Whatcom County reported, adding slightly to Rossi's lead. I'll update the full fancy table later this evening. The punchline: I calculate that Ukraine County needs to add 125 votes to Gregoire's lead in order to reverse Rossi's double victory. The 573 mystery ballots that magically materialized in County Politburo Chairman Lavrenty Filipov's dacha, and that are curiously overweighted to Gregoire precincts could well do the trick.
UPDATE (2:45pm): Skagit is now in. 24 votes have vanished. Have 24 people been disenfranchised, or have 24 others been re-enfranchised? I can only hope it's the latter. Rossi's lead widens by +11. King's magic number is now 133.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 15, 2004 01:54 PM | Email ThisEnough of all this!
Posted by: tom on December 15, 2004 02:00 PMAm I correct in saying that King County did a partial hand recount in the second count? From that, she cut Rossi's lead by about 200?
But, now that everyone in the state is recounting by hand, is it safe to assume that Rossi will offset these votes? Therefore, Rossi would win by approximately 240, his original margin of victory?
Subtract 140 with the new ballots and Rossi wins by 100.
This is all very unscientific with rounded math, but is that a logical progression, or am I missing something?
Thanks
Posted by: scott on December 15, 2004 02:18 PM* How did it happen that King County discovered first 577, and then 22 more, ballots? Why were these ballots not discovered before?
* Regarding the 577 ballots, why did they not appear on King County’s initial list of ballots with signature problems? Why wasn’t it until recently that they showed up on King County’s list?
* Where have these ballots been since Election Day? Have they been in a secure location? Do we have a detailed chain-of-custody history for every single one of these ballots? If not, there is a possibility they’ve been tampered with.
* What is the nature of these ballots? How many ballots are from voters who did not sign their registration cards and who, therefore, are not properly registered? How many ballots were from voters who were properly registered but for whom the County could not locate a digital signature for comparison purposes? How many ballots were from voters for whom the County could not find any signature at all (either digital or paper) for comparison purposes? How many of the voters submitting these ballots were contacted by the County in an effort to secure a signature for comparison purposes? Are there other registration issues linked to these ballots? Are records available from other sources? Are there additional categories or types and how many ballots are there of each additional type?
Sue to win!
Posted by: tom on December 15, 2004 02:29 PMC'mon lefty trollers and lefty bloggers. Admit that this really stinks. Republicans are more than justified in asking why this is the case and asking for a custody trail and explanations.
If Democrats are really interested in the integrity of the process, they should be very open to verifying these ballots before any counting occurs.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 15, 2004 02:30 PMHence, lawyers and lawsuits are GOOD! Time to update the platform....
Posted by: tom on December 15, 2004 02:38 PMNet +11 for Rossi - now up 81 and 123
Posted by: Steve on December 15, 2004 02:44 PMWhen you post your new table, can you please start a new thread to go along with it? Just about every thread on here in the last few days already has 50 to 100 comments posted. Hope to see the new recount statistics table start off with a clean slate for new comments :)
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 15, 2004 02:55 PMWhat? You think anybody other than a tiny, tiny group of a few would think a run-off would be the way to resolve this after all that is being invested. Not going to happen.
Sue and appeal to the Supreme Court of the US? Why does everybody think a classic example of a state issue should go to the U.S. Supreme Court. This by it's very nature is a state issue and would only go there if somebody thought our state consitution was in violation of the federal constitution. Again, not going to happen.
....dang I love being a pundit.
Posted by: Matt on December 15, 2004 02:56 PMBy Christmasmas?
New Year's?
- a concerned non-WA resident
Posted by: Knemon on December 15, 2004 03:19 PM1) "Mined" the signature-mismatched King county
undervote by polling those voters before
selectively informing them of their status; and
2) "Mined" the no-signature King county
undervote by red-lining their search for
undervotes.
3)They, also, "mined" the undervote on election
day by "enhancing" ballots in Democratic-leaning
King County.
I say, it is time to meet fire with fire. I
suggest that Republican controlled counties
attempt to "mine" Republican votes by,
1) "Mining" the undervote of non-signed ballots
by cross-referencing the address to which the
ballot was mailed to the property tax rolls in
that jurisdiction!
That way, we selectively "mine" home-owners,
a heavily Republican subset of the undervote.
I project this policy could easily gain a
60-40 split outside of King County, and a
majority inside of King County.
I suggest paying hundreds, or thousands, of
dollars in property tax is a reasonable control
upon voter fraud, and every vote should be
counted, shouldn't it? If a person lives and
pay taxes at a certain address, and the
ballot was mailed to that address, it seems
highly unlikely vote fraud occured.
2) Personally calling the signiture-mismatched
voters in their counties, starting with the
most Republican precints just before the
deadline. If they fail to get to the
Democratic precints before the deadline,
too bad!
It appears to be the rules that any county can
amend its total at any point until December
23rd.
500 such votes should put this election out of
reach for the Democrats.
Phillips needs to be pressed on these issues!
Please don't gloss over this one.
My calculations are that Dino will gain more votes than you expect in the three remaining
counties, and Gregroire fewer votes in King
County. My case:
The undercount is primarily among the absentee
ballots. This is especially true of Snohomish
where the expected undervote among the electronic
machines is zero.
The counties have an urban center that is
surrounded by suburban and exurban areas.
The underclass is much less likely to vote by
mail. This is part due to the fact that
exurbanites often have to vote by mail since
they can't drive home from work in time to vote.
Thus, the vote-by-mail returns are skewed to Rossi. This trend was apperent in the vote
gains for Rossi in these counties after all the
precints reported. The difference between
vote-by-mail and in-person voting was less
apperent after the initial count because many
of the absentee votes were counted before the
precints reported.
Finally, the similiar trends will hold down
the Gregroire margins in heavily Democratic
precints in the Seattle area. Many of those
precints went heavily for Gregroire because they include large blocks of the underclass. But, the
middle-class in those precints voted by mail
more frequently. Gregroire's margin may very
well fall below 20%, and perhaps as little as
15%. [Note: this analysis would not hold true
for Eastern King county where the Democratic
base in not the underclass.]
Net, I consider the breakover point at about 160
votes before King County, [The only wild card
being whether the Democrats can find even more
ballots from the undervote on election day.]
with 150 possibly being a sufficient margin and
170 likely being a decisive margin.
I agree with the Supremes' decision to deny reconsidering ballots that have already been thrown out; but not counting ballots that were properly cast and screwed up by the county seems indefensible.
You all would be demanding that these votes be counted if you were in the D position; it's pretty damn hard to imagine you hewing to the same arguments if you flipped the sides in this situation.
Posted by: the_radish on December 15, 2004 05:52 PMbut I won't stop there....we need election reform in this state WORSE than we need some stinking monorail so we unimportant people can ride around in....
we must push for election reform when all is said and done....
Posted by: lee on December 15, 2004 05:52 PM1. Are we actually sure that all ballots in King county have been located? Are we randomly added in Democratic ballots only? Did some people hide 1,000 ballots and then just produce enough to seal the democratic victory.
2. I would not add these 595 ballots back unless a complete audit of all the operations of the King county office was undertaken. Putting these ballots back is like letting students grade their own tests. Ballots have been certified and accounted for twice. These ballots may have been unsecure and isolated for weeks.
I believe that any ballots not certified and counted twice, already, do not need to be added in. At some point ballots cannot be added in.
I had a problem with contacting people with problems with signatures on absentee ballots. Then soliders overseas get the same oppurnity?
Consider this. If the folks cleaning and checking machines toss any ballots from Republican areas? Who knows?
Posted by: ralph on December 15, 2004 06:13 PMI hope all citizens, regardless of party or desire, will see that democracy only works if these people who voted according to the rules have their vote count.
Posted by: rom on December 15, 2004 06:38 PMThe Rs have said "dont' change the rules" -- seems to me people who followed the rules should have their vote counted...doesn't that make sense? If not, than the Rs really mean "don't change the rules -- unless doing so helps us"...which is not something I think we mean by that.
Posted by: tom on December 15, 2004 07:03 PM1. Votes have been counted and verified twice in Washington. The recount process on calls for a recount and not a search and recover.
2. If tens, hundreds or thousands of ballots have been set aside for some reason at this point. I would be very reluctant to start randomly bringing ballots in to be counted. Say someone had marked ballots with reason #2 if they had such and such a zip code. Ballots with such and such zip code had been marked with #3. Then workers only retreive ballots marked with #2 and the others if those they are in the same catagory.
I have lost confidence in King County's ability to fairly deetermine all this.
3.
Posted by: Ralph on December 15, 2004 07:40 PMI guess they will vote and send to state tommorrow?
Posted by: Ralph on December 15, 2004 07:47 PMIt says that 316,943 ballots have been counted in the manual recount. However, the original count had 317,002 ballots and the machine recount had 317,011 ballots. Thus, it appears that somewhere around 59 to 68 ballots have been omitted from the manual recount.
Presumably, these are the ones that are close calls and need to be determined by the canvassing board.
This does not bode well for King County. Pierce County has only about 317,000 or so ballots, but managed to add at least 392 new votes to the manual recount -- a 0.13% tabulation error. This is after adding 514 new votes in the machine recoun -- 0.18% tabulation error.
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 15, 2004 08:12 PMOf course, something like this happened in 2000 and the Supreme Court of the US said "no more", election over, done with -- stop the counting!
I presume you would support this -- it's following the rules, to the tee.
Posted by: tom on December 15, 2004 08:51 PMYou wrote: "Zip: Yes. He followed the rules and voted. We might all want to change our vote after the fact...but that's against the rules. Responding to postcards, etc, though bad isn't part of the rule process, is it?"
Actually, if someone's signature doesn't match the one on file, or if they forgot to sign their ballot, or in some other way didn't "follow the rules," then responding to a post card or phone call to correct their error is ALSO "part of the rule process." If they choose not to avail themselves of the opportunity within the statutory timeframe, why should they be given another opportunity later? THAT is why there are complaints about "changing the rules."
Posted by: Patrick on December 15, 2004 10:21 PMbut already the "rules" have not been followed, have they?
we had King Co. Democrats hand counting votes with a special disposition from the friendly courts while no one else in the state had such a benefit..
we have military people absolutely denied their right to vote...intentional?...anyone's guess but after so many "mistakes" its curious to have all the "mistakes" help only one canidate...
we also have Democrats getting lists of voters who were rejected for one reason or another, and selectively getting their signatures and submitting them as a true vote....no witnesses, no verification, just handed them in....
but all along its been "count very vote"....what they really mean is "count only our votes"
you can't defend this....there is no excuse or any plausible explanation why thousands and thousands of ballots have been getting themselves "found"...
one other thing....the chain of command....how many of these so-called votes have been under a fair and unbiased chain of command....????
Let's hope that if this matter is not simply settled by Rossi winning (Gregoire promised to concede if she loses the manual recount, yeah right) that the whole election gets thrown out as Ralph Munro suggests.
Then we can hold it again, and there won't be any need for a recount as fed-up Washingtonions will speak with their votes to Gregoire loudly and clearly, WE DO NOT WANT YOU AS OUR GOVERNOR. Rossi landslide.
I have searched for this on the web, and haven't found much. The only clue is that the mailing of military and overseas absentee ballots was delayed considerably, due to lawsuits over who was going to appear on the general election ballot. The Libertarians sued to have Ruth Bennett and their Senate candidate put on the ballot, getting the 1% in the primary rule thrown out. There was also maybe some litigation over Ralph Nader.
As a result, King County apparently delayed the printing of these ballots until this litigation was decided. There was no legal justification for this delay, since federal law mandates timely sending out absentee ballots to military and overseas voters, and that takes precedence over state law. If Ruth Bennett was suing to be placed on the ballot at the time service members should have been sent their ballots, then King County (and other counties) should have sent ballots with just Gregoire and Rossi for Governor. After Bennett won her lawsuit, then King County should have sent these same military voters either amended ballots, or instructions to write in Ruth Bennett if they wanted to vote for her.
The State GOP definitely needs to sponsor litigation on behalf of military voters whose ballots were not counted due to the delay in sending out absentee ballots. In addition, this litigation should allow any service member who received their ballot after the election to cast a valid vote now and have it counted.
The federal law also allows the US Justice Dept to intervene when military are denied the right to vote due to state officials screwing up. John Ashcroft should also file a suit in the name of the US government to correct this problem.
There are 54,000 members of the regular US military who are legal residents of Washington -- nearly 4% of the 1.4 million people in the military, even though our state is only 2% of the nation's population. Probably at least half of these people are stationed in other states or in foreign countries. The number of military personnel denied their right to vote because of this could be very substantial.
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 16, 2004 12:38 AMThe real question is, "What precints are yet
to be recounted?"