Stefan Sharkansky apparently suffers from paranoid delusions. I know this, because the men I’ve hired to trail him assure me it is true.
Take for example, his latest effort to revive media interest in the now-discredited voter-credit “discrepancy” hoo-hah. Has he found new incriminating evidence? No. Did he bother to actually look at the poll books? Naah. He just goes back to his same old, cranky Excel spreadsheet, punches in some “slightly improved” numbers, and concludes… oh my god… “The election was genuinely stolen!”
The only thing crazier than doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results… is to actually get them. As we have heard from election officials across the state and around the nation, the voter credit data says absolutely nothing about the integrity of an election — and the fact that Stefan repeats his debunked claim yet again, only louder, doesn’t make it any more “genuine.” But here’s the scary part: I think he actually believes it.
Like his fellow, unscientific conspiracy theorist, the BIAW’s Tom McCabe, Stefan never needed any actual evidence to conclude the election was stolen. In the angry, polarized, imaginary universe that the most rigidly partisan tend to construct for themselves, Dino Rossi’s brutally close defeat was proof enough of Democratic evil-doing. If, as Stefan amusedly describes me, I am a “lunatic-fringe blogger,” then he must be blogging from smack-dab in the middle of the lunatic homeland. It is a strange, disorienting, occasionally frightening place, where your opponents are at once laughably incapable of exercising even the simplest demands of their elected office, while at the same time masterminding a criminal conspiracy so brilliantly devious, it would have remained undetectable if not for the heroic labors and superior intellect of Stefan himself.
Stefan dives into the numbers with such absolute confidence that they will prove his theory of official corruption, that when they don’t… well, that merely proves that the numbers themselves are corrupt. And so the debate on (un)Sound Politics plays out like some Paranoid Fantasy Baseball League, where the champion is predetermined through mass psychosis, and the season consists of attacking, undermining, and ridiculing any statistic that suggests otherwise.
Is this attack on Stefan’s mental health unjustified or unfair? Well, borrowing from his own topsy-turvy logic, “the ball is in his court” to prove otherwise.
Fortunately for Stefan, in the real world, Christine Gregoire is governor, and she will surely sign HB 1154, a bill that requires health insurers to cover mental illness the same as they cover physical ailments. It very well may be that for Stefan, the only prescription for a free and fair election is, well… a prescription.
“Fortunately for Stefan, in the real world, Christine Gregoire is governor, and she will surely sign HB 1154, a bill that requires health insurers to cover mental illness the same as they cover physical ailments. It very well may be that for Stefan, the only prescription for a free and fair election is, well… a prescription.” Goldy. [Won’t that make costs go through the roof? Who will pay? Lots of new billings and revenues for shrinks and “mental health professionals”.]
I wrote about this yesterday:
http://www.preemptivekarma.com.....ve_in.html
This obsession Stefan has with variances has reached the level of bizarre. The numbers he’s using don’t actually mean anything when it comes to an accurate tabulation of the election outcome. He needs a spook…some sort of bad apparition…in order to justify himself.
Brilliant. So funny it’s too sad!
Jeff B., Adriel, and Chris: This post’s for YOU!
Your pied piper is leading you to the land of the lost!
Goldy wrote: “As we have heard from election officials across the state and around the nation, the voter credit data says absolutely nothing about the integrity of an election”
I can tell where the priorities are here…..Disect, and keep the issue of Voter Credit’s up front, and dont point towards the real issue. How can you “Credit” an illegal voter??? Where do the “Dead” people votes go??
If these same experts on elections would simply comply and provide the Public Data that has been requested, then maybe Stefan wouldn’t have to work so hard at Proving they screwed up.
Words are just that Words, but numbers and data speak volumes. KC isn’t talking (that by itself tells the story), but the data that is slow to come public is speaking volumes.
Chris, if you’re upset that King hasn’t released the data you want publicly, you should probably blame Dino Rossi–the counties are busy doing discovery requests for the litigants.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by crediting an illegal voter.
TJ,
Did you ever visit KC Elections? Did you ever find out what kind of effect the lawsuit was having on operations?
Stephan resides in the Banana Bush Republic where they tally bananas. He sounds off, defining everything the Republicans do as success. Wonder how he defines failure/
Torridjoe,
My post was a point. If an illegal voter can vote and be counted, and the crediting of voters has nothing to do with the “integrity” of the election, then just what “process” is in place in KC that proves the integrity. The more silence from KC election’s division, the more damning the evidence that Stefan brings forward.
I dont reside in KC (thank god), but I am a taxpayer. I live in one of the “other” 31 counties. For “us” country folk, we are not buying the BS, and whitewashing that KC has been dishing out. KC has the population to “Dictate” the outcome of any statewide race. For the rest of us, we must rely on KC and the major populated counties to “do it right”. If they didn’t do it right, they should at least stand up and admit it. Dont hide behind the Silence(unless of course they werent telling the TRUTH the first time).
John @ 5
No, I haven’t been to KC. I’m relying on Asst SoS Excell’s comments to me about the volume of requests the counties–particularly King–are being hit with. His conclusion was, paraphrased, “we may just have to wait.”
chris @ 7
voter crediting has nothing to do with preventing felons or persons voting under names of the deceased. It’s a back end process. The front end process of preventing those votes is primarily the responsibility of the courts and Public Health, not elections. The process has been remedied, it appears, by the legislation of a statewide felons database. If it had been funded sooner, it might have been in place for 2004.
TJ @ 9
So the election was full of Errors then. Thanks for the info.
Chris: So the election was full of Errors then. Thanks for the info.
Absolutely — but I’m not sure why that surprises you. Most large-scale operations undertaken by humans have their share of errors. I don’t know where you live — but my guess is your county had its share as well.
I hope that doesn’t shatter any illusions.
chris @ 9
If by “full of” you mean, “at a rate about a 10th of typical error tolerances nationwide,” yes.
Chris @ 10
How many voters are in your county? How many felons voted in your county? How many illegal aliens? How many votes were “found” in your county in the machine and the manual recount?
How many Republican voters in your county sat home on election day? 80,000 R’s sat home on election day in King County. Let’s see Republicans in KC get that right!
Did you know that Logan eliminated 600 felon voters from the rolls in 2004 based on the info he was given from the courts? 4305 deceased voters? Want to learn more? Then read.
Let’s see the elections staff in your county handle a county with 1.1 million registered voters and the highest number of absentee voters in the entire country next to Los Angeles County not to mention handle the largest voter turnout in State history.
KC has the population to “Dictate” the outcome of any statewide race.
That’s because that’s where most of the people live…
Rocks and brush don’t vote.
john @ 13
largest number of new registrations in a period too–by a hefty margin, and using a brand new registration system.
John @ 13
I am not getting into a pissing match with you, but i can say more GOP’s got out and voted then Dems in Lewis County. Our “elected” auditor Gary Zandell, also is one of the few who chose to “STAY” in the court case, because that is what his constituants wanted.
In regard to the rest of your post, it proves that KC can’t get it “RIGHT” because it wasnt prepared to “deal” with the volumes of ballots.
With that said, does the rest of this state have to “just live with the screwups” of KC. Should we say “poor KC, so overworked, underpaid”, lets just let them DICTATE whom our elected officials are. We are just poor lil country folk, who will abide by the laws (GMA, CAO etc) that truly changes our lives for the “BIG CITY” wishes…..
No John, those are not excuses. If a heart surgeon had to perform an extra 5 surgeries in one day, and 1/4 of his patients died, do the families just say “oh well”, he was overwhelmed with work, it is to be expected…..Hell no, THEY SUE.
Hey we’re off topic here..I thought we were questioning if Stephan was Paranoid delusional? I am not sure where you get this Goldy, I have been around his $900,000 Greenlake Home and he seems like a normal guy to me.
Is this attack on Stefan’s mental health unjustified or unfair? Well, borrowing from his own topsy-turvy logic, “the ball is in his court” to prove otherwise.
I have not seen anything that would suggest Stefan is mentally unstable.
Plus, I don’t generally like ad hominem attacks, that is attacking the person instead of the idea they present.
Part of my bias is that any dissenting view on SP is always responded to by dozens of ALL CAP personal attacks.
With that said, Stefan first got into trouble with his Excel spreadsheets when the election results were coming in the 10 days or so after the election.
He took a big stand stating that Rossi had won by trying to extrapolate the results of the election with his spreadsheets even though the margin between the cadidates was less than a percent and there were over a hundred thousand of votes left to count.
Then when the results came in, he had egg on his face and his only alternative was to either state that the election was fraudulent (“distributed voter fraud”) or that he should not have been so confident in trying to predict 200,000 outstanding absentee ballots.
Stefan is left alone in his belief that the unreconciled votes constitute fraud or a basis to overturn the election. Neither SOS Sam Reed nor any of the county auditors share his belief.
In his mind, any difference is evidence of the democrats stuffing the ballot boxes in the dead of night.
Yet, time after time we see the argument in the abstract.
At this point, it isn’t much different than the tax protestors who argue that the 16th amendmet, implementing an income tax to the US constitution, was never ratified correctly by the states and therefore isn’t valid.
http://www.taxableincome.net/a.....amend.html
It never matters to those folks that the US Surpreme Court has rules against them. They will still argue that they are “right.”
“Stefan repeats his debunked claim yet again, only louder, doesn’t make it any more “genuine.†But here’s the scary part: I think he actually believes it.”
Right out of the Republican playbook. Keep on saying it until they believe you.
Wait! If Stefan has reworked and “improved” his numbers, isn’t that an admission that his first set of numbers were less than accurate?? Methinks he just debunked himself.
Don @ 21
Well, you notice he stopped pimping his 3,700 number fairly quickly, and he didn’t really push his “absolute discrepancy, not net” campaign in his last one either. Classic “moving the goalposts” advocacy.
I am not sure where you get this Goldy, I have been around his $900,000 Greenlake Home and he seems like a normal guy to me.
Remember kids – when a Republican has a spendy home, it’s something to brag about and proves they’re a success/smart person. But if a Democrat has a nice home (or even two)), they’re “out of touch with mainstream Americans”.
I’m sure plenty of people with nice, fancy homes who seem nice are also either paranoid, delusional or just plain scumbags (for example, anyone who profited from the whole Znetix scam).
23……JCricket…..Wrong. Kerry’s and Kennedy’s have multi mansions, G-5’s [Gulfstreams], boats and assorted watercraft, SUVs and “compounds” rather than homes, and not a word is said by the MSM. Another recent update: “Friend of Hillary’s” Martha leave jail and hopes on a private gas guzzling jet [Citation?], and the environmental wackos say nothing. Botton line: double standard.
Who profited from Znetix? this sounds juicy. is it as good as Haliburton?
torridjoe–
Kind of clever for Goldy to point to “Paranoid Fantasy Baseball Leagues” when he knows darn well YOU are the Fantasy Football League man!!!
Goldy–
Stefan is successful because he works hard and smart.
You LEFTY’s are a bunch of losers because you don’t!!
jcricket and others of your ilk are so often jealous of successful people that I’d think you’s occassionally look and see what makes them successful and try to learn something.
NAAAAAHHH! It’s easier to waste your life pissing and moaning.
SO GOLDY–What happened to your BIG BINDER, huh??
You were so convinced it held the key to making this a perfect election. It will turn out to be the smoking ……..watch.
Goldy, this post was brilliant. I haven’t laughed so hard in quite some time. Thanks for that! =)
I thought Soros was a lefty? All those Hollywood scum? Ted Turner?
Danw – Znetix was a local “healthclub franchise” that bilked investors out of nearly $90million with false promises that they were opening up a chain of revolutionary health/fitness facilities (it was basically a complete sham, except for one facility on Bainbridge island). The founders and key salespeople were always described as “wonderful”, “charming”, etc. – all while they were bilking mom & pop out of their hard-earned savings.
Nothing on the scale of Halliburton ripping off the US Army, Pentagon, etc., but at least the Znetix scoundrels were prosecuted and convicted (and investors got some of their money back)
Don’t forget about Gates and Buffet both of whom support sensible (read: Democratic) tax plans (including not repealing the estate tax. Must confuse the Republicans when two of the richest people in the world don’t want to act as Scrooge-like as the Repubs expect/demand.
BTW Cynical – My house is worth more than the (as quoted here) valuation of Sharkansky’s. Oh, and I own two luxury cars. Hope your head doesn’t spin too fast while you try to figure us lefties out. I know the cognitive dissonance must be painful, but keep trying, it’s funny to watch you froth and foam at the mouth time and again.
Cynical @26,
Actually, I don’t believe I ever made any claim about what the reconciliation reports in the binder would show, as I have not seen it myself. What I did claim was that reconciliation was performed as required by law, and if the Rossi camp was truly interested in what it showed, they’d be focusing on the binder and the poll books, not the voter-credit “discrepancy.”
In the end, yes… my assumption is that the binder will be a focus in the contest. I’m comfortable with that.
In the end, yes… my assumption is that the binder will be a focus in the contest. I’m comfortable with that. (emphasis mine)
Based on Cynical’s track record over the past 3-4 months here, you should be practically relaxing by the poolside. So far, the more he claims Dems should be worried about something, the less they should be. The louder he SCREAMS or SHOUTS, the less likely it is anything will turn up. Time and again that’s been the case, so, to quote someone I’m sure Cynical loves, “bring it on”.
ChrisN @ 17
How convenient of you to blame everyone but yourself and your fellow Republicans for Dino Rossi’s defeat.
How it must make you feel better to condemn King County for your candidate’s misfortune. Gregoire edges out Rossi by 129 votes yet all the blame goes to King County. None to Pierce, none to Snohomish and certainly none to Lewis.
You of course will never face the most crucial question. How many Republicans sat home on election day in Lewis County? Was it more or less than 129? It’s not a hard question to answer, Chris. Call up the WSRP and they’ll give you a count of the R’s in Lewis. It’s just as easy to find out how many bothered to vote for Rossi.
Who lost the election for Rossi? With all the Democrats who crossed lines to help give Rossi a shot there can only be one answer – the Republicans lost it for Rossi. But it’ll raining snowballs in Hell before they will ever admit that to themselves.
While I don’t agree with Sharkansky’s methodology I think you are wrong on this one.
Voter crediting is crucial to an honest election. The votes to voters reconciliation is supposed to be done at the precinct level prior to those votes even being credited. This is in the proceedure guide that all election officials are supposed to follow.
Any election official who states otherwise is flat out lying.
Goldy@31. Re In the end your assumption is the binder will be a focus in the contest. Get really comfortable, tip by your Barka lounger and don’t hold your breath for the end may be a long way off if you take what University of Washington Law school Adjunt Professor Jeffery Grant said. “Republicans are pushing a rock uphill.” And quibs, ” we might not have a decision till 2008.” Now that’s a whole bunch of blogging time. :-)
Vince Callaway@34.
A lot of concentration going on with numbers. Point being, if election is set aside, Rossi insists he will not take becoming governor without a “revote.” Course, that I would have to see to believe. Rossi will not get revote. Rossi mangled that issue badly right in front of the press; talking out of both sides of mouth and Cover Girl Lane stepping in to cover. The Republican bill calling for a revote failed, has died in committee. Appears to me figures will not be what it boils down too. While not negating the errors or what they amount, no amount will suffice to get Rossi the Governorship of Wa. Time will prove that out. The Republicans wanted it done in a few weeks. That is what was said to the news media at the start by the Republicans. They thought they had a cake walk.
scotid@12. I agree. Now for the fix part. As an aftermath of the election, we learned marginal error exists because it exists. Stepping into the future, we know the election reform bill was among the survivors as session hits it’s halfway mark. Both houses are considering several bills.
You LEFTY’s are a bunch of losers because you don’t!!
I think Bill Gates Jr and Sr can hold their own as well as Buffett. Plus, they like to discuss issues, they don’t threaten to split up the state.
Erik @19
“Part of my bias is that any dissenting view on SP is always responded to by dozens of ALL CAP personal attacks.”
ERIK YOU IGNORANT SLUT!
Sorry, Erik, I just wanted to visualize what you were talking about… ;)
You bring up a good point. This is one of the reasons I tend to stay away from making comments over there. The funhouse games of ‘beat the single opposing viewpoint to death’ is carnival-esque…while such a pervasive attitude can exist on either side, I have not been flogged too hard here without reason. That is to your (rather, each contributor’s) credit. Thanks…
John @ 33
Please excuse me for being blunt, but where did you read in my post #17 did I mention I was a republican…..
You make an awful big assumption, and you know what happens when you assume….
I can understand passion for a cause, but please don’t attack a person, and make assumptions about one’s political beliefs.
BTW-Rossi won Lewis County, just like the other 30 counties….That is my POINT…..The rest of the State has to “make due” with what the most populated counties vote for…I know, rocks and dirt don’t vote, but neither do DEAD people, and felons.
You asked “Who lost the election for Rossi?” King County Elections Did, with their inept abilities, and pompus “perfect election” crap…..Just my opinion, not a fact, nor do i have data to back it up.
The funhouse games of ‘beat the single opposing viewpoint to death’ is carnival-esque
Yeah. True. Discussing substantive matters are off topic.
The only question for each poster is usually whether you are with us or against us.
With that said, Matt Rosenberg has had a couple of interesting posts written from a conservative prospective but at least discussable. Most recently calling out Benton for being absences (how dare he) for which he was attacked by the dittoheads.
Matt also challenged the folks who believed they somehow had the constitutional right to blow carcinogenic laden smoke down other people’s lungs.
Maybe Matt should do some moonlighting work at HA as an guest conservative.
In all of his postings, I have never observed Matt use all caps, threaten to divide Washington into two states or wear orange.
That says alot.
DanW @ 18
Wow — Stefan really does live in a $900,000 home on Greenlake. Actually, it looks like he is about two and a half blocks from Greenlake. But given the value of his house, he must be on a hill with a good view of Greenlake.
Frankly, I think his house must be worth at least a million dollars, since he paid $858,836 for it in May 2003. Stefan is a pretty bright business person, and I am sure he got a good deal on it (sure beats paying $860,000!). Most property around Greenlake has appreciated at least 20% in the last two years.
Since Stefan has done a wonderful job in expanding web access to public records (check out the Sound Politics voter database), we might as well provide the web link to Stefan’s fancy digs:
But I decided not to, just in case there really are crazy people out there. Anyone who knows the King County website can find out all this information in a less than a minute.
Stefan’s house used to be owned by Paul Berndt, who sold it to someone else for only $102,000 in October 1988.
However, that former owner was Paul Berndt, not to be confused with Paul Berendt, who is the chairman of the state Democrats.
ChrisN @ 40
Tens of thousands of registered voters all over the state don’t bother to participate in the election and you still want to blame King County. Ok, fine.
I don’t know what KC did to you but it must have been something big to build up all this resentment.
chris @ 4:
What isn’t KC talking about? Illegal felon voters? Yeah, they have, at length.
Voter variances and reconciliation? Yes, they have, at length.
Stefan isn’t satisfied with the fact that King County has talked. They’ve talked to the newspapers. They’ve talked to Goldy. They’ve talked to Torrid Joe and they’ve talked to me. They’ve also talked on camera to the King County Council.
The issue is…that there really isn’t an issue. King County did nothing more wrong on the felons issue than many other counties around the state, including those who voted for Rossi.
The variances issue truely has nothing to do with the accuracy of the election count. What did they “do” with those votes? They counted them. Every county did, unless it was caught ahead of time. This isn’t a King County issue. It’s statewide. It’s also not an elections office issue. Anyone who’s followed the laws and procedures on this knows that it’s up to the legislature to fix..not the elections offices. To keep blaming King County is ridiculous.
If Rossi had won…would you be fighting so hard to make sure the screwups of Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap, Spokane and other counties were brought to light? Would Stephan?
My Felon Americans
Opinion Journal/The Wall Street Journal, by John Fund
[Hellery and John “Fonda” Kerry Push For The Felon Vote!!
The Constitution grants states the authority to determine “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections,” but Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are pushing a Count Every Vote Act that would, among other things, force states to allow voters to register at the polls and declaring Election Day a federal holiday. And then they want to force every state to let felons vote–even though the 14th Amendment specifically permits states to disfranchise citizens convicted…
You guys are pathetic, I seem to remember you guys screaming and saying how terrible it is that Rossi camp dug into personal lives to create a list of felon voters. and I also remember you guys saying something about how terrible the BIAW dug into personal lives to capture signatures. What are you guys doing now? Looking into a man’s personal life, downing on him because he does well for himself, and still has time for Blogging. Go ahead and root for the underdog, a man that has views I don’t believe in, a man that really hasn’t got too much success under his belt (unless you consider firing up Conservatives a success.) TOLERANT DEMOCRATS MY ASS! You speak of great things like feeding and clothing the less fortunate but then out of the other side of your mouth you spew venom, bitter deadly venom. You guys make me want to vomit, you are social cannibals plain and simple.
Hey that brings up a few jokes I read.
Q: What do you get when you offer a Liberal a penny for his thoughts?
A: Change.
Q: How do you confuse a Liberal?
A: You don’t. They’re born that way.
Q: Why is it good to have a Democrat passenger?
A: You can park in the handicap zone.
Q: What’s the difference between Elvis and a smart Liberal?
A: Elvis has been sighted.
Q: What do you call a Democrat with an IQ of 130?
A: A foursome
Q: What do you call a basement full of Liberals?
A: A whine cellar.
Q: What’s the difference between God and a Democrat?
A: God knows He’s not a Democrat.
Adriel @46,
Um… he started it. I’ve never spoken worse of Stefan than he has of other people.
As to the comments about the value of Stefan’s home, while I don’t necessarily condone such stuff, it’s public record… something Stefan seems awfully fond of searching. That said, if somebody had posted his street address, I would have deleted it. There are people out there crazier than even Stefan.
Looking into a man’s personal life, downing on him because he does well for himself, and still has time for Blogging.
Just a bit of a difference here Adriel. The location of Stefan’s house can be found online or at the auditor’s office, it is public information. I also see that even though it was public, Richard still didn’s post it.
On the other hand, if the press reports are correct, the BIAW deceptively obtained people’s signatures through sending out a false survey. The signatures were not public information.
Adriel @ 46
LMAO! Calm, calm, Adriel. Do you consider Richard Pope @ 42 to be one of the “pathetic” who make you “vomit”?
If so, did you know that Richard said in this forum “Unfortuntely, many Democrats think that Cuba has a much better political and economic system that the United States. “
Wouldn’t you agree with this statement?
WHen it comes to the election the Democratic Voting Volunteers did there job to steal the election. How else can you explain the dead arriving at the polls and voting. It is one thing to vote by absentee ballot. I guess the post office may have some mail boxes near the graveyard so they can get their vote in. But walking into a polling place give me a break. I do believe that there where thousands of illegal votes cast. the areas that we will never know is are the following.
1. How many non citizens voted in this election. Democrats want to block access to legal aliens lists from US Government. I wonder why.
2. How many people voted for other voters? WE have the dead arriving at the polling place so how many other votes were cast illegally. You get one vote per person. Not vote for as many people as you can fit in for the day.
3. Did any of the enhanced ballots get changed from one canidate to another. You never will know because KC did not follow State requirements to ensure the initial vote is shown and that you do ensure that voter intent is always available. KC warned by Secretary of State that their policies violated this rules and need to be changed because it would open them up to litigation. Never changed their policy even though warned about the problems.
4. Loose standards on signature verification. Is it possible that someone voted for someone else by stealing thier absentee ballots. I have heard numerous complaints from East side that they never got their absentee ballots.
Who know what other things happened. The appearance of fraud does not make it fraud. BUt the fact that we have thousands of more votes than voters registered as voting says it all. Something fishy is happening in KC
Adriel writes: What are you guys doing now? Looking into a man’s personal life, downing on him because he does well for himself, and still has time for Blogging
Adriel – You do know that danw, who brought up Stefan’s house and the value, was clearly trying to defend him, not defame him.
And yes, Stefan loves to dish it out when it comes to insults, personal records requests, publishing emails, etc.. So are you now saying he can’t take the same?
The Democrats stole an election & are getting away with it! Yee haw! Let’s keep labeling those fighting for fair elections & identifing election discrepancies as paranoid loonies & hope our willing agents in the media do not alert the public to the true shenanigans that allowed the great & noble county officials of King to get enough illegal ballots through to push Gregoire through.
If Sharkansky & his minions get their way & end the Democrats means to steal elections, there is always murder. The ends justify the means right?
In the meantime, the strategy of bashing those trying to uncover the truth is the way to go. All hail Queen Christine!
David Anfinrud @ 51
Can I borrow some foil from you bud? I need to make one of these.
Always remember to wear the shiny side out. It won’t work otherwise.
SAN FRANCISCO — Three men who said job offers were rescinded because they did not disclose they had HIV can sue American Airlines alleging discrimination, a federal appeals court has ruled. The airline can request medical information, but only after it has completed background checks and made a job offer, according to Friday’s ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. [Topic: Goldy last paragraph……..Classic 9th Court Circus. Now those with HIV [AIDs] can lie on a job application, then sue. If they are hired, they run up hundreds of thousands of medical bills, and everyones medical premiums go through the roof. “From each…..To each…..”] BTW, Goldy, I can’t win the “Troll Poll” if you ban my posts. Your last paragraph on this topic opened the door for this post.
When a person makes the decision to run for public office, they give up their right to privacy. Upon filing, they come under the public disclosure act; fiances and assets must be declared, these become public. As public figures, they also by virtue of filing or being seated become subjected to excessive ridicule. They are no longer protected by the laws in the catagorical group of laws batch such as discrimination, harrassment,slander and libel that protects John and Jane Doe Public.
Adding to the above, the term Public Figure also applies to Un-Sound Politics Leader. Stephan would be classed a Public Figure by his own making, subjecting himself to a lot of lashbacks and flying flack. Noone ever said politics was a rose garden without thorns.
Let’s get back to the “voter credit discrepancy” issue.
Why can’t King County produce a list of everyone who voted in the November 2004 general election, without blaming some aspect of its recordkeeping system for the list supposedly being “incomplete”?
There are three ways of voting — poll, absentee, and provisional.
If you vote at the polls, your name is entered twice. First, when you sign the poll book where your name is. Second, when the poll worker writes your name down on a numbered list, in sequential order that the voters appear at the polls, when your ballot is issued. These are very concrete documents. If someone’s name is missing from one list by mistake, there is a good chance their name will appear on the other list.
If you vote absentee, you mail in a signed envelope to King County Elections. If your signature is verified and your ballot accepted, it should be processed and your empty envelope retained somewhere. If not, your unopened envelope will be stored with others in a rejected ballots area.
Presumably, the names of absentee voters should be entered into the computer system as soon as their ballots are processed. That prevents people from voting twice. Otherwise, they could claim they lost (or never got) their absentee ballot and have a duplicate ballot issued. And they could even go to the polls and cast a third balot as a provisional. There should be an on-line up-to-date system to enter ballots when processed, so that each new ballot can be checked on the computer to prevent the same voter voting twice. I also think there is something in the WAC requiring this.
Similar process for provisional ballots, except that these are generally issued to voters at the polls on election day, and returned in envelopes to the polling place when issued. These also need to be entered on-line when processed, to make sure someone hasn’t voted twice.
Since you can submit a provisional ballot at any polling place in the state, the polling place registers also need to be entered into the computer shortly after election day — just so that provisional ballots can be properly processed. If someone registered in Burien casts a provisional ballot in Seattle, they could get away with voting twice if the Burien precinct register poll book is not entered into the computer before the Seattle provisional ballot is processed.
So why can’t King County come up with an accurate list of people who voted in November?
King County says:
1. Address Confidentiality Program not included. Okay, these names must remain secret. There are exactly 69 of these, and these are easily taken into account in calculations.
2. Federal write-in absentee ballots. These casts by overseas and military voters must be counted, if someone is qualified to vote, even if they aren’t registered. There are exactly 251 of these, and these are easily taken into account in calculations. Still, there is nothing secret about these names, and King County should have released a list of these 251 voters, including the precinct they used in order to vote.
3. Voters moved to a different precinct in King County. Happens every day. But the precinct in which a person voted on November 2004 should be perfectly obvious from the poll list or the ballot envelope.
4. Voters who are no longer registered — moved out of county, died, convicted, etc. Also happens every day. But same principles are is # 3. The precinct in which a person voted on November 2004 should be perfectly obvious from the poll list or the ballot envelope.
No matter how you slice it or dice it, King County is 1800 voters short of the number of actual ballots counted. The election was four months ago, and neither King County nor the Democrats can account for these 1800 ballots, in spite of all of the source material existing which could be double and triple checking to make sure that no voter whose ballot was counted was omitted from the listing.
This worries me a lot more than 1100 or so ineligible felons voting. At least we know who those people are. They could have been prevented from voting before the election if anyone had cared enough, and they certainly will be prevented from voting in future elections unless they have their eligibility reinstated.
But to have 1800 ballots magically appear cannot be countered. This was a very close election, and these could have been added after the fact in order to change the outcome. This may not be the case, but the ballot numbers cannot be explained by the number of people who actually voted — at least they haven’t been to this point.
If we are going to treat anyone for insanity about this situation, it should be King County Elections staff who cannot explain why they counted so many ballots, and not people like Stefan who are questioning this as-of-yet unexplainable discrepancy.
Goldy@31
My, what a reversal on the BIG BINDER THEORY Goldy.
SO…you told us you were going to see it…a personal audience for you and torridjoe. I find it quite interesting this has evaporated on your MUST DO list. I knew once you found out about all the discrepancies and the little KingCo did to investigate those discrepancies you would RUN away from it.
Go back and look at your post several weeks ago Goldy.
You clearly felt the BIG BINDER was Stefan’s undoing. Why don’t you follow thru on this Goldy?????
I’m sure your LEFTY WingNut pals here would be quite interested in your “independent” summary of DISCREPANCIES in the BIG BINDER and what they did to disclose them and investigate them BEFORE certifying Goldy. C’mon…you brought up the BIG BINDER.
Maybe Logan needs to create a BIGGER BINDER?? And if that doesn’t work, there is always the BIGGEST BINDER.
BIG, BIGGER & BIGGEST—
Kind of a lot like DUMB, DUMBER & DUMBEST–
When you brought up the BIG BINDER, I knew you would run away from it as soon as you found out how negligently it had been prepared. And don’t forget Goldy…if you do review those pollbooks and the BIG BINDER of precindt reconciliations be sure to ask if any #’s have been altered from what pollworkers recorded and attested to….Would you do that for me?
Oh who cares what Stefan’s digs are worth. More than mine, which means he pays more property taxes than I do. Neener neener!
Again, I am honored to be selected as your OUTSTANDING TROLL.
I owe it all to hard work and common sense.
A Badge of Honor to add to my collection!!
When I saw JCH on the list, I didn’t think I had a chance.
He was stiff competition for sure.
Rather than spend money to give me a trophy…I would be honored if you knuckleheads would take a look at the BIG BINDER and compile a summary of discrepancies (Cummulative for the 2616 Precindts) and report it back for all of us to enjoy.
Thank you all again for the honor.
I will try to repeat again next month!
Back-to-back baby!
Richard @ 58
for the thousandth time, voter crediting is NOT a reconciliation exercise. You glossed right over the main reason for mistakes–the scanning of voter signature lines. That is the primary process by which polling day voters are credited.
That process has NOTHING….NOTHING to do with what happens when the polls close: they count up signatures by precinct in order to get a ballots-issued total. Then they take all valid ballots, add in the provisionals, spoiled ballots, etc. and sum them up. The two numbers should match, but sometimes they do not, and cannot. This would occur when (eg) a voter signs in one precinct, but receives a ballot for another precinct.
Crediting is not even compared at the precinct level. It is a countywide exercise.
Cynical @ 59
At no time have I ever claimed I was planning on looking at the binder…you are incorrect.
Back to the question of Paranoid delusional. I was able to trace Stephans post back to San Francisco. a couple of years ago. Then he dissapears and appears in Seattle. Now he is an expert on “Sound” politics. As in the Rossi smoking gun theories. Stephan must have run away from something down there? Stephan needs to prove that the reason he left had nothing to do with private bath houses…because that’s the logical conclusion you can draw. Or…..there was no REAL reason to run away, and therefore must be a paranoid delusional…..King County, sorry I mean Stephan must produce his big binder and prove he did nothing wrong down there. Logic and fair play demand it. because predetermined conclusions are the best.
Cynical;
I just want to know whos account you are billing for your time today? 11:29 is a little early for lunch. You are so concerned about the waste in the public sector and our government hacks, that you think private sector is much more efficient…well you are proof that the private sector is no better. Really if you want to out TJ..lets do a little ad campaign for you. “CPA blogging for your rights.” $140per hour. All employees waste time. just because you think your tax dollars are paying for it, doesn’t mean that the poor schmuck your billing for being here isn’t getting screwed as well. (Hell you probably my accountant…Jim?)
64……Danw……….Cynical works in the private sector; therefore, he is not a “guvment” parasite. Your question is off topic and irrelevent. Now, if a “guvment” hack [say, like….oh……..DON!] waste 4-6 hours of each day posting, perhaps the taxpayers may have an issue. Get it?
danw–
Yet another Left WingNut who doesn’t understand what being self-employed, working hard and investing well can so for you.
Like Mr. T said “I pity the po’ fool”.
The fool Mr. T was talking about was obviously you.
danw–are you yet another government worker on government time using a government computer on a government internet access in a government office in a government building blogging about partisan politics?? I thought so. I pity you fool!!!
TorridJoe @ 61
I want to see reconciliation. You are correct that voter crediting is different than reconciliation. However, both processes start out with the same raw data.
I totally agree with you that computer scanning of the poll book will result in errors. This is how poll voters are credited and it is unquestionably a different use of the raw data than the election night reconciliation.
The election night reconciliation would first involve looking at the number of names written down by the poll worker of the people who signed in to vote. You compare that with the number of precinct ballots counted in the machine, and also look at the other numbers (spoiled ballots, provisionals, leftover unused ballots, etc.). Somewhere in the process they probably also manually counted the number of signatures in the poll book and compared that with the number of names written down by the poll worker on the list.
The voter crediting process takes the same poll books and computer scans for detection of signatures by the voters’ names. Certainly not an exact science, since there can be both false positives — scribbling by mistake is counted as a signature of someone who didn’t vote — and false negatives — a voter’s signature isn’t picked up for some reason.
It is true that most of the discrepancy is in polling place crediting. The Shark’s figures even admit this. There are a total of 2,148 ballot discrepancies, which can be broken down as follows:
Unexplained absentee ballots: 488 (start with 808, and then subtract 69 confidential address voters and 251 federal write-in unregistered voters)
Unexplained polling place regular voters: 1,312 (start with 1,660 and subtract the 348 provisional voters who fed their ballots directly into the machines)
Improper provisional voters: 348 ballots fed directly into the machines, instead of being placed in provisional ballot envelopes (however all but about 90 to 100 of these people really were registered voters)
You may be entirely correct that the 1,312 unexplained poll ballots are due to errors in the computer scanning and crediting process. Frankly, I hope this really is mostly the case. It would be terrible to think that over 1,300 ballots could simply be “stuffed” on election day or thereafter.
We need to see the much acclaimed “BIG BINDER” or whatever they call it, that has all of the election night reconciliations. Hopefully, it is a lot closer than the 1,312 unexplained poll ballots resulting from the imprecise computer scanning process. As far as I can tell, King County Elections simply won’t release these, even though numerous parties have made public records requests.
The 488 unexplained absentee ballots are also alarming, although this is an error rate of less than one in a thousand. Each absentee ballot envelope that is approved should have been entered into the computer contemporaneously with being opened for ballot processing.
The source data for absentee ballot reconciliation and voter crediting, however, is the hundreds of thousands of empty ballot envelopes. Both processes rely on what was entered into the computer during the counting process back in November. The only way to improve on this data would be to go through all of the empty envelopes and re-enter the data.
Richard, I don’t really disagree with anything you’ve said here. I wouldn’t say King “won’t” release the binder, as opposed to not having it ready–based on there being no requirement to “make it ready,” and the number of other requests pertaining to litigation that they are being asked for, which naturally take priority.
Cynical @65
If I was a Guvment employee would that just piss ya off? you have such a woody for TJ. because I’ll claim it if it will. If you were actually doing “Hardwork” we all know that you are an accountant for the BIAW, living off of State Rebates. What ever happen to that reduction to 10% that you can skim from the members. I hope your DNA is on those stamps for $10 rebate. so you can see what “Hard Time” is for Mail Fraud….PS you never let me know how to right off Church Tithings, $9,000 wasn’t it? Knock Knock IRS calling.
Cynical
IRS another one of those silly Guvment agencies. How we all gonna pay for the War machine.
I know let’s turn Tax collection over to the Private sector, so we can bitch about Private sector CPA’s bilking us.
Richard Pope and tj–
The BIG BINDER was required BEFORE certification at each of the 3 counts. Discrepancies were REQUIRED to be identified for the Canvassing Board and investigated.
If the BIG BINDER was REQUIRED 2-1/2 months ago…why can’t Sharkansky see it?? He made a formal Public Records Request 9 days ago???
My guess is we’ll see:
1) Poll books were altered by 3rd Party’s AFTER being attested to by pollworkers.
2) The Big Binder does not have SOURCE DOCUMENTS to support numbers used in the reconciliation.
3) When you add up all the unexplained discrepancies from the 2616 precindts…it will be worse than what Stefan shows.
BIG BINDER?????
Let’s see it.
Canvassing Board meeting tapes????
Let’s hear them.
Huge problem with unelected Election Official Logan reporting to unelected Canvassing Board member Logan, don’t you think??
What do you think Logan reported to Larry Phillips and the other Canvassing Board member??
Hell, Phillips didn’t even know his vote wasn’t counted originally!
Mr. Cynical brings up a very valid point IMO. Having a three member Board determining what inkmark/indentation/coffee stain on a ballot gets counted as a valid vote is great, but when two out of three Boardmembers are from one political party, the 2 to 1 vote counts as validation of the ambiguous ballot. tj said previously that 90% of corrected ballots were agreed by all three, leaving 10% to a partisan 2 to 1 allowance/discard (I wonder what that number is in real votes)…
marks – back when the election contest was “hot and heavy” Goldy actually talked to the Republican on the election board. First he made it clear that there were less than 1200 votes that even made it to the board as a dispute. IIRC, the number of votes that ended up decided 2-1 was around 20, and the Republican board member made it clear that he wasn’t on the “losing end” of all 20 of those.
So, yes, it might appear that having partisans make the decisions could lead to gaming the system, but the evidence, from the people who were actually there (i.e. NOT CYNICAL) points away from that.
Ah yes, here we go: http://www.horsesass.org/index.php?p=327
1600 ballots, not 1200, but still less than 20 decided 2-1, and Dan Satterberg (the Republican) not on the losing side of all of those. As Goldy put it back then
(Sorry, HTML code ate this part of the comment): Goldy wrote back then:
The indented part above is my comment (except the quoted section, which is Goldy’s from that same blog entry)
jcricket-
Thanks. Don’t know why I didn’t go back that far and look for such an obvious debunking (funny how one thinks they have stumbled on THE QUESTION, when smarter people have been there and done that)…
61……Mr. Cynical..Congrats. Even if Goldy hadn’t dumped most of my posts, you have earned your trophy. As a fellow proud member of the VRWC, I salute you!!
adriel @ 46 well go ahead and vomit….but be sure to check which end it comes out…as you and your neopugs do not know your a** from your mouth
jcricket again tries to change the subject. Bad try=No sale!
The canvassing board does more than determine questionable votes and you know it.
Discrepancies on pollbooks is a, perhaps thee, major issue ahead.
But what about the Big Binder???
Discrepancies on pollbooks is a, perhaps thee, major issue ahead.
So this is the new big SMOKING GUN!!!!!! you’re going to hang your hat on now? I’ve lost count on how many blanks you’ve shot, over the past three or four months, so you’ll have to excuse us if we don’t jump at your latest accusation. Seems like your “smoking guns” are more likely to accidentally discharge in your own hands than hurt anyone else.
Mr Cynical@79. Your wasting away in Margaritavil. Pollbooks are not going to decide this election PERIOD. Th election has been decided and it will stand as so; all the tea in China ain’t gonna change it. Write that in your litttle binder so can reflect back when it comes to pass!
Chee , don’t waste your time on Cynicalidiot, he tried to burst his wifes bubble,,,,but his Big Binder could not do the trick
jpgee@84. Cyncial accused KC of sitting on the Big Binder, Maybe he is projecting and it is he who is sitting on the Big Binder if what you just said be true.