David Postman of the Seattle Times reports this morning that the GOP’s felon list may be way off, because it includes hundreds of people tried as juveniles, who never lost their right to vote.
A partial check by The Seattle Times showed that 165 alleged felon voters in King County had only juvenile cases. The Times was able to check 462 names using a Washington State Patrol database.
An attorney for the Democratic Party said more than 200 juvenile cases were found among the King County names.
That’s 165 out of 462… a 36 percent error rate! (I hope my bank isn’t run by Republicans.) Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane acknowledged the mistake, but failed to apologize for dragging the names of juvenile offenders into the public record.
“It could very well be that people we have on our list didn’t have their voting rights taken away,” Lane said of the juvenile cases.
Well duh-uh, Mary. Nearly every other “scandal” you’ve touted to the press turned out to be nearly as bogus or exaggerated, so why should the felons list be any different?
Sloppily including juvenile convictions on a public list of suspected felons is just another example of the Rossi camp’s complete and utter indifference towards how many innocent lives they sully or destroy in their PR campaign to brand this a stolen election. Whether it be the baseless charges and innuendo regularly launched from Rossi HQ, or EFF President Bob Williams squawking on talk-radio that Dean Logan is a “crook” who should be jailed, or right-wing shill Stefan Sharkansky misdirecting his anger and disappointment into personal vendettas against individual voters… the entire GOP propaganda war has been reckless and mean-spirited from the start.
Here’s the truth: Rossi’s attorneys have absolutely no evidence of organized fraud or official corruption. And they continue to insist that the felons who voted — the real ones — can’t be trusted to tell us for whom. So they simply don’t have a case.
But while the 2004 election is clearly over, Rossi continues to maintain a a full-time campaign staff, including a campaign manager and spokesperson. And who’s paying for all this? The “Rossi for Governor 2008” PAC.
The committee’s name is about the only thing honest coming out of the campaign these days.
UPDATE:
I just want to add that I hope the BIAW does a better job building houses than they do legal cases. As Richard points out in the thread, the case numbering system makes it “pretty obvious” as to which are juvenile court records.
This whole incident also illustrates the ugly truth behind GOP proposals to aggressively purge the voter rolls: it would inevitably lead to many legal voters being wrongly denied the franchise… as it did in Florida. I suppose this consequence is acceptable to the GOP leadership, as long as it occurs mostly in heavily Democratic counties like King.
1. Postman is not an expert at… anything.
2. He’s “singing to the choir” telling all the worried little libs it’s all going to be be oookkkkk.
3. Whoop-de-flipping-do.
The point isn’t who is or isn’t governor. It’s the process. Even one illegal vote is too much for me, but again, I am an eternal optimist.
Ouch.
Sure makes you look like a fucking idiot when you castigate an agency for sloppy work–and then your allegations of sloppiness turn out to be magnitudes sloppier.
It’s been a rough week for the Rossi campaign and its backers, that’s for sure.
“It’s been a rough week for the Rossi campaign and its backers, that’s for sure.”
That’s really for sure. Did everyone catch this reference to the latest poll results reported in the P-I today? So much for Rossi having public support. He’s total dead meat — now and probably forever. His sore loser attitude is totally negative to the state’s voters. 33%? That’s barely the Republican State Committee! Here’s the quote from the P-I:
“Meanwhile, a statewide poll indicates more than three in five voters in the state oppose a new election for governor.
In The Elway Poll directed by Stuart Elway of Seattle, telephone interviews of 405 registered Washington voters March 3-6 found 63 percent accepted the election results and opposed a new vote and 33 percent favored a revote. The margin of error was five percentage points.
Elway said support for a new election apparently has been fading since December but could be revived by a court ruling favoring Rossi.”
Since Rossi’s lawyers submitted this list as evidence, it’s really going to hurt their court case. Judges take a very dim view of evidence that turns out to be sloppily gathered and wrong 36% (or more) of the time – often tossing out whole cases because of it.
Witness what happened in the Rick Neuheisal case when it became clear that the NCAA had deliberately provided a less-damning memo outlining their guidelines than the one actually in place at the time Neuheisal was questioned. The judge several limited the NCAA and UWs ability to introduce new evidence and threatened to throw their entire case out and rule in Neuheisal’s favor.
The only good thing is as the BIAW and GOP insist on ratcheting up their scorched earth tactics, it continues to do nothing but hurt any chances Rossi, Vance, Lane and the BIAW have of retaining any credibility for future political races.
Buh-bye Rossi.
If the new president of your bank said that $462.00 couldnt be accounted for by the last president who was known for sloppy work, and one of the tellers said wait, I can account for $165.00 of that money and the investigation proceded forward to find the rest of the remaining $297.00, If you are dumb enough to close your account in such an institution then you deserve what you get. I would commend the bank management myself (you brought the bank into discussion)
I’ve been saying all along the list was compiled by amateur researchers at BIAW and almost certainly contained errors. Events have vindicated my predictions and made fools of all the wingies who have been parroting the Rossi line. But I never dreamed it would turn out that BIAW would inflate their list with juvenile offenders. Whether you agree with the law or not, the law is that juvenile offenders have their identities protected from public disclosure so they can enter adulthood with a clean slate and not be stigmatized in employment opportunities and social acceptance for the rest of their lives because of something they did in their youth before their judgment and maturity was fully developed. Their statute-granted anonymity has now been compromised as a result of the willfully reckless behavior of the state GOP and BIAW. This is about the same thing as bandying around someone’s SSN or credit card information. The disclosure of these names by the state GOP and BIAW ought to be actionable, in my opinion. I hope some of these folks sue the shit out of WSRP and BIAW. That will teach them a sorely needed lesson.
Hey Don,
It is all public record, nobody had their privacy invaded.
This is not a surprise, but it is very ironic…the GOP and their attack dogs on talk radio have been yelping about errors in the governor’s race for months. Now it turns out a huge portion of their own list is invalid.
This court case is a charade. This campaign is all about defeating legitimately elected Gov. Christine Gregoire.
And it will fail…because the Republicans have no evidence of fraud. That’s because their allegations don’t hold water. There never was any fraud. Just allegations.
AV @ 8
Don’t be too sure — or get too smug — about that.
Juvenile convictions are public record? Really?
How could the GOP folks gotten the list so apparently wrong? They said they had checked the court records to see if the supposed convicted felon person had their voting rights restored …
When you check juvenile court records — it is pretty obvious that they are juvenile court records. First of all, there is the case numbering system. 94-1-03456-3 would be an adult criminal case. 94 means filed in 1994. 1 means criminal. 03456 is a sequential file number. 3 at the end is a randomly assigned check digit.
On the other hand, 03-8-01456-7 would be a juvenile offender case. 03 is the year 2003. 8 means juvenile offender case. And so on.
This case numbering system has been used since the late 1970’s. But even if it was an earlier case, certain things in the case file would make it obvious that a juvenile offender, and not an adult criminal, was involved.
So how can they say they checked the court files, when a significant percentage of the people on the list only have juvenile convictions?
And if their research wasn’t complete when they released the list in response to the Democrat’s discovery requests, why didn’t they just say so? Instead of looking like total idiots when the newspaper takes the time to complete the research?
And why are 80% of the supposed felon voters from King County? Only 31% of the voters live in King County. While a higher percentage of the felon voters might live in King County, 80% seems ridiculously high.
It is all public record, nobody had their privacy invaded.
So if the GOP had put your name on the felon list, that would be ok, because it was just a mistake?
Or if you were convicted of a crime and then pardoned, that would be ok?
Or if you were sentenced as juvenile, so expressly you are not a felon, it’s ok for the GOP to say you are in an official court filing?
I’m sure this is all just some “innocent mistake” on the part of the BIAW and Rossi’s thugs. I’m sure the GOP will offer assistance if one of these kids is denied a job because someone Googles their name and finds it on a list of “felons”.
Don @ 7 Torridjoe @ 11
Juvenile offender records are publicly available court files. The only exception is when a sealing order is entered. The records are only sealed if the offender (or alleged offender) moves for and obtains a court order to that effect. Generally, the records can be sealed if the charges are dismissed and the alleged offender becomes an adult without ever being convicted (proper word is “adjudicated”) of anything as a juvenile. Or if the offender is only adjudicated for a relatively minor offense as a juvenile, then after a few years as an adult without being convicted of anything, the record can be sealed. If the record is not sealed, then it is a public record (even if it would be sealed if this was requested).
Im not being smug you jackass, I am pointing out the fact that the lists were all available to anyone who requests them. And I am not a felon, so I could give a rats ass if someone puts my name on a list. If you are worried about public image, DONT COMMIT A FUCKING FELONY!
Should we surprised at how inaccurate the GOP list is? No. Should we be surprised that the Mouth of Rossi continues to spout bunk? No.
What does surprise me is that no one erroneously on their list has yet to file suit for defamation and personal distress for being falsely accused of wrongdoing by the Rossi camp.
And this in ALL on Rossi. He continues to lurk behind the scenes, hardly ever making a statement. But do not be fooled, this is all being brought to you by the man who would be your governor, and failing that perhaps your senator. This is no man I would ever vote for. He does not represent my ethics, principles or moral code. This whole effort by his campaign should be a complete embarrassment to the Republican party, and will set back their cause in Washington state for many years to come due to the voter backlash at such dishonest tactics.
David Postman of the Seattle Times reports this morning that the GOP’s felon list may be way off, because it includes hundreds of people tried as juveniles, who never lost their right to vote.
This is a list they spent weeks on and didn’t even do a cursory check that would have made the list more accurate.
The 462 felon votes made a good initial press release though and perhaps the hope is that everyone will keep with this number in their head and not believe the “liberal media” who has actually checked the list out.
I am not an attorney, but isn’t that what discovery is all about?
I think the reps have done a bangup job identifying that many felons. I suspect a few more challenges from the dems before it is done.
BUTTTTT, there still will be more than 129 when it is all said and done.
swatter @18 missed when he said, “BUTTTTT, there still will be more than 129 when it is all said and done.”
Which would mean absolutely nothing.
And I am not a felon, so I could give a rats ass if someone puts my name on a list. If you are worried about public image, DONT COMMIT A FUCKING FELONY!
As many people have tried to point out to you, juveniles are not convicted of a crime, and hence are not felons.
That, of course, is the least of the problems with your argument, which seems amazingly blind to the effect that defamation of character can have on a person. Just look at the victims of ID theft, who often have to spend years clearing that up.
Anyone wrongly put on a felon list should be suing the GOP for entering this list as evidence into an official election contest.
AV @ 15
“And I am not a felon, so I could give a rats ass if someone puts my name on a list.”
Isn’t that precisely the point? That if you’re not a felon, you shouldn’t be tarred as one?
swatter @ 18
The Repubs fuck up by putting hundreds of non-felons on their list, and you call that “a bang up job of identifying that many felons”? This is looking more and more like Sen. McCarthy’s infamous “list”.
I think the reps have done a bangup job identifying that many felons.
They sure did. They “banged up” the non-felons who have now been wrongly tarred and feathered by the Rossi camp.
Here is the Rossi Campaign’s response to this morning’s article:
DINO ROSSI FOR GOVERNOR
http://www.dinorossi.com
To: People interested in the Washington governor’s election
From: Dino Rossi for Governor campaign,
Washington state
Date: March 17, 2005
Re: Update on election contest
As you know, Washington state gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi filed an election contest in January. This memo will update you on what has happened in the past two months, and what we expect to happen in the coming weeks.
We believe that we are likely to win our case in Chelan County Superior Court. The current governor of Washington, Christine Gregoire, was certified as the winner in the third count of nearly three million ballots by just 129 votes (Dino Rossi won the first regular count and the first machine recount). We have compiled evidence of close to 2,000 illegal and improperly cast and counted votes – far more than the margin between the two candidates.
We believe the evidence is more than sufficient to nullify the governor’s election and require a new one. A Superior Court trial date has not been set, but once we complete the discovery process, including depositions of county elections officials, we can move forward with a trial date, possibly as soon as the end of April.
So far we have found more than 1,100 people we believe to be felons who voted illegally in November 2004. Most of these illegal felon votes were cast in King County, the largest county in the state, which includes Seattle. The King County Prosecutor’s office has begun to investigate these votes. Some of the people originally on our felon list may be juvenile offenders who might have to be be removed, but we are still doing felon research and adding more names to the list. In the end, we will have evidence that the number of illegal votes is many times the final 129-vote margin between the candidates.
Additionally, in King County hundreds of “provisional” ballots were improperly fed directly into voting machines on Election Day. The director of the King County elections department this week acknowledged that hundreds more provisionals than originally thought were illegally counted. In Washington state, anyone can walk into any polling place and request a provisional ballot, even if they do not appear on the voter rolls, and no ID is required. Provisional ballots are supposed to be placed in secure envelopes and verified later for legality before they can be counted. In the case of hundreds of these ballots, they were placed directly into the voting machines and counted, and they cannot be retrieved.
We have also unearthed dozens of instances of double-voting and votes cast on behalf of deceased persons. And finally, in King County there is a significant discrepancy between the number of votes counted and the number of people who actually voted.
The trial judge has yet to rule on the standard of proof necessary to prevail in this contest. There are three possible standards: (1) If there is evidence of more than 129 illegal or improperly cast votes, the election is nullified; (2) The illegal votes will be be subjected to “proportional analysis,” whereby the votes are allocated to the candidates based on the percentage each candidate received in a particular precinct or county. If it appears the illegal votes gave Gregoire the election, the election must be nullified; or (3) Each illegal voter must be asked how he or she voted, and the illegal votes would be allocated accordingly.
The Washington state Supreme Court has already approved the use of Option #1 in an earlier case involving a county election, and under either Option #1 or #2 we believe we will prevail. The Democrats support Option #3 and say we must prove for whom each illegal vote was cast, presumably by requiring felons, double-voters, and those who cast votes on behalf of dead people to testify about how they cast those illegal votes. The court has twice rejected the Democrats’ argument on this issue, and we are confident the Court will apply either Option #1 or #2.
Once the Superior Court trial is done, the case will likely be appealed to the state Supreme Court. We are confident that given the evidence of huge numbers of illegal votes, the election will be set aside and a new one held this year.
Wow.
As TJ said..it looks pretty bad for Rossi and the GOP when they accuse King County of massive errors…and then do it themselves.
But then again…that’s their pattern. The same thing was done with the screeching about the overseas military being disenfranchised in Washington State. Rossi had that last of 260 overseas military/absentee voters who alledgedly didn’t get their ballots. But it turns out the list had bogus information on it too.
Interesting that the polls have taken a plummet for Rossi as well.
Nice analysis, Goldy.
Go Rossi Go. I think it is extremely important that the Republican Party, the Rossi ’08 PAC and BIAW continue to waste as much time and money as possible on this Quixotian tilting at windmills. Meanwhile, responsible adults will continue to govern the state.
anonymous chickenshit poster @ 1
Postman is hardly a liberal shill, and the Seattle Times is hardly a Democratic newspaper.
Myself @ 22
For those of you not old enough to remember, the infamous Sen. Joe McCarthy, commie-hunter par excellence, attracted national attention to his crusade to purge communists from the State Department by waving a “list of names” of alleged communists at the TV cameras and a spellbound public. But when a reporter finally got a look at the “list” it turned out to be a blank sheet of paper. Today, McCarthy’s name is synonymous with demagoguery. P.S., After being discredited and leaving the Senate, McCarthy died in obscurity of alcoholism. Recently, no less a Republican intellectual light than Ann Coulter has been trying (mostly in vain) to refurbish McCarthy’s image. Good luck, Ann, when you’ve finished this project you might want to try Jack the Ripper next.
Docbenton @ 23
The Republicans have done a masterful job, up to their usual standards, of whitewashing their fuck ups. Their boundless optimism is nothing short of amazing!
Has anyone seen the details of the Elway Poll? This blurb in the PI makes it sound very good, but I’d like to know more.
Repubs have lost public support. They need to throw hail marys.
jim @ 30
Even divine intervention can’t save them now.
90% of the post above this one.
It is ok with all of you that even ONE Felon did Vote. If ALL the ballots casted by felons had been juvenile offenders, then you have a valid point…..But ONE felon voting, is one too many…One Felon Vote Cancelled out Another Legit Voters Vote…You people just dont seem to get it…
BTW Who provided the list in the first place? Goverment Agency perhaps?? Obvious public record??? Has anyone seen the lists besides the parties involved, are they the same Lists?
Where any of the Juvenile Offenders procecuted as Adults?
Why don’t you let (as some of you term) the “poor” felons whom life is permantly damaged by being on “THE LIST” sue the GOP, and quit acting like you give a shit, when all you care about is Winning. I care about the integrity of the “election” as a whole….Not the winning party.
if anyone was really worried about election accuracy , there wouldn’t be a republican in the white house right now.
ChrisN @ 32 wrote, “It is ok with all of you that even ONE Felon did Vote. If ALL the ballots casted by felons had been juvenile offenders, then you have a valid point…..But ONE felon voting, is one too many…One Felon Vote Cancelled out Another Legit Voters Vote…You people just dont seem to get it…”
Chris, you’ve obviously be brainwashed into believing what you wrote. Firstly, yes, people here are concerned about the fact a number of felons who should not have been able to vote, were able to. Yet, the difference of opinion has to do with 1) whether that was enough of a reason to overturn an entire election (your one illegal felon would not be enough), 2) and the fact that the Rossi camp long ago stopped wanting to reform the election, and now instead are quite clearly 100% about getting Rossi in as governor and Gregoire out. The fact is Rossi has exaggerated his claims every step of the way. He makes his accusations well before he has done his homework. People accept there were problems, but we dissagree that they were extraordinary historically. The only thing extraordinary about this election was that is was very close. The fact is was close has put the system under close scrutiny, which is good, and problems have been discovered. These should and will be fixed as best as possible, but no election will be 100% perfect, and Rossi’s feable attempts at finding “proof” of his cause, only go to demonstrate that fact.
“BTW Who provided the list in the first place? Goverment Agency perhaps?? Obvious public record??? Has anyone seen the lists besides the parties involved, are they the same Lists?”
First Janet and now you trying to use this argument. I haven’t been over to SP today. Is that the agreed on tactic Shark is pushing to counter this huge gaffe by Rossi’s team? Either way it is a pretty lame defense. By your reasoning the GOP isn’t in fact “doing the detective work†as you put it previously, it was someone else, who works for the state who is doing it for them, and that person screwed up. By your reasoning, none of this is on the GOP, or their army of lawyers, or Vance, the BIAW, Rossi or Lane. By your reasoning they were simply handed a bad list which they took at face value to be THE list that was going to be THE smoking gun, and tried to sell us all on that fact, without verifying anything beforehand. No one buys any of that load of codswallop for a second.
ChrisN @ 32
No Chris, you’re the one who doesn’t get it. This is an imperfect world populated by imperfect human beings, and nothing in this world or life is ever going to be perfect. If we insisted on perfection in everything we do, nothing would ever get done.
Yuck it up all you want my little pinheaded LEFTIST buddies…
When you add up ALL the errors and negligence that have been shown and apply ANY reasonable formula to it….that 129 farcical margin of “victory” is done gone…and then some.
Gregoire WILL be yanked out of her seat, Brad Owen in, new Election is Nov. 2005 or Nov. 2006.
There are a few more special surprises coming….don’t you think?
Remember, Paul Berendt told the Olympian newspaper that ALL those provisional ballot affadavits were legitimate recently.
We’ll see.
Gregoire WILL be yanked out of her seat, Brad Owen in, new Election is Nov. 2005 or Nov. 2006.
Something tells me Cynical is still fighting to believe in Santa Clause. Let it go, man!
jcricket@5. The juvenile playing baseball in his own backyard realizes he is too puny for the big leagues so he finds a way to look bigger. He trades his puny for more bulk by shooting up steroids. Compare that to Dino. Rossi is looking too puny for the bulk vote and trying to bulk up anyway he can by shooting up any alley he can.
Cynical@36. “Gregoire will be hanked out of her seat.” Too much hanking makes one go blind. Your blind thinking again.
Dave@37. Gregoire WILL be yanked out of her seat, Brad Owen in, new Election is Nov. 2005 or Nov. 2006.
Cynicals hankering for a yanking. His thing is going to fall off pretty soon.
DanielK@17. RE: “What does surprise me is that no one erroneously on their list has yet to file suit for defamation and personal distress for being falsely accused of wrongdoing by the Rossi camp.”
According to the latest news, some say they will file charges against Rossi for defamation of character. There hasn’t been a woman governor elected for 28 years; since Dixie Lee Ray. Rossi is non-stop in his efforts to beat a woman governor. Balls on a heifer may not be to his likings.
Idiot @ 36
Show us your math, or you got nuthin.
The voter reform before those in session in Olympia, is not favorably received as proposed. They are worried that, as is it is written, it would allow be racial targeting and those named Sanchez, Garcia and Hernadez ect ect. stand to become the victims of investigations. They reasoned that by error someone’s name would be listed that should not be and hence due to that exposure, lawsuits could follow. Good risk management thinking. Gung-ho unlevel-headed speedy Dino already jumped that gun.
Neglected to mention, voter reform bill and it’s racial targeting was proposed by Repers. Reminds me of days of Hitler and the Jews.
Chee @ 44
Really? Hitler disenfranchised the Jews and prevented them from voting? I have read a lot about Hitler’s atrocities and all of the measures the Nazi regime took to deprive German Jews of their rights and liberties. Maybe at some point, they lost the right to vote as well. On the other hand, once Hitler took power, he eliminated all opposition parties and the only people you could “vote” for were the Nazi candidates. Any loss of Jewish voting rights is not exactly an issue that has been emphasized in the history of Nazism. Somehow, things like persecution and extermination are the kinds of injustices that are emphasized. So exactly how does requiring proof of citizenship — such as birth certificate or naturalization certificate — in order to register to vote, compare with even the smallest injustices that Hitler committed against the Jews?
Richard Pope@45. The comparible was not as a whole. Was a portion, the issue on profiling. Comparison being targeting by race. Which reminds me of how Hitler targeted Jews. Leaders given an inch, could take a mile re racial profiling. Thankfully there are those in session in Olympia that find that a concern also. As you said, history reveals Hitler’s unfair treatment of Jews. Under fasism, all about control; Madmen & Super Egoes!
Richard Pope@45. To answer the question you proposed at end of your post: It doesn’t have anything to do with it Richard. Was not the issue of concern brought forth in their session about the proposal,nor my post. The reform bill will pass..with some alterations. I am sure the much needed will be left in tack and all things brought up to snuff.