So, what’s my response to the recent events surrounding last November’s contested gubernatorial election?
Big whoops.
I’ve already discussed the 93 absentee ballots discovered amidst trays of empty envelopes. Sloppy work to be sure, but let’s have some perspective: that’s 93 out of over a half-million absentee ballots. And while more of these ballots came from pro-Rossi precincts than from pro-Gregoire (59 to 32), a proportional analysis would only give Rossi a pick-up of about four votes. Hardly grounds for setting aside the election.
And so I was a bit surprised to see former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, suddenly coming forth to put an ugly face on what has already been an incredibly uglier and mean propaganda campaign. Slade the Blade is also a lawyer — a former State Attorney General — and thus you’d think he’d be embarrassed to use such flimsy and inconsequential evidence as these 93 ballots as the basis for asking the U.S. Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation… and to do so with such reprehensible and over-the-top rhetoric.
The mistake could have been fraud or “colossal incompetence,” he said.
“I think it’s appropriate to come to the conclusion that King County has the worst election administration in any county in the United States of America
Goldy you aren’t the captain, you don’t have to go down with the ship. Let Sims and Logan keep BS-ing their way through this while you slip out the back door.
Goldy – Keep the blinders on and keep making excuses for this “Model Election”.
Right on! The Republicans are so quick to label the Democrats as being corrupt and doing sinister things, because that’s what they expect from politics. That’s what they do, so they assume that the Democrats will, too.
While it is tempting to deify Slade Gorton now that he is out of power, he really always was a hack, willing to follow the party-line whenever it suited him. He hasn’t changed.
homesteadbook.com
ooops! ballots found
10 different times
10 different locations
NOT 9. every time the “innocent mistakes” were discovered, democrats made excuses. Add em all up…..bombshell! you forgot to mention that Logan knew back in Nov about the 93.
Even some of the Rs are started to get disgusted. Here’s John Cole’s (AIM) take at balloon-juice:
What I see going on around me is that my party is in power. We control the Presidency. We control the House and the Senate. Republican appointees outnumber Democratic ones on the Supreme Court, and we are poised to add more. We own talk radio. Cable news tends to be neutral to conservative (it certainly is not liberal or progressive- some outfits may have anti-Republican reflexes). We have all but eliminated partisan debate in congress, playing by rules much tougher than anything that was in place. Where there were once no conservative (or few) newspapers, there are now several. We have numerous conservative online journals. Hundreds of publications that all push the same point and pass on the same message.
And it still isn’t enough. Everything is under attack if it does not toe the same hard-right line. The university, the institution of marriage, journalism as an enterprise, the medical community, the legal community, every foreign institution, the United Nations- anything, that doesn’t cater to the conservative need for instant gratification in the form of message adherence and submission to the new doctronaire must be destroyed. Look at the recent behavior of Republicans in Congress towards REPUBLICAN APPOINTED CONSERVATIVE JUDGES. Forget ‘screw me once, shame on you.’ This new breed of fanatacism is “Slight me in any discernable way, even a mild disagreement, and I will publicly destroy you.”
And for what?
– So Tom DeLay can stuff his pockets with PAC money?
– So the banking interests that bankroll Washington can get their bankruptcy bill, ensuring higher and higher profits and usurious interest rates?
– So Jim Sensennbrenner can put people in jail for broadcasting things he finds obscene?
– So that Congress can insert itself into your marriage, change your end-of-life decisions, because they don’t like them?
– So we can make sure gays don’t get married?
– To make sure something like evolution and other nasty science things aren’t taught in school?
What, exactly are we trying to accomplish, and why, exactly, should I be in favor of it? Other than Iraq and Afghanistan, which are going well and are a success (yet still works in progress), what have we accomplished? I’m serious. Remind me what we are trying to do here- why this is a good thing
http://www.balloon-juice.com/
OOPS! make that 94, they just found 1 more.
Goldy,
Gotta agree with you on one thing. This isn’t “bombshell” news. It’s Standard Operating Procedure (aka “Monkey F***ing a Football”) for KingCo Elections.
Guys, guys… Lt. Brian Suits did NOT get his ballot.
And I hope you all agree with me: FIRE DEAN LOGAN. (Preferably now).
93? I think you mean… 94.
Josef~
What are you going to do when your true love Marummy is the mouthpiece for whatever hack the Rs run against the Goddess Cantwell? I don’t envy you. You can’t win in that one.
Chardonnay @4,
Logan did NOT know about the 93 ballots back in November. He did not know that the Mail Ballot Report was erroneous. I confirmed that with his office.
Chards of glass houses @ 4
“you forgot to mention that Logan knew back in Nov about the 93”
Prove it.
Josef @ 8
“Lt. Brian Suits did NOT get his ballot.”
This guy is a lieutenant and he doesn’t know how to ask his unit’s Voting Assistance Officer for a Federal Write In Ballot?
Let’s hope, for the troops’ sake, that HE wasn’t the unit’s Voting Assistance Officer. Let’s hope Lt. Suits wasn’t the weapons officer, either. Or the supply officer. Of the forward observer …
Josef @ 8, Dubya @ 12
I think you guys are mixing stories. IIRC, Lt. Suits made a point of sending the (sealed?) ballot/envelope to his wife, which she put in the mail in plenty of time for the election. There was no way he could have known before the election that KingCo wouldn’t count his ballot (or even be able to tell him why not).
steven @10
“Goddess Cantwell?”
I doubt it will be easy to unseat her, but “Goddess”??? Let us ponder this for a moment:
Main Entry: god·dess
Pronunciation: ‘gä-d&s also ‘go-
Function: noun
1 : a female god
2 : a woman whose great charm or beauty arouses adoration
No, Cantwell fails on each count. The good news is that you may be able to market your statement to practicing eremites, so long as you do not show them an accurate photo of her.
Marks~
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You must understand that Josef is seriously torn between the beloved Cantwell and the dauntless Marummy (who for those who are new to Josef is Mary Lane, Rossi’s mouthpiece).
marks @ 14
At least she doesn’t have a face full of zits like marummy.
Don’t any of Rossi’s supporters recall that they were condemning King County elections in November and December for the efforts made at that time to make sure they found all the ballots they could that had been cast?
How quickly they forget how their reaction then was that enough was enough, no more effort to find misplaced ballots should take place and the election should be finalized. Indeed, that’s why elections have deadlines for counting ballots – if you give enough time you may find some ballots that were misplaced.
So now that King County has found some more ballots Rossi’s team wants to condemn them for having done so.
Whatever suits their rhetoric and mood it seems is how the Chrismary Vancelanes will spin it.
TRY TO GET YOUR FACT STRAIGHT LITTLE LIBs:
Lt. Suits did indeed get his ballot.
Lt. Suits did indeed get his ballot in a timely manner.
Lt. Suits did indeed complete his ballot.
Lt. Suits did indeed complete his ballot in a timely manner
Lt. Suits did indeed take his completed ballot and seal it properly in its inner security envelope and its outer mailing envelope.
Lt. Suits did indeed properly sign the outer mailing envelope.
Lt. Suits did indeed mail his ballot.
Lt. Suits did indeed mail his ballot in a timely manner.
Lt. Suits completed ballot was indeed received by his wife, a police woman.
Lt. Suits completed ballot was indeed received by his wife, a police woman, in a timely manner.
Lt. Suits wife, a police woman, did indeed mail his completed ballot (which she received in a timely manner).
Lt. Suits wife, a police woman, did indeed mail his completed ballot (which she received in a timely manner)in a timely manner.
Now, the only FACT we don’t know is what the Sims/Logan yahoo’s DID with the properly received, completed, signed, mailed, received by wife and mailed by wife ballot.
Ouch, Josef – oh, never mind…
Ass @ 18
Okay, he can be a forward observer.
As opposed to a horsesASS blogger, Don??
What do you think YOU are, Ass?
OUCH! OWIE! OOOOOH!
the Peewee Herman defense (“I know you are but what am I?”)…
I bet that wowed em in the halls of justice there Donny boy!
My understanding is Logan knew of the 93 (now 94) ballots since March 24th. But none of this matters because this was a “Model Election” and we’re all just sore losers. You see clear thinking people look at all these fuck ups and see normalcy, it is us wrong thinking idiots that see reason for concern, where the smart people assure us there is none.
Comment by steven— 4/8/05 @ 4:39 pm
I’m looking forward to the dogfight w/ the girliefriend!
Comment by steven— 4/8/05 @ 5:29 pm
“Dauntless”. Got that right. She’s our state’s Karl Rove, quote unquote.
Comment by HowCanYouBePROUDtobeAnASS— 4/8/05 @ 5:37 pm
BLESS YOU
NEW ELECTION LAWSUIT FILED
Paul Lehto (an Everett attorney) and John Wells (a World War 2 veteran) filed a lawsuit today in King County Superior Court against Snohomish County and Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc., seeking to declare null and avoid a contract worth $5 million for Sequoia to supply Snohomish County with touch-screen voting machines.
Lehto and Wells contend the contract violates voters’ rights under the U.S. Constitution and state law to open and transparent elections by giving a private company control over how votes are counted, and denying citizens access to information necessary to verify the accuracy of the vote counting.
Earlier this year, Lehto released a report of an investigation into Snohomish County’s use of the voting machines in the November 2004 governor’s election. The report detailed strange anomalies in the Snohomish County vote, and voter complaints about the Sequoia machines. For example, Snohomish County absentee voters favored Gregoire, but Rossi inexplicably won the poll vote by a heavy margin. Investigators heard complaints from numerous voters about Sequoia’s touch-screen machines changing their intended votes for Gregoire into votes for Rossi, raising strong suspicions the machines were tampered with.
For the Everett Herald’s news story about the lawsuit see http://www.heraldnet.com/stori.....ing001.cfm
For a copy of the lawsuit, see http://www.votersunite.org/info/lehtolawsuit.asp
Ass @ 23
I’ll admit to being a HorsesAss blogger, and I’ll even admit to being an ass sometimes, but it takes a Republican to be PROUD to be an ass! And then brag about it …
Chris @ 24
This “concern” of yours was absent while Rossi was ahead, and magically appeared out of nowhere only after he fell behind in the recount. You would be howling right now if Rossi was sitting in Olympia and Gregoire was suing to overturn a “messed up” election.
I doubt that marummy is a Karl Rove, not nearly bright enough or dirty enough, or Rossi would have “won”! Nah, she’s just a low-rent mouthpiece with a faceful of zits. But hey, if Josef loves her, I understand why he puts her up on a pedestal so to speak …
A much better local analogy to Karl Rove, in mentality and shady-ness, is Tom McCabe of the BIAW who is paying for Rossi’s election lawsuit with money from L & I taxes intended for injured workers.
The 93 or 94 ballots left in envelopes probably won’t change the result of the Governor’s race. But it shows how incompetent Dean Logan is and why he should be replaced.
In previous years, they would count the number of absentee ballot envelopes and count the number of ballots removed from them. If these didn’t match, they would check all of the empty (?) envelopes for missing inner ballot envelopes.
Dean Logan abolished this important checking procedure, so that absentee ballot processing could move along slightly faster.
And Dean Logan created a totally fictitious absentee ballot accounting reconciliation form. The form should have included an actual count of absentee ballots received, and then a breakdown of their disposition (i.e. counted, or rejected — with the reasons for rejection broken down by category).
Instead, Dean Logan simply added the number of absentee ballots counted to the number in each category that were rejected, in order to come up with a perfectly balanced figure of alleged “ballots received”.
This fabrication was exposed when the number of absentee ballots kept increasing — by 198 in the machine recount, by another 28 in the manual recount, and then 93 or 94 misplaced ballots being found.
We still have many hundreds more ballots counted than people casting them. Did King County screw up and fail to credit people who actually voted? Is that the reason why there is no record of Bryan Suits having voted? Maybe there is an empty envelope in there with Bryan Suits name and signature on it.
It is always possible that Dean Logan’s incompetence could actually cost Gregoire an election that she might have actually won. Let’s say that there are 873 absentee voters who actually voted and had their ballots counted, but King County Elections failed to credit them with voting for some reason.
Unless someone goes through 566,000 or so returned ballot envelopes, and makes sure that every single one of them is entered into the database (like it should have been in the first place), it will appear that 873 more absentee ballots were counted, than people who actually cast them.
If you do a proportional analysis on 873 phantom King County ballots, this easily exceeds Gregoire’s 129 vote victory margin. So the election gets thrown out, because Logan’s sloppy accounting work makes it appear that nearly 900 phantom absentee votes were counted.
WhyareyouPROUDtobeAnASS @all – Very Well Put.
Don – Your moniker sucks hard. It shows that you are only about being against something or someone, that you don’t actually stand for something. I thought you had more class than that.
And, for this thread, your discourse absolutely matches your callsign, at least the last half of it. It’s ok to admit you made a mistake regarding the Lt. It’s far worse to ignore that and keep throwing out insults. My .02.
Pppfffeeww,
We can all Relax.
Apparently this sitution has been dealt with.
Rob Mckenna announced the he thought someone outside of king county should take a look at this.
Fortunately though, Dean Logan (while on vacation) had conducted his own investigation and put 4 of his employees on paid administrative leave.
In an interview Earleir today, Our Govern is quated as saying “She finds no evidence of Fraud”.
Thank God, I feel like we can put this all behind us now.
So Zapporo, have you noticed when they have absolutely nothing to offer they invoke the name of that big, bad industrial sized meany, Karl Rove?
I suppose we could respond in kind about Paul Berendt…
but gosh I’d hate to make him cry… again.
Speaking of HRH Chrissy…
My son graduates from WSU May 7, with 2 degrees – one in Philosophy, one in Business Law.
I am officially thanking God he has decided to “walk” for his Philosophy degree rather than the B Law degree because WSU in all their typical liberal “wisdom” (see me roll my eyes) has scheduled HRH Chrissy to speak at the 3pm Commencement exercise. Interestingly, they billed her as “recently elected Governor”. Luckily (for them) Commencement is held before the May court date.
When my oldest graduated from WSU in 2002, our distinquished senator Cant-string together a coherent thought-well was the featured speaker.
B
O
R
I
N
G
Comment by Dubyasux— 4/8/05 @ 6:26 pm
I meant that as a strategist, not as a dirty trickster.
Marummy, in that case, is better than Rove. She knows better… remember the Faux Rathergate scandal that just concluded?
Comment by WhyareyouPROUDtobeAnASS?— 4/8/05 @ 6:57 pm
Sincerest congrats. But let me warn you that:
a) I am a scholar on leave from that institution
b) Tim Eyman/LIE-man graduated from that institution (YUCH!!)
I have no problems with the educations my sons got at WSU. Both of them came through the phiosophy department as conservatives and both were regarded well and treated fairly as long as they could back up their opinions, which is exactly the way a learning environment SHOULD be.
Well lets say ONLY 93 out of 1/2 a million murdered someone last year, fuck it then it isnt a large enough number to worry about, let them go, because everyone else handled themselves well.
Comment by WhyareyouPROUDtobeAnASS?— 4/8/05 @ 7:20 pm
Good to hear…
Don @ 28
I voted on a Sno Co touch screen, and will gladly testify that the “complaints from numerous voters about Sequoia’s touch-screen machines changing their intended votes for Gregoire into votes for Rossi” are 100% bogus. The machine images your completed ballot on the screen when you finish voting and you the voter either accept or edit. This claim is reminiscent of the Floridians hallucinagenically believing they had voted for Buchanan when they had intended to vote for Gore. This suit is just more BS.
Kudos to the first one of the regular HA lefties who is willing to admit that an outside investigation of King County elections is warranted.
The republicans continue to do or say anything to see their guy elected. Quite typical…
Josef @ 39
I was wondering what cow school bestowed Eyman on us. Thanks for letting me know!
The rightys seem very rattled tonight.
Hey Don, you don’t seem too anxious to defend the bogus Sno Co touch screen suit. Surprising since you’re the one who posted all the BS about it above in 28.
10 or 12 more times of finding extra ballots and perhaps one of the regular lefties just MIGHT think an investigation of the King County elections actions is warranted. remember: as good as in banking. a model election. and its only been 5 months. vacations come before balancing the number of voters and the votes. gotta have your priorities ya know. can’t expect the job to be done well for such a pittance.
zip @ 47
If it’s bogus, it’ll get thrown out on summary judgment — won’t it? Be patient, and you’ll find out soon enough.
Really, zip, how do you KNOW the Sno-county vote wasn’t gamed? There’s no way to know. It’s impossible for anyone except the vendor to verify the machines. That’s the point of the whole lawsuit — it violates the voters’ rights to an open and transparent election when the supplier could tamper with the software and no one would know. Why do you want elections held in this manner? Maybe Rossi benefited this time, maybe he didn’t, maybe it’ll be your candidate that gets gored next time. This lawsuit is the best thing that could happen to you as a voter. Let’s all agree on one thing, whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, we don’t want our votes going into a black box no one can see inside of.
Why@~ I don’t get it… you whine about how WSU is somehow liberal for having an attorney general/governor and yet you then go on to say how your sons were well treated at such a liberal institution. Or is it only liberal when they do something you don’t like?
D @ 46
Rattled? no, composed, confident, cool, pleased, proud, reassured, relaxed AND undaunted. the WSRP will win in court. this model election has become a bad publicity campaign for the democrats. It has gone on this long and ballots keep popping up. Julia Patterson-D, is even calling for an independent audit of the KC elections dept.
Don,
“Complaints from numerous voters about Sequoia’s touch-screen machines changing their intended votes for Gregoire into votes for Rossi” are just partisan lies encouraged by partisan lawyers. Why not let the professionals paid to investigate the machines do their job instead of grandstanding lawyers and lying partisan plaintiffs. My point is that this is a bogus lawsuit. The timing is a nice coincidence, isn’t it?
Care to state that the Sno Co machines are a greater concern than the King County Elections dept. “cultural problems” among the ballot handlers?
As good as banking, well I just saw a gentleman in a commercial for Band of America talking about what it took to get all the checks through his system correctly. It seems that he thinks it is a matter of making damn sure that one check makes it all the way through the system, and then repeating that millions of times. I doubt they would be content with finding checks months later that they had not processed. As good as a bank eh!!!
Once again I have to say! BULLSHIT
Goldy could not resist a little profanity and citing Jamieson’s ad-hominem attack piece as an authoratative defense just as I predicted.
If you read between the lines, you can see that Goldy and the rest of the “Model Election” contingent are worried.
It’s amazing how much in denial one has to be to honestly believe that the number of errors, miscounted provisionals, miscounted absentees, dead voters, felons, botched certification documents etc. won’t cast even a shadow of doubt over a 129 vote margin.
Fortunately people like Goldy write vulgar invective and people like Judge Bridges write important judicial decisions.
51:
It IS a liberal school – have you ever been in their “free speech as long as it’s not conservative and/or anti abortion free speech zone”?
Luckily though, it appears that the Philosophy department actually has some grown ups teaching in it.
Don @ 32
You need a lesson in taxes….
The BIAW is not funded by tax dollars. All the BIAW members are self insured thru the BIAW. No tax dollars are funneled thru BIAW. Funny how the BIAW runs a better system than the state does. (just another example of how fucked up our state government is. I mean if the state could do a better job there would be no need for the BIAW)
The new found ballots will give the republicans more ammo to use in court but it won’t really make any difference. They are still gonna lose. We shouldn’t be taking anyone out of office once thru a legal challenge of the election. Sets a bad example for the future. I can see that idiot Berendt with tears in his eyes challenging every fucking loss in the future. (Chrissy should have never been named governor in the first place)
dean Logan will be forced out of a job soon (Sims will have to relent on this one) you can’t keep finding votes (now 11 times since the first count) and not expect something bad to happen. Keeping him in place just means that Sims doesn’t care about the accuracy of the elections. I mean if the Wall Street journal is bitching about how we vote in this county……
And while we are at it. it seems that the demo’s aren’t really for “real” election reform. They blocked several amendments that would have prevented some of the problems that we had with this election.
to myself @ 4
November-April ballots found
11 different places
11 different times
So again, were the errors made in the wa. elections remarkable?
http://www.boston.com/news/pol.....ationwide/
Goldy–
Remember, Judge Bridges will look at the CUMMULATIVE IMPACT of ALL errors, negligence etc. CUMMULATIVE!
You LEFTISTS continue to try and isolate each individual incident (unsuccessfully, I might add) and say it douldn’t change the outcome.
Chardonnay is right..11 different times and places additional ballots were found.
Oh and don’t forget those provisional ballot affadavits that goofball Berendt brought in and attested to their validity. Berendt should be prosecuted if even one of them is fraudulent. Appears handwriting experts have confirmed that way more than a couple were forged. OUTRAGEOUS…but typical of LEFTIST ‘RATS like Berendt.
“This election is a model for the rest of the nation and the world at large”.
—Christine Gregoire
How did Gregoire know it was a model??\
Was it because Dean “Weird Al Yankovic lookalike” Logan said so????
idiot, go back to your vacation, end of story, YOU LOSE
Richard @33,
I’m not sure about the logistics or the costs, but I wouldn’t necessarily object to going back through all the empty envelopes and re-crediting voters. My guess is, that should clear up most of the discrepancy.
But regardless, I don’t think 873 or even 1000 ballots would be enough to convince a court to use a proportional analysis model, because of the huge margin of error such a model imposes on such a small sample. Indeed, a precinct level analysis is statistically pointless… how do you model a single ballot at a time? And despite Snarkansky’s out of hand ridicule, the Democrats have a strong case in arguing that demographic data should be applied to any statistical analysis of the disputed ballots.
I think a further problem with your 873 is that much of that number does not represent an actual disputed ballot, but rather the lack of evidence that there isn’t one.
Jeff B @55,
If you find my analysis so offensive and pointless, why do you bother reading it? And nice job of refuting my arguments… though.
Cynical @60,
Yes, Bridges will look at the cumulative impact of errors and illegal votes in terms of whether they actually changed the outcome. As to Chardonnay’s “11 times”…
Chardonnay @ 58,
And what’s your point? It’s not when the errors were discovered that matters, it’s when they occurred. And they all occurred at the same time… during the voting and canvassing process. Those 94 absentee ballots are 94 separate errors… regardless of whether they were discovered all at once or in batches. Your “11 times” fetish is a PR argument, not a legal one.
Don @ 50 you said – “Why do you want elections held in this manner? Maybe Rossi benefited this time, maybe he didn’t, maybe it’ll be your candidate that gets gored next time. This lawsuit is the best thing that could happen to you as a voter. Let’s all agree on one thing, whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, we don’t want our votes going into a black box no one can see inside of.”
Now I ask you: “Why do you want elections held in this manner? Maybe Gregoire benefited this time, maybe she didn’t, maybe it’ll be your candidate that gets gored next time. This lawsuit is the best thing that could happen to you as a voter. Let’s all agree on one thing, whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, we don’t want our votes going into a black box no one can see inside of, or handled by incompetent people that prevent us from having confidence in our election results.”
These are your words Don, now spin away….I am sure you don’t disagree with your own words. Oh, that’s right in my question to you Gegoire is in the benefiting position so you don’t think the same way. It is clear to us all, as it always has been, but you just verified it for us all, you are partisan to the bone. Doing the right thing is low on your list, making sure your canidate holds on to an office she may not have elected to is number 1.
DON, You STILL do not get it. General Patton needs to slap you again!!!
This just in:
After the 3rd ordered recount the new Pope will be Christene Gregoire. After all polls the voting cardinals all seemingly disagree but the previously dead and non cardinal votes threw her over the top. Christene says this papal election should be an example for all of Italy and the world at large! No comment as to whether she intends to hold the governorship and papal position at the same time, although she did say that due to the current legal challenges you cannot put all of your eggs in the same basket. It is rumored that she may choose her daughter who now manages a trailer park in Bucoda to fill in for her as governor while she secures the Italian position….
Mr Cyn @ 60
Welcome back! A breath of fresh air. Breath in, breath out.
11 times. Awe.
Goldy@62
whether they actually changed the outcome.>>>
Wrong Goldy, whether it apprears they COULD have changed the outcome
chardonnay @ 52
Well, YOU’RE cool and collected, because you’re too ignorant to know better.
zip @ 53
Sure sure, zip. Those people are all lying. Just keep telling yourself that.
Let me explain something. People go to a great deal of trouble and expense to become lawyers, and the fruit of their hard work and substantial investment in education — their license to practice law — can be taken away if they abuse it by filing frivolous lawsuits or false pleadings. In addition, under Civil Rule 11, a lawyer who files a baseless suit can be ordered by the court to reimburse the other parties for their litigation expenses, which in a case like this may run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In this case, not only the plaintiffs (one of whom, Paul Lehto, is himself a lawyer) but the attorney representing them, are all on the hook if this lawsuit is bullshit.
You can kid yourself all you want, but only the deliberately partisan blind will fail to realize there’s something to these charges, or this lawsuit never would have been filed.
Jeff B. @ 55
“If you read between the lines, you can see that Goldy and the rest of the ‘Model Election’ contingent are worried.”
How so, Jeff? The legal test is not whether this was a “model election” but whether the errors changed the result. Rossi has the burden of proof. It’s not enough to show there were mistakes. He has to show that he won.
Given that the 1,796 provisional ballots from Rossi counties that weren’t signature checked or verified far outnumber all of King County’s errors put together, what are his chances?
Don’t hold your breath.
11 times and counting. We still have most of April to go and most of May. Alot can happen in…6 weeks.
reggi @ 56
Well I’m glad to see at least one Republican recognizes that Rossi’s election contest is a bad precedent and detrimental to the election process. You’re right, if this election gets thrown out — especially on something as flimsy as proportional analysis — it will open the floodgates to challenges and no election will be final, and no office holder’s legitimacy will be free of doubt, until months or years later.
reggie @ 57 (continued)
We differ over what “reform” is. Hoot all you want about Democrats “blocking reform,” what was blocked were partisan-motivated schemes to suppress the Democratic vote. Republican “reforms” were partisan from the get-go.
Cynical @ 60
“Remember, Judge Bridges will look at the CUMMULATIVE IMPACT of ALL errors, negligence etc.”
Let us hope so, and that includes the errors in GOP counties, and the errors (and possible fraud in Snohomish County) that benefitted Rossi.
It’s only fair that whatever errors and illegal votes are found to have benefitted Gregoire should be offset by whatever errors and illegal votes are found to have benefitted Rossi.
But that’s not what the GOP lawyers want. Their game plan is to keep the evidence of errors and illegal votes that benefitted Rossi from being admitted into evidence, and steer Judge Bridges to a decision based only on evidence of errors and illegal votes that benefitted Gregoire.
That says worlds about what the GOP lawyers think of Rossi’s case.
Comment by Dubyasux— 4/9/05 @ 11:22 am
Yeah, well before we scream about fraud in Snohomish/Snoho County – let’s DEAN SCREAM about the fraudulent reports filed in King County Elections and by Dean Logan, whom continiously fails to admit there was fraud in the election.
FIRE DEAN LOGAN
Dubyasux,
Good point. The judge won’t be so partisan as to ignore the errors in Rossi counties. He’ll take those into consideration which will only add to the total number of illegal and improper votes and errors in this election.
Any one can see that the discrepancy in this election goes far beyond the margin of victory. It’s going to be thrown out on it’s face.
Any and all errors benefit neither the Republicans nor the Democrats. Instead, they benefit Washingtonions who wish to see an accurate election that assures them that indeed there was a determinable winner.
The only people that will lose when the election gets thrown out are those like Goldy who want this farce of an election to stand soley because the third recount ended.
Chris @ 63
“This lawsuit is the best thing that could happen to you as a voter.”
We agree on this. I think the lawsuit is a good thing because it will clear the air.
“Let’s all agree on one thing, whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, we don’t want our votes going into a black box no one can see inside of, or handled by incompetent people that prevent us from having confidence in our election results.”
No one is in favor of illegal voting or mistakes, Chris. The Democratic-controlled legislature is passing legislation to reduce illegal voting and mistakes in future elections. One of the things they’ve done is create a state-wide ineligible felon list. This didn’t exist last November, and it was confusion rather than deliberate fraud that accounts for most if not all of the illegal felon votes in that election. But we probably can’t completely eliminate illegal votes and errors because there is a human element in running elections, and humans are error-prone. That’s an immutable fact of life.
If the courts overturned elections simply of errors occurred, no election would ever be valid, because there will always be errors. That’s why the law requiring proof the errors actually changed the outcome is a practical necessity. It’s understandable the losers are pissed off by errors, but an election isn’t “American Idol” where the applause meter decides the winner. The outcome is necessarily based on the most accurate vote count within our means, not how angry some people get about the result.
But that’s only half the story. What you and other Republicans want is Gregoire’s removal from office and a new election, period, and Republians have pressed this demand without waiting to see the evidence or the court’s ruling. The Rossi camp and its lawyers have an agenda beyond determining if Rossi was robbed of an election he actually won. If they really wanted an honest outcome, they wouldn’t be cherry-picking errors from Democratic counties while ignoring errors in Rossi counties, nor would they be scheming to keep errors that benefitted Rossi out of evidence. The Rossi and GOP approach is to win by any means, to put Rossi in office and gain power, regardless of who actually won. Their emphasis is on gamesmanship, not truth.
Yes, the lawsuit is a good thing if it brings out the truth and silences the GOP propaganda machine. If the evidence proves Rossi won, and the judge awards the office to him, then so be it. If he got a majority of the legal votes, then he is my governor, even though I would rather have Gregoire in office. If the ruling goes the other way, then it is reasonable to expect you and the rest of the Republicans to accept that result and acknowledge Gregoire as the legitimate governor.
Char @ 66
Why don’t you ask Cynical for a date? I understand you’re currently without, who knows, maybe good things will happen for it. You two seem made for each other like two slugs in a garden.
Chuck 2 67
legal cite please?
Josef @ 75
I’ve met Dean Logan, and he impressed me as a nice guy. He was recruited from Reed’s office to run KC Elections because of his election expertise. But expertise is not nearly enough, and unfortunately Logan is not a strong manager nor savvy enough to walk through the minefield of a big-city elections department. KC Elections is a tough assignment because of the need for absolute accuracy and the fact the department is staffed with dozens of not-so-savvy temporary workers and thousands of volunteer poll workers. What’s needed is an expert head-cracker, who doesn’t necessarily have to know anything about elections, you can give him an assistant with the technical know-how. If I were Sims, I would hire a retired USMC colonel who would brook no errors, bust some heads open, and carry out what the staff expert says needs to be done. I agree Logan is in over his head. This is a job for a Norman Schwarzkopf type.
Jeff B. @ 76
You are mistaken if you think the judge will throw out the election if the number of questioned votes exceeds the margin of victory. The law clearly requires the judge to find, from factual evidence, the errors appear to have changed the outcome. There is still some question what the word “appears” means, but it certainly means, in some sense, grounded in proved fact.
When bridges gives rossi the boot in may, are you wacko repubs. going to dress in orange and bomb an abortion clinic?
don @ 80
is blaming the underlings really the right thing to do here? As county executive, Ron Sims is in charge and should stand up like a man and take the blame. So should Logan. Do you think it is honorable to blame a low level worker, suspend them for a few days, lift up the carpet, sweep and everything will be ok? That is just what Gregoire did when her office failed to file the report. Blame and fire an underling and say, everything is ok now. We are to sit back and accept that from these elected officials? Reverse the party affiliation here and say Gregoire had won twice and Rossi won the 3rd count. I know the left would be screaming and and the PI, Times and all the local TV stations would be 100% behind it.
How can you admit this is acceptable yet bitch about what Tom Delay in another thread?
Gwdummy hasnt taken the blame for even one of his fkups to date, and ALWAYS blames someone else.
RCW 29A.68.110
No election may be set aside on account of illegal votes, unless it appears that an amount of illegal votes has been given to the person whose right is being contested, that, if taken from that person, would reduce the number of the person’s legal votes below the number of votes given to some other person for the same office, after deducting therefrom the illegal votes that may be shown to have been given to the other person.
As I said “appears”
Chuck–
You are RIGHT as always.
Chardonnay–
It’s good to be back.
Zip–
Thank you for holding down the fort while I basked in the sun.
jpgee-
Get your hand off yer dick dude.
Don–
You are still a pathetic loser. But as a “compassionate conservative” I must reach out to you with compassion and understanding…so I rescind the “pathetic” part LOSER!
Dubyasux @81,
Uh, that’s obvious. What I’m saying is that everyone here is in denial if they don’t believe that the election was swayed by all of the improper votes. Once the judge digs in, he’s going to find that not only was the election most probably swayed by the improper votes in total, but that’s it’s really impossible which way it was swayed and what happened within the margin of error. Any counting process has an inherent margin of error and the thousands improper vote make it impossible to determine what happened within the margin of error for the November election.
That’s why people are upset that the election was certified, even while Logan’s office knew it did not have an accurate count in a very close election. And as for election reforms, if you think the Democrat controlled legislature is passing meaniningful reforms, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Many have written about an excellent compromise between the Republican knee jerk to stop idiots, uneducated, illegal aliens, double voters, etc. and the Democrat knee jerk to count every piece of paper that looks like a ballot regardless of where it came from. The solution is to be somewhat tolerant of voting on election day, but to make sure that the process of registration is iron clad secure. That way, if a voter even gets to the point of casting a vote, it will already be very positively established that they have the right to vote. Making registration much more secure will satisfy the Republican demands for a secure election, while allowing time for all of the idiots who find it difficult to register to get all of the authentication out of the way in advance of the election, so that wherever the winds of choice (or Democrat sponsored buses) may drive them on election day, they will have their precious right to cast a vote secured.
Democrats are probably opposed to this as well, because in general, Democrats are for State responsibility and Republicans are in general for personal responsibility. The essential position of most Democrats like Goldy is that if a voter forgets to register or improperly registers, and then shows up at their church on the Sunday before election and is convinced by the guest appearance of a Democrat in the pulpit to vote Democrat, that they ought to be able to make the last minute decision to vote. With a secure registration, that would be much harder, although still possible. It might create massive lines for the procrastinating Democrats. At some point, we’ve got to draw the line between security and convenience, that’s why making registration very secure makes sense.
I can’t wait to read all the flames back about why voting should be insecure and easy, etc.
Jeff B. you are part of the Republican knee-jerk. Most of the time you fling a few insults and then run back to momma’s skirts at (u)SP.
Your last comment is a little less cowardly but based on your posting record here, why should anyone bother with you?
Mr. C, welcome back; glad to see you liven things up around here.
Where’s Headless Lucy?
He said he rules this blog.
Chuck @ 85 and 86:
That is the relevant statute. I don’t see how anyone can say, based on that statute, that you just take the number of illegal ballots and if they are greater than the margin of victory, overturn the election. The judge has to somehow evaluate how many illegal votes each of the candidates got.
There are two uncertainties in that statute. Does the use of the word “appears” allow a proportional adjustment of each candidates votes in some manner? Second, what is an “illegal vote”? Certainly votes from felons without voting privileges, dead voters, double voters and non-citizens are “illegal”. But what about improperly processed provisionals? Most of the improperly processed provisionals that were later examined were confirmed to be from legitimate voters, so I don’t think the Court can consider those “illegal”.
I am sure Snark would consider his alleged “ballots without voters” as “illegal votes”. However, the challenger has the burden of proof, and given the fact that much or all of the discrepancy may very well be simple error by a worker to properly credit a voter. For example, much has been made of Lt. Brian Suits, who allegedly sent in his ballot but was not credited with voting. Snark assumes it was therefore not counted. It may be his ballot was counted but they failed to credit him. I suspect the judge will not accept these statistical arguments as illegal votes. If Rossi has to make his case with just felons, dead voters, etc. I don’t think he can win.
Even if we truly don’t know who actually got the most votes, that fact alone is not sufficient to overturn the election. Every voting system has a statistical margin of error that results from both the counting method used and the fact that people, who are imperfect, run the system. There are two options under such circumstances: either get the most accurate count we can and call it good, or just have a do over if it is still in the margin of error. I am not aware of any election system that uses the do-over method. Not surprisingly, Gregoire is not willing to be the first to do so, especially after Florida in 2000.
Comment by Dubyasux— 4/9/05 @ 12:24 pm
How about Bryan Suits of KVI?
You guys don’t have to deal w/ his evening blather and we get an A+ patriot to run King County Elections!
WATCH Channel Five @ 4:30 TODAY on BLOGS.
Diggindude@82:
“When bridges gives rossi the boot in may, are you wacko repubs. going to dress in orange and bomb an abortion clinic?” More like they will be wearing religious mourning gear, instead of orange, donning sackcloth and rubbing themselves with ashes to express their remorse
Chardonnay @83,
So if Sims and Logan should take the blame and step aside, then you are suggesting that President Bush should have taken full responsibility for the incredible intelligence failure that resulted in 9/11, and immediately resigned, right? Let’s be consistent here.
This question is so off topic, but here it goes…
Why do they print ballots in two different languages?
Isn’t english the language of this country?
How do these people “exist” here if they can’t read english?
Don’t you have to pass a citizenship test to vote?(i assumed it was in english)? Obviously not.
I can understand braille for the blind, but chinese on the ballots? Have we always been this accomodating???
Chrisn
Its your guy that wants to open the flood gate.
You want them here, then you dont want them voting?
Goldy@96
No Goldy you can blame your star child Clinton for the 9/11 mess, they tried to bring down the buildings on his watch, tried to sink the Cole, all the while he sat there with his head up his ass!
Diggindude@98
I think the ballots were in different languages before the Bushman came along.
Comment by Goldy— 4/10/05 @ 10:37 am
Yes, I would.
gwdummy has always favored illegals.
Ok nevermind….I just wanted an honest answer.
Diggindude @102…If they are illegal, how can they vote?
chuck @ 99
Wasn’t it a Cigar rather than his head?
I didn’t say they did, you did.
You shouldn’t talk about Stefan so much. Are you looking over your shoulder a bit? Why not just take the radio approach–those guys never talk about their competitors. They just focus on their own thing.
all-
What makes the bitching, whining, bickering and fingerpointing SOooo laughable in this entire debate are two simple facts:
a) if the other side lost in the same margin they’d be screaming just as loudly ( don’t you fucking DARE say you wouldn’t)
b) We go invade (thats what it was, look it up) another country and force our “superior” way!
Long live Jesusland (formerly the “United” States of America)
Goldy says “Sloppy work to be sure, but let’s have some perspective: that’s 93 out of over a half-million absentee ballots”–no, Goldy that’s 93 out of 129 vote lead–maybe that clears things up for you and puts it more in perspective. All of fraudoires claims that things were too close to call….until she got her wish, that is.
W @ 16===don’t look now, but your IQ is showing.
Damned Age @107–I see you are a christophobe. And a bigot, too. No hate crimes, please.