King County is still unable to provide conclusive information to validate their vote count.
The voter file, which I obtained earlier today, contains the names of only 895,660 voters recorded as voting on Nov. 2, a significant discrepancy from its hand recount certified total of 899,199.
The Elections Office informed me that they're still doing "quality control" and adding in the names of some of the absentee voters. Even that wouldn't explain the entire discrepancy, as there appear to be discrepancies with the polling place and provisional vote counts as well. I've asked the Elections Office for further clarification and will convey their explanation as soon as I recieve one.
UPDATE (January 3): [The latest damning revelations on King County Elections phoney-baloney "Enron Math" is here. The remainder of this post is already out of date.]
Also, they have not yet released the full precinct canvass for the manual recount, as they did for the first count and the machine recount.
Sec. of State Sam Reed is scheduled to certify the election tomorrow. I called his office and asked him to postpone certification until King County (indeed every county) can provide a list of voters that reconciles with the list of ballots tallied. His spokesperson explained that he is required by law to certify the election tomorrow and that it is only after certification that the election could be contested. I don't know enough law to dispute this, so I'll accept that as correct unless someone can argue otherwise.
The certification is a largely ceremonial and a way to bless the results. I strongly urge Secretary Reed to refrain from giving his blessing of confidence in the results. I call on him to instead use the opportunity to question the validity of what he is required by law to certify and to call for a new election.
I encourage everybody who reads this to contact Secretary Reed's office and to ask him to express his doubts about the results of this election and to call for a new election. 360-902-4151. Be courteous.
Also, call the Gregoire campaign and ask Christine Gregoire to face reality and recognize this is a tainted election with no ascertainable winner. Ask her to join most Washingtonians in demanding that this election be set aside and to have a new election. (206) 328-2969
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 29, 2004 01:46 PM | Email This3539 or die!
Posted by: bmvaughn on December 29, 2004 02:10 PMBy the way, I do database work all the time and can put some customized queries together rather quickly. Does anyone want to e-mail me a voter list or two? I’m busy with my day’s work right now, but I can find a minute or two to check e-mail. I know that once a list arrives, I won’t be able to control myself with analyzing it.
Thanks in advance!
Posted by: TADD on December 29, 2004 03:02 PMI just found this web page a few days ago, thank you for all of your hard work. Keep it up.
Thanks!
Posted by: Stay at Home Mom on December 29, 2004 03:05 PMgo stefan!
Posted by: dinesh on December 29, 2004 03:45 PMBrian
Posted by: BrianS on December 29, 2004 04:01 PMEveryone, please call and express your thoughts to Secretary Reed and the Rossi and Gregoire campaigns. If you feel that a new election is called for, express that. If you feel that he should not certify the election with so many outstanding issues, express that.
Get involved and thanks to Stefan for all your great work.
Posted by: Snake on December 29, 2004 04:10 PMThey’re closing soon. I’d email them all night long…..
Thanks for all you do Stefan. Please know that it is sincerely appreciated
It's really very obvious that this election should be recontested. At one point or another, almost everyone has claimed victory or a tie and that's over a total vote swing of only 390 votes during all three counts.
WSRP, if you are reading this, why not commission another Elway Poll that will shed some light on how many Washingtonions would like to see a recontest as of today.
Secondarily I asked that the Secretary be made aware that we all expect contestments, especially with the potential fraud in King County.
Posted by: Greg on December 29, 2004 04:20 PMInteresting....
Posted by: Ferrous on December 29, 2004 04:30 PMStefan - I can't tell you how much I have appreciated your efforts in exposing the stink behind the King County system - a very sincere thanks to you.
Posted by: Ed Luebben on December 29, 2004 04:32 PMStefan - I can't tell you how much I have appreciated your efforts in exposing the stink behind the King County system - a very sincere thanks to you.
Posted by: Ed Luebben on December 29, 2004 04:32 PMMy husband and I are fairly new to the election process-first and possibly last time voters. I have so many questions and no one seems to answer them.
I dont understand how Mr. Rossi can win twice and Gregoire win once-thus certifying her governor. I understand that is how the law reads-but I'm assuming it is for the purpose of a tie from the first two counts. I have emailed Sam Reed's office 3x-asking these questions and discussing my great disappointment with how this election has turned- no answer. I have emailed king county elections boards, my county legislative representatives twice with similar questions and disbelief in the system- no answer.
I have emailed Chris Vance and Mr. Rossi-with support-Chris Vance always answers!!! I have emailed Gregoire and the democratic party with complaints and told them that because of them, I no longer have faith in "the right to vote"- I may never vote again-and have them to thank for that. I challenged them to discuss how they are now going to "fix" the "billion dollar" deficit along with all of the additional money we-along with "her supporters"-are going to have to pay back (because of her "challenge") and how they feel about that.
I also told her, along with the democratic party, that should this appointment go thru and she truely become the "next governor" of this state-I will never address her as "my governor" and she better enjoy the next few years in her seat because she can kiss it-along with the rest of her political career- goodbye-for the people of washington will not support her after she has created such animosity-again no response.
I will continue to support this web site-enjoy reading comments- I will continue to support Mr. Rossi- I will also call these offices and continue to voice my concerns-but I really feel as though they go unheard.
-concerned pierce county resident
Posted by: darcy on December 29, 2004 04:36 PMthe gal is out for the week but I did ask if the military votes were counted, the gal did not know. I told her it would be fun to have that sign in my car window since ballots in other counties are not being counted. I was extremely polite, she had NO CLUE!
Posted by: CJ on December 29, 2004 04:36 PMbtw, today while I was in my car I heard on the radio-- as I'm sure many of you did -- the memorial for the our finest from WA who died in the Mosul attack. I'm not one for personal theatrics, but I was genuinely moved to tears, and I realized that if only for their sakes, this election MUST be contested. I was remined once again that our military servicepeople are quality individuals who do a fine job every day and deserve to know that back home THEY were honored by making sure that the results of this election were fair. As we all know, based on the 'smoke' that keeps billowing out of King county, they most certainly were not. Please, WSRP, do it for these guys. If only for them, it would be worth it.
Posted by: Michele on December 29, 2004 04:44 PMI wonder how many of the absentees also voted in person? This happened in Maryland, too!
Ron
Posted by: Ron on December 29, 2004 05:13 PMhttp://www.metrokc.gov/elections/2004nov/ballotsreceived.htm
Posted by: Ray on December 29, 2004 06:58 PMhttp://www.metrokc.gov/elections/2004nov/ballotsreceived.htm
Posted by: Ray on December 29, 2004 07:02 PMOct. 17, 2004
Safeguards in place for voters who receive duplicate ballots
Late last week, election officials learned some voters received duplicate ballots. Due to the ongoing surge in voter registration activity and the legal deadline to mail absentee ballots, some 3,500 King County voters may have received duplicate ballots at the same address. Those voters are advised to vote and return one ballot and discard the duplicates.
King County election officials want to reassure absentee voters of the safeguards in place to ensure their votes count and that only one ballot per voter is counted
The Secretary of State's site shows King County reporting turnout of 898,238 in the first count.
A question to all; The basis of a overturning this result rests squarely on the Republicans proving fraud or malfesance (ie proving intent to manipulate the result). Can anyone say that there is substantive proof at this time ? and if not, will there be proof in by January 12th ?
The bar is raised to a high level here. By my reading - 3539 more votes than voters in King County does not rise to the level of malfesance because this could not be proven as intent to manipulate the result, but it is likely the result of other malfesances - if they can be shown. The military vote issue may rise to that level to convince a court, if there are more than 129 documented instances throughout the state. Bottom line: This is what a court will be looking for and nothing short of it.
Face it; A revote will be a hard sell to a Democrat controlled legislature, unless the Republicans are willing to put up the $4.3 M cost for the revote, then perhaps that might fly.
Posted by: KS on December 30, 2004 09:34 AMIs anyone looking into the number of illegal immigrants who voted ?? This is highly likely with the extreme abuse of our motor voter laws.
Steve
Posted by: Steve Sparks on December 31, 2004 02:30 PMThose are Chinese characters and are translations.
Aaron in Taiwan
Posted by: Aaron on December 31, 2004 09:44 PMDino Rossi is D-O-N-E !!!
If you want his entire political career to end here and now, then go right ahead and continue to campaign with Dino's well-known slogan "don't count ALL the votes".
Anybody who passed 3rd grade math knows that the handling of minute numerical data being batted around now only by Rossi's shrinking number of supporters happens in EVERY election.
But only some can understand that to scrutinize the details hoping to shake 300 or 3000 votes out on your side doesn't work when you lose a state by upward of 115,000.
Rossi's game plan of "don't count anymore after I get ahead" shows his childish and selfish ways. Too bad he wasn't cerebral enough to think of counting a few more votes from his supporters who had every right to have their votes counted, but didn't have the mentality to follow simple registration and voting directions.
Now please, on behalf of all of us, tell Dino Rossi to roll over and die.
Posted by: King County is the only one that matters on January 1, 2005 01:00 PMOne person, one vote. Fail to respect that principle and we are no longer a democracy.
Posted by: TallDave on January 1, 2005 03:03 PMWe want to count only one vote per person, and we believe that we have an election that uses those time-honored rules, your candidate will lose.
Posted by: Bostonian on January 1, 2005 06:46 PMThey're gone? Good. Now listen up, you idiots who think you're about to pull off an "Orange Revolution" in Washington State with a petition-drive and a lot of hyperventilating on blogs:
Did the Ukranians sign a petition? No.
Allow me to clarify that" *Fuck* no, the Ukranians did NOT waste their time on worthless 'petitions', or zorching their eyeballs by sitting too close to cathode-ray tubes spleening at one-another.
Circulate your stupid petition, certifying that you're annoyed sheep too cowed for actual *action* -- and watch the government IGNORE your ass like it always does when it knows you're too lazy to do anything about it other than bitch.
Lazy dumbshits.
There should be TEN-THOUSAND of you surrounding the state capitol -- right *now*.
GET THE FUCK OVER THERE.
Posted by: Mike Schneider on January 1, 2005 11:37 PMThanks, Aaron in Taiwan.
The question I have is why are the headings of the report translated into Chinese and no other language? None of the other reports are translated at all. It remains a curiosity.
Ray
Posted by: Ray on January 4, 2005 10:25 AMThanks, Aaron in Taiwan.
The question I have is why are the headings of the report translated into Chinese and no other language? None of the other reports are translated at all. It remains a curiosity.
Ray
Posted by: Ray on January 4, 2005 10:25 AMWhat else can we do??? I'll watch this site for ideas.
Alberta