I’m not sure that I’ve ever voted by mail before, and so like a lot of inveterate poll voters it was hard for me to approach this election day any differently than previous ones. But it is different, and if I don’t get my ballot postmarked today, my vote just won’t count. And considering the subject of today’s special election, if my vote doesn’t count today, it just may not in the future either.
This is an election for Elections Director, and if you need any evidence of how stupid it is to elect a position that requires very specific technical expertise, just look at some of the names on the ballot: gadfly, a liar, a right-wing gun nut looking for a six-figure salary….
And then there’s our friend David Irons Jr., the Republican front-runner, a raging bullshitter with a documented history of financial mismanagement and abusive behavior. But even more pertinent to this election, he’s also a man with a documented history of violating our state’s election laws:
From: Mark Banks
Date: January 25, 2009 1:12:43 pm PST
To: letters@redmond-reporter.com, letters@sammamish-reporter.com, letters@seattleweekly.com, letters@woodinville.com, letters@bellevue.com, letters@duvall.com, letters@covington.com, letters@seattletimes.com
Subject: Special Election of King County Elections DirectorDear Editor,
I am extremely disturbed to see that David Irons, Jr. is running for the important position of King County Elections Director. David Irons is a thief who I personally caught red handed steeling campaign signs in Sammamish in 2002, when he was running for King County Commissioner. I was driving by when I saw him dressed in his Sunday best climbing over the road barrier to pick up his opponent’s signs and throwing them in the ditch. I had heard stories of him steeling signs and loading up his van with them in a previous election, but this was the first time I saw it for myself. I stopped and talked with him and demanded that he climb down the gully to retrieve the signs from the blackberry bushes, which he finally did. Do we honestly want a man who would stoop so low to achieve personal political gain in a day and age when election fraud is rampant?
Mark Banks
Redmond WA
You want your elections managed by an unethical, partisan hothead? Vote for Irons. But if you want a dispassionate, experienced professional in the office of Elections Director, vote for Sherril Huff.
And by all means, get your ballot in the mail today.
Hear, hear!
Ours are turned in and have already been verified!
(You can check the status of your vote at the Elections page on the King County website.)
In Iron’s defense, he probably had an argument with his mother that morning.
So much better to diffuse his anger on a hapless campaign sign than…mom.
Let’s all write-in Tom Daschle.
He just withdrew from Obama’s Cabinet after Obama gushed all over him.
Tom is a staunch Democrat and self-admitted TAX CHEATER and compulsive liar.
Daschle would be the perfect Election Director for Krooked King Kounty.
He can add Geithner, Richardson and Charlie Rangel to his staff!
The Donk Party is fascinating.
The Donk Porkulous Package is also going down the craphole with embarrassing disclosures of all the pork Obey and Pelosi tried to jam in it. And Obama supported it!!!
Good thing we have some responsible Democrat and Republican Senators, huh?!!
Rasmussen has Obama’s Approval Index DOWN to +15…it was in the upper 20’s just a week or so ago.
The Porkulous Bill is like mustard stains on this white shirt…can’t get rid of ’em.
With one exception years ago when I was out of town on election day, this is my first time voting by mail.
I really don’t like it. I voted the day I got the ballot and then set it by the door so I could drop it by the closest free election mail box. It sat there, both me and my wife forgetting about it except when we didn’t have time to deal with it, until yesterday. I can easily see forgetting to get my ballot in.
On top of that, there’s no sense of having voted. Before, I could see the ballot counting machine count go up when my ballot was read. Now I have to assume that the damn thing is actually being read.
Since when is reliance on snail mail an improvement? I’d much rather vote in person.
And then you have the choice of Pam Roach who has taken BIAW donations of over $25,000 while holding office as a Senator and bound by a campaign fund receiving freeze. No doubt the $25,000 will pay the salary of a family member “working” as her campaign manager. Oh another day…and another blatant attempt by the BIAW to buy votes in Olympia.
Rasmussen is a GOP polling organization – but in ANY event –
PRESIDENT OBAMA has an approval rating MANY MANY times higher than AWOL GW Bush!
And it doesn’t matter one bit given the fact the Dems control everything. Sit down and shut up – we’ll tell you when we need you.
Here is a nice audio presentation of Pam Roach putting her office management skills to work.
@9: LOL.
Thanks to Tlazolteotl @2, I was able to track and confirm my ballot as well. That’s pretty cool.
I’m really used to voting in person, and have to say I miss it a little. Voting on a specific day, with other members of the community, made it into a civic event. Voting by mail seems too much like sending in my cable bill. The ballot almost got lost in my junk mail pile (which is the only other thing I seem to get in the mail these days). Such is life.
Vote for Bill Anderson
Go ahead, “me”, vote for the guy who’ll finish 4th. Just so it’s for neither La Cucaracha nor the parental abuser.
8. ByeByeGOP spews:
Rasmussen did a great job on the last 2 elections.
Oh, and Bush is gone you lunatic. Obama is now in the hot seat…and he is burning up his political capital FOR NO GOOD REASON other than he surrounds himself with Tax Cheaters and Liars…and pushes the Pelosi Porkulous Package blindly like a good jackbooter.
@13: Gallup has Obama higher than any President since JFK.
Cynical is an idiot. Keep dreaming cynical – you and the obstructionist, corrupt lirars of the republican party have lost and will continue to lose to Obama. Face it, he is smarter than you guys. He’ll keep whippin’ your puny butts becuase you guys have no platform except to whine and tryu to blame the democrats for the problems you created.
Roger Rabbit Sweepstakes
This is sorta like a poll only better! Because there’s a prize! Correctly guess who Cynical votes for in the election director race and you get a date with his goat!
[ ] 1. Pam Roach
[ ] 2. Motherbeater Irons
There’s no point in putting any of the other names on the ballot here, because there isn’t an ice cream cone’s chance in hell that Cynical would vote for anyone who is actually qualified for the job!
“how stupid it is to elect a position that requires very specific technical expertise”
In 38 of the 39 counties, an elected official oversees the elections department, and another elected official oversees elections on a statewide basis. Are you suggesting there’s rampant election fraud, tampering, and shenanigans in those 38 “stupid” counties?
David Irons is a thief who I personally caught red handed steeling campaign signs in Sammamish in 2002, when he was running for King County Commissioner.
It isn’t surprising that someone named Irons would be steeling campaign signs. Exactly what do you have to add to Irons in order for him to be able to steel?
By the way, King County has a county charter, so we have a county council, instead of county commissioners. And that election would have been in 2003, not 2002. Minor technical errors by the letter writer, which do not change the fact that Irons is definitely an inferior candidate for this position.
N in Seattle – Yep Bill has the knowledge and experience to run complicated businesses properly particularly in a non-partisan way for a non-partisan job. Too bad people will vote in a partisan manner in this election. Guess they will have to put up with more partisan shenanigans for the next several years
Props to you Mr. Pope. I noticed that typo too, but couldn’t come up with a good enough quip, so I ignored it. I think we share a similar disdain for idiocy.
I don’t see this as a partisan issue at all. Both parties have bought into this universal absentee ballot idea. It is a good example of mob stupidity; lemmings rushing to the cliff.
When I was in grade school, we were taught proudly that the glory of the American ballot was that we used the Australian system of secret ballot. Each voter was able to vote in supervised privacy. In old England people voted openly at a table, where the landlords and business owners could watch for the rebels who didn’t vote right. In America our secrecy of the ballot was assured.
We have utterly lost that secrecy. Not one of you regular commenters on HA seem to care about that. The absentee ballot is vulnerable to illegal and undue suasion. The husband who watches over his wife’s choices. The children who fill in their parent’s votes and have the old fogies sign. The huge U. S. Postal Service being interposed between voter and the counter of votes. No certainty at all that a ballot will even be received. Whole neighborhoods of the “wrong” voters could have their ballots “disappear” in the machinery.
Why does nobody care about this?