Here are some interesting numbers to mull over:
Counties reported: 10, representing ~4% of the statewide vote
Rossi's lead over Gregoire in the counties that have reported: +683, or a margin of +0.6686%
Net new two-party votes since the machine recount: +57, an increase of 0.06%
In the remaining 29 counties, Gregoire led the machine recount by 640 votes, or a margin of 0.0242%.
In order for Gregoire to win (or tie), she would need to increase that lead of 640 votes to 683 votes, a 6.7% increase. Simply put, either she has to get the same 0.0242% margin on a 6.7% larger pool of votes than there were in the machine recount, or she needs to get a 6.7% larger margin on the same number of ballots. To grow the unrecounted pool by 6.7% requires another 178,000 ballots. That's a little optimistic, even for Paul Berendt, who thinks there are 15,000 valid ballots in the REJECT pile. The reporting counties only grew their pool of two-party ballots by 0.06%, which would translate into 1,475 such ballots from the remaining counties. The machine recount produced 2,300 new ballots in those counties, so you never know. In any event. It's still a small enough increase that she would still need to increase her margin by essentially the same 6.7% to 0.0258%.
Here's where we do some of the math that will only produce horselaughs from those who try to make statistical arguments without using any actual numbers or formulas.
Gregoire's lead in the 29 remaining counties in the first count was 0.0163%. If you look at her leads in the two counts: (0.0163%, 0.0242%) you can calculate sample mean, standard error and a t-statistic of 1.41. This tells us that there is slightly less than a 20% chance for the next count to give Gregoire a lead of 0.0258% or greater. i.e, based on the information we have available today, we can be 80% confident that Rossi will win the 3rd recount.
Of course, this number will be revised (and can change significantly) as new information becomes available. A Supreme Court order to change the way that the recount is conducted could change this number by quite a lot. In the meantime, if you are a Democrat who is contemplating a job in the Gregoire administration, but you have another job offer that you have to decide on by today, you might not want to forfeit a 100% sure thing for a 20% long shot.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 09, 2004 09:54 PM | Email ThisI just checked over at ManureCentral. Goldy's got quite a treatise there to convince himself that there is no way that Gregoire was the one who wrote that memo to Munro.
But that's the beauty of the memo, while there's no way to prove that it was Gregoire, there is also no way to prove that it was not Gregoire. Goldy writes a lot about whether or not Gregoire herself would have handled this or maybe it was an underling.... blah x 3.
The bottom line is that those at the top of credible organizations take responsibility for their collective actions whether they are aware of those actions or not.
So, in the eyes of the typical Washingtonion, the possibility that it was Gregoire, coupled with her denial is enough to at least raise suspicion.
For a candidate that is in "do anything mode" to win this election, and who happens to be on the same side as the those lawyers who realize that her only real hope is to litigate, the damage is done.
Good luck shoring up public opinion Christine.
Posted by: Jeff B on December 9, 2004 11:36 PMIf King County adds another 336 ballots on the manual count, this would be more than enough to overcome Rossi's 42 or so vote lead, since Gregoire is winning in King County by 58% to 40%.
On the other hand, if the extra 336 ballots resulted from some being run through the machine twice on the machine recount, this sort of error would be corrected on a manual recount. There will be stacks for each precinct, and probably they won't end up being counted twice.
So if 336 ballots disappear on the manual recount in King County due to this error being corrected, then that would result in somewhere around 60 net votes in Rossi's favor.
It would be nice to have a list of every single person in King County who voted on November 2, by precinct and type of ballot. Those numbers could be added up, and we would know whether extra ballots have been wrongfully inserted, or whether ballots might actually be missing.
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 9, 2004 11:47 PM 1st 2nd 3rd
Columbia 2,144 2,144 2,145 (+1)
Ferry 3,385 3,385 3,385
Garfield 1,331 1,331 1,331
Grays Har 28,256 28,256 28,256
Jefferson 18,772 18,772 18,772
Kitsap 119,458 119,459 119,443 (-15)
Lincoln 5,900 5,900 5,900
Mason 25,836 25,839 25,839
Pacific 10,620 10,621 10,621
Pend O. 6,262 6,114 6,268 (+6)
Skamania 5,193 5,193 5,193
Wahkiakum 2,255 2,255 2,255
King 898,238 898,574 xxxxxxx (+336)
The one that sticks out is Pend Oreille. Can that be right? The number of ballots counted from the machine recount to the manual recount changed by over 150 ballots. Kitsap lost 15 ballots?
Posted by: Marc on December 10, 2004 10:14 AMThe hanging chads will be in Rossi counties.
If the rules aren't changed,...
I want everyone here to listen this:Mark hulst
is still running for state chair.chris vance be
afraid be very afraid!!ladies and gentleman
last saturday night i had the good fortune of
attending the seattle republican women's christmas
party.Dino rossi was there and he and i had great
talk. for those you who have had the opportunity
to meet him he is real deal.
anyway during the course of conversation
mark hulst's name came up.Dino informed
me that mark infact was not going to run.
I thought if know dino would.so based
on that information i told a number of
people mark was not running.well i finally
got hold of mark and got the good news that
he still is.It seems what is going on here
is Mr vance told members of dino rossi's
staff that he was the only one running.
that everyone else dropped out.
for the record there are 3 people that are
also running.this should tell all of you what
kind of guy vance is. that he use dino rossi
to perputrate this nonsense says it all.
It appears on the machine recount that Pend Oreille did not actually report the physical number of ballots counted, but only the number of ballots which contained a vote for Governor (including write-ins). On the manual recount, this was corrected, and now includes all ballots (votes for candidates, votes for write-ins, blank votes, and overvotes).
Douglas and Whitman Counties committed the same error in reporting their machine count totals. Each county showed a loss of several hundred, but almost no change in the number of votes for each candidate. Again, undervotes and overvotes were omitted from the total ballots reported on the machine count.
The loss of 15 or 16 ballots in Kitsap County is interesting. No logical explanation, given that the first two counts, both by machine, were only one ballot difference: original 119,458; machine 119,459; manual 119,443
Maybe when you have a large county, with lots of precincts and ballots, you have to sort those all out by precinct -- which is a real pain for absentees and provisionals, which can come from all over the county. Kitsap County has 185 precincts, by far the largest of any county reporting so far. Maybe in this sorting process, ballots somehow get "lost". If the people involved are honest, then ballots could not get "created".
If ballots get "lost" in the sorting process due to county size, this bodes very well for Rossi. King County has many times more precincts than Kitsap: 2,616 versus 185. Also, most King County precincts are at consolidated polling locations, where ballots of several precincts went into one counting machine, and now have to be sorted. Kitsap County has larger precincts, both geographically and by number of voters, and probably most polling locations had only a single precinct, and those poll ballots did not need to be sorted.
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 10, 2004 11:04 AM
I voted in the Nov. 2 election. My vote was included in neither the first count nor the second. The Seattle Times now argues that my vote should not be included in the manual recount.
I am a registered permanent absentee voter in Whatcom County. Prior to the election, I lost my absentee ballot. Therefore, I voted at my precinct on Election Day. Because my name appeared on the list of absentee voters, I was required to vote a provisional ballot.
My provisional ballot was incorrectly mailed from Whatcom County to King County, where I was formerly registered to vote. There, my ballot was rejected because my King County registration was canceled when I moved to Whatcom County. I would like my ballot to be returned to Whatcom County for inclusion in the manual recount. Sam Reed, our secretary of state, has ordered that previously rejected votes such as mine are not to be considered in the manual recount.
Anyone who believes in democracy should agree that votes like mine need to be counted in order to determine the true outcome of the election. The Seattle Times editorial page argues that I should remain disenfranchised in the interest of convenience. I beg to differ.
Now why should his vote be disallowed because of the fault of the county?
He pointed out this is the closest governor's race in US history in percentage terms; only one 1839 race in Massachusetts was closer in numerical terms was closer.
He thinks that the Democrats will lose the suit before the Supreme Court next week because the canvassing boards and county auditors do a good job and there should is no reason to reopen the consideration of ballots.
As far as the charge that Gregoire was involved in an opinion in 1996 that she's now opposing: the Secy of State's office issued an opinion in 1990 when there was a close race that new votes cannot be considered in recounts. That opinion was reissued in 1996 when there was another close race. It's standard practice that the Secy of State's office would discuss that with the Asst. Atty General. It's likely Gregoire was personally uninvolved.
He expects the losing party will resort to litigation, which he feels is unfortunate since Washington has one of the best systems in the nation.
Posted by: Terry Mueller on December 10, 2004 11:36 AMSo far they have counted roughly 250,000 votes and there has been a net shift of 18 votes (Rossi has gained 18 overall).
That is a shift of roughly .0072%
There are roughly 750,000 votes in King County, a similar shift of .0072% would be 54 votes net.
Assuming that shift is for Gregoire, it could make the race tight. Admittedly right now Rossi would still win (42 votes + 18 votes - 54 votes is a 6 vote lead). But is it really 80% for Rossi at this point ?
Just wondering
Posted by: Pat on December 10, 2004 11:41 AMBesides, I just don't cotton to folks who can't be bothered to capitalize or put at least one space after a period.
It really biases me against your horses--which could be good folks.
Shabby man, shabby.
Posted by: Matt on December 10, 2004 12:00 PM my apologies for the way it was written.
I got little to carried away and left a
few words out.
I will not take back what I said.
my reason for puting it in this forum
was and is because chris vance posted
here.I don't like it when dino is
used this way.I also take exception
when things are being said about
other people for no other reason
than political gain. I called someone
on it everytime I see it happen.
I personally welcome Chris Vance here as well, and I was glad to get an email directly from him when I contacted him to see if they needed King County observers. Both were good personal efforts to represent us. When I emailed Paul, one of his VERY liberal and angry assistants replied back.
As for the guy who voted by provisional legitimately in Whatcom, for every one of those, there's a lot more that can abuse the system. I don't think anyone here advocates taking away his vote. But he's the exception, and if giving him his vote results in 200 duplicate votes from illegal voters, that's not what should be done. I too would love to see the list of every voter published. If Christine somehow pulls this off, and that list shows a few hundred illegal provisionals from King, I'd consider that the best reason as I've seen to recall her (and I've seen lots of reasons so far).
Posted by: Chris on December 10, 2004 01:01 PMSo then the question becomes, how do we correct problems like these without getting into that legal recanvassing issue?
Posted by: DustinJames on December 10, 2004 01:42 PMThe fake ideal that every piece of paper must be flawlessly handled, no mater how screwed up by the would-be voter, doesn't fit the real world and can't be expected to be honored as an excuse to stop the whole works until the confusion gets smoothed out. Almost perfect (the current system) is good enough in human terms, and those precinct workers deserve our thanks and confidence.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on December 10, 2004 05:58 PMDid you take the time to read his letter before hitting the reply button?
You said:
And the "registered permanent absentee" could do the body politic a great favor by showing up at the poll and voting with a real ballot...
He said:
I lost my absentee ballot. Therefore, I voted at my precinct on Election Day. Because my name appeared on the list of absentee voters, I was required to vote a provisional ballot.
You said:
...thereby saving the post office and two counties worth of precinct workers untold work to fix his own careless mistake.
He said:
My provisional ballot was incorrectly mailed from Whatcom County to King County, where I was formerly registered to vote. There, my ballot was rejected because my King County registration was canceled when I moved to Whatcom County.
The provisional ballot was mailed by the pollworkers, not the voter.
Every legal vote not counted really isn't all a big democratic conspiracy, no matter how much you'd like to make it so...
Note that the voter does not say exactly how he voted, either for Dino, Chris, Ruth, or someone else...
So back to the question, how does this voter get his vote counted if recanvassing can't be allowed to happen, as supported by the pubs in their brief?
Posted by: DustinJames on December 10, 2004 07:03 PMI remember asking one of my professors (someone
actually relatively famous in the field) about how
well a certain theory worked in the real world. He
replied (getting a good laugh from the class) "don't
give me any of that 'real world' s***."
The outcome depends on the ability of partisans in
King county to manufacture new votes. Period.
Agreed! However, some of them will also be imprisoned in the next 18 to 24 months. (Guaranteed)! That MAY change a few crooks minds. They are being watched closely.
Posted by: leaddog2 on December 10, 2004 11:54 PM