weeks after BIAW requested this information is appalling indeed. For Reed & Logan to dismiss it as standard operating procedure is pathetic. They are clearly “circling the wagons” to mask incompetence. These types of details and internal controls don’t seem to matter much until you have a hotly contested race. Some of the County’s with more experienced Auditors and Election Officials that have been thru recounts and hotly contested local races have much better controls. Jefferson County physically sorts ballots by precindt as a matter of policy. They reconcile the voter registration list totals with the total ballots counted as a matter of policy by precindt!!! For each count & recount. It’s standard policy and should be every County’s policy. And they do it with 2 election workers. It is appalling how sloppy KingCo and some other County’s have been by not reconciling before they certify.
It’s like copying down your checking account balance directly from the bank statement without considering outstanding checks or deposits in transit!!!!! RECONCILIATIONS SHOULD BE DEMANDED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE! He hasn’t done it and is now forced to either CYA or admit he has been schlocky! It appears Reed & Logan are choosing CYA! It would truly be the 8th wonder of the world or more cover-up if KingCo were to be able to miraculously reconcile now. Other County’s are guilty of this too. No strong leadership by this Secretary of State. Would have to look at policies of prior SOS’s before branding them as well.
Mr Cynical, I saw the turd you mentioned, and it’s
a monster. Since King Co defies the laws of mathmatics,
would they also defy the laws of physics? Which way
would the turd spin?
Goldy, thanks for the e-mail, I’ll try one more time.
Still didn’t work, maybe this will.
Goldy, if the Repubs or Demos cared about the military vote, they’d pass a federal law creating a DOD Military Absentee Ballot that members of the armed forces could get from the headquarters where they’re stationed.
Peter, it is our government that makes it hard for those in our midst that go off to protect our county to vote. And I say our government because there are lots of government agencies that contribute to this mess; the US post office, the US military, and US state auditor’s offices across our country==the US Congress’ lack of movement to revamp the military absentee voting system.
To you all, come up with possible solutions to the military voting problem instead of continuing to bicker and call each other names! Jezees!
Mr. C:
Jefferson was counting 18,772 ballots. King had 898,238 per SOS website. I suggest it takes a little longer to do a reconciliation with 20 times as many ballots. I suppose if King had 40 employees to dedicate to that task, they might have gotten done as soon as Jefferson but they had a rather substantial recount to deal with.
I would suggest that before you count on a contest being successful, that you wait until final numbers are issued by King County. Even then, given a data base this size, there will inevitably be some errors. I don’t think a few discrepancies will establish the evidence necessary for a challenger to prevail.
Goldy,
I can’t for the life of me figure out why you called King Cook County’s data ‘Preliminary Data’? Does that mean the three votes counts have all been ‘Preliminary Counts’? Maybe they’re just estimates of actual votes, huh?
Word on the street is that Rossi’s camp is finding discrepencies all over King County, not only in the precincts already mentioned – notably one area with thousands of questionable ballots is UW. Go figure, huh?
Obviously tens of thousands of Democrats voted for Rossi, or did not cast a vote for Governor, otherwise Gregoire would have won by 200,000. I know many ‘independents’ who voted for John Kerry and Dino Rossi. The shenanigans in King Cook County, fraudulent or not, at least point to incompetence and lack of accountability. What will all these ‘independents’ and all the other ‘moderate Democrats’ think of the fact that King Cook County decided this election, yet can’t tell us definitively who voted TWO MONTHS after the election?
Seattle has always been several years behind the curve, whether in politics, fashion, whatever. Well, the rest of the country has turned red, and continues to get redder.
Get ready, bluebloods – here comes the CRIMSON TIDE! Or should I say the Crimson tsunami?
mark–
Yup..that turd is truly a turd among turds ain’t it.
FYI–Most turds spin clockwise. However, this particular turd spins counterclockwise in honor of the counterculture crowd that spit out that particularly impressive turd!
wayne–
FYI–Jefferson County also had to deal with recount issues, public record requests, phone calls etc. but still did the job right. My point was, and still is, that all these reconciliations SHOULD have been done before the original count was certified as well as 1st and manual recounts. How can you certify unless you reconcile? It’s like the Auditors for Enron “just taking a bunch of folks word for things”. That doesn’t work out too well…especially when all of a sudden a huge spotlight comes beaming down showing your work product to the world. Like Enron, shoddy internal controls lead to a fiasco. The CEO of Elections is Sam Reed. Didn’t the CEO of Enron say everything was OK???
I suppose you can continue to cross your fingers….however, it’s better to just call a spade a spade…or a huge undeniable turd, a huge undeniable turd!
I have decided to award a “Balls of the Year” award. This award goes to the person with the biggest set of stones in 2004….and this years winner is………Christine Gregoire, the newly “selected” governor of Washington state. She had the nerve to give the most hypocritical speech I’ve ever read in my 30+ years of life on this green planet. I will post snippets of her speech below. The only thing I regret is not being able to hand out barf bags to all who read this blog.
Her opening line begins the vast amount of lies
Well, an election night without end has concluded. The votes have been counted, the count has been certified and I am honored to stand before you as governor-elect of the great state of Washington.
The votes have been counted? Which votes would those be governor-select Gregoire? The “found” votes in King County? Or the votes not counted in other counties that were identical to those in King County? Or maybe the military votes that were tossed out because of a clerical error that mailed them late and they were not received in time to be counted?
I want to start by congratulating Dino Rossi for running a strong campaign that helped sharpen the focus on the challenges our state faces in the years ahead. In the beginning, this was an election about many issues. But by the end, the election itself became the biggest issue. There were some unreasonable attacks during the recount. Fortunately, unfounded accusations were not enough to obscure the importance of what was happening.
Good God I didn’t know this woman had bigger balls than her husband. She must have conceived her children herself. “Unfounded accusations” are democratic code for “we cheated good enough that they can’t yet catch us.” What is this dumb woman’s definitions of “unreasonable attacks”? It’s simple really…..it’s more code for “they caught us cheating but we covered it up in time.”
Across the state, Republicans and Democrats dedicated themselves to protecting the integrity of our election system. They sat at the same table for days, counting ballots. And each time a ballot was counted, Democrat and Republican observers reached an agreement. That single gesture of bipartisan cooperation, repeated millions of times across the state, is a small symbol of our state’s larger desire to be united. We showed that fundamentally, Washington will not allow itself to be divided by region or party or politics.
Well at least she got part of the first sentence right. Republicans were trying their best to protect they system…unfortunately they were outgunned by democrats in King County and those on the Washington Supreme Court. She didn’t mention the democrats sitting at the table for days marking ballots to be “found” later. How unkind of her to forget to thank those cheats. Washington is divided….by region (count how many counties Gregoire won/stole and compare them to Rossi’s), by party and by politics. This broad thinks that now the count was orchestrated her way….the healing is done and Washington will now be the socialist paradise that she has envisioned.
We worked together to ensure that votes were counted, problems revealed, mistakes fixed.
That line is code for “we found out how to better cheat the system and get me into that mansion so I can raise taxes and create a worker/socialist paradise.”
We proved that Washington is not Florida. And now, we will move forward.
That is code for “we got away with it where Florida’s democrats got caught.”
The election is behind us, but not forgotten.
Damn straight it isn’t forgotten. There will be numerous court cases…..remember Bush v. Gore honey pie? Your state violated the voting principles laid out in that decision. King County got to make up its own rules while other states had to follow state law. The Washington Supreme Court aided in this fraud and if it reaches the US Supreme Court…..they will go by what they said in Bush v. Gore…..that ALL votes have to be counted the same way. What is so hard to understand here?
We will give our kids a better education, we will insure health care for Washingtonians, and we will make Washington state a place where we are proud to live and proud to do business.
This woman is living in a fantasy land. That sentence alone should her ugly butt committed for the rest of her unnatural life. What she means by better education and health care is to install a state income tax. She is going to come for your money….and she won’t stop until she has it all. If she gets by with this fraud….she will have four years with a willing legislature to rob your pockets of every cent she can steal. Businesses are fleeing Washington….who is going to be left to live and do business?
If any Washingtonian is reading this blog……take to the streets……do not let Christine Gregoire have a moments peace……civil disobedience is a good thing…..bring Washington to a halt until the truly elected governor is seated……..Governor-ELECT Rossi…..not governor-SELECT Gregoire.
Seattle Times should do a recount.
Larry… it was offensive and insensitive when Shark used the tsunami metaphor, and it is offensive and insensitive when you use it. Really, shame on you for demeaning this horrible human tragedy that way while the suffering is still so fresh.
And yes… it is PRELIMINARY data. Argue all you want over whether KC should have the final data compiled at this point.. but one thing that is clear is that this ain’t it.
I, for one, think it would be hilarious to see some Republicans partaking in the civil disobedience they spend so much time ranting against. Let’s see all the wing-nuts come out in support or their “poor Rossi”. Contrary to their rantings on the blogs, it’ll never happen.
And Cynical – Toilet humor? Turds? Are you a 10 year old? You’ve sunk pretty low before, but that’s pathetic.
jcricket–
Why must you always be oh so serious and oh so self-righteous? Now you are obviously having some fun here participated by your reference to “sunk pretty low”. Ok jcricket, I’m flushed with embarrassment…let’s wipe the slate clean!
Since Goldy isn’t willing to post ALL the relevant RCW’s about contested elections, what else are we supposed to do. It’s hard enough for me to wait 3 weeks for this KingCo bowel movement to be unveiled…and I have a pretty good idea of what’s comin’. This must be real hell on blog earth for folks like you.
Time to get my party to clothes on!
Happy New Year to all you fine folks!!
(And Happy New Year to you too jcricket)
Has anyone else had the experience of trying to talk rational and factual matters with someone who is obviously paranoid and in a delusional state…well, it does not work.
You are eventually reduced to saying something like, OK, oh yah, maybe so, ah, and well, take care.
LOOK, SEE, the data is wrong, and then, then after-counties have corrected the mistakes, then, it is the FIX.
There will be no interest in most of what any avowed Democrat says to the right wing. They are deep in the era of theocracy and ideologies attached like clamps to the old GOP.
Most of their ideas are not rational and factual conversation is not possible. Read their blogs. They do not now subscribe to non biased information, became it is too biased, great logic. All of it-the French, German, Canadian media. They listen to Rush and Fox and talk with people who agree that we will be invaded from Canada by the UN. Or that the biggest threat to marriage is the Lesbian couple together for 35 yeas.
Big communication problem gap. The polarization is real. The fight for control of govt. is real, don’t expect any stripes to re arrange soon or easily.
QUOTE “…we will never really know who won. All we can be certain of is who is declared the victor.”
And this is acceptable? In whose world? Not mine. That’s exactly why we need to vote again. Whether it’s fraud or error the fact is the system didn’t work.
King County (and others, I believe) still can’t tell us who voted but they are 100% sure the results they certified are 100% correct??? And anyone believes this? If you don’t know who voted how do you know nobody voted twice?
I’m a bookkeeper… if it ain’t reconciled you don’t know if it’s right. How can you possibly certify what you can’t reconcile?
Can’tBelieveThis – There is one route for all your theories. Take it to the Judges. I will live with the results. Put up or shut up.
DCF – there have been at least three solutions put down here, very concrete.
One – move the primary, gives more time. TWO – use email, on line voting, quick and cheap. THREE – explor priority mail via post – no just old snail.
We all want it to be better for the armed forces. Lots of vets out here, even Democrats in this state.
Kent – I apologize for failing to communicate effectively. Since you have misinterpreted my post so completely, I obviously did not make my intentions clear.
I was not attempting to advance any theories; I was requesting information to help me understand a point of view that I currently do not understand. The opening quote of George Howland was posted by Goldy who specifically characterized it as “astute”. The main reason for my post was to try and understand how anyone who agrees with that statement could possibly find that situation to be acceptable.
The secondary point of my post is a statement of my belief that until you have reconciled a set of numbers you cannot be completely sure of their accuracy. I also asked questions which basically invited anyone who disagreed with that to tell me why.
To summarize: IF you agree that we will never know who actually won the election, what point of view makes it acceptable to declare a new governor?
IF you are accepting the current results as “correct” what makes you believe that these certified results are accurate when they have not yet been reconciled?
Seriously, I am trying to understand a point of view that is alien to my thinking. There really is no need to respond unless you have answers to the questions; obviously, you may respond with any unrelated ramblings if you so choose.
-Peter, but you forgot my suggestion, DOD absentee voter forms. Moving the election to another date will not help if the snail mail never gets the ballot to the voter. I would also vote for voting by e-mail, as long as we could trust the votes being counted correctly. BTW I think we should all vote by mail, that would save us taxpayers a hell of a lot of money. For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (bet that if the acronym couldn’t be used, and the long form was all that was allowed there would be a lot lest use of this expression) the current voting system!
+Can’tBe, you are right about reconciling the votes, and until our voting system allows that, I will no longer vote. I too am an old bookkeeper and I know that figures can lie, that’s why we have to reconcile. We need an anonymous way to tie every vote to the voter and post the results on line so the voter can check to see that their ballot was counted and counted correctly, this would also immediately show ballots being counted twice, as was the case in my county, or not counted at all. Keep on figuring! Happy New Year!
DCF – to be fair, it’s very difficult to come up with one kind of ballot that would work in every standards (except through a computer-based solution). Voters in California had something like 60+ initiatives in this election. I think their ballot was like 6 pages long.
I agree with the rest of your point, that we need a technological solution that:
1) Can be implemented in a standard way across the country.
2) Is easy to use for every eligible voter, both at home, abroad and in the military.
3) Eliminates over-votes and uninentional undervotes
4) Allows voters to verify their vote was counted and counted correctly
5) Allows the counties, media and the parties to audit the data to ensure it’s not been messed with, but keeps ballot secrecy in force.
And all this needs to be done securely, needs to be totally redundant (can’t go down without a backup) and available for 300 million people on or around November 2nd. Good luck building that system :)
Personally, it sounds like the perfect thing for a government grant. Universities with big engineering and computer science departments would all vie to win that grant. There’s simply no reason (beyond greed) that the voting system should be entrusted to profit-minded companies. Voting is so important the systems must to be transparent, open-source, and built by the best minds (not the best businessmen).
BTW – VoteHere is a company that builds some open-source software that provides end-to-end transparency for voting systems it’s built into. And they happen to be a local company (Bellevue), grown right here in our supposedly “business-unfriendly” state.
I’ve mentioned them before, but their CEO seems to be on the ball about the whole history of election technology and what the limits of any system is. Nothing can be fault-proof and fraud-proof, but we can build in measures that allow us to understand when faults and frauds have occured, so we can know what really happened.
http://www.votehere.com/
FYI – Ralph Munro, retired Sec of State, is a key person in the Bellevue based – VoteHere.