Happy New Year to one and all!
Just want to let long-term readers know that Washington's "generally well-conducted laughingstock election" is getting a lot more national attention, especially Shark's discovery of the King County ballot total/ registered voter total discrepancy.
Stefan has created a lot of momentum and many non-Washington weblogs are directing readers to SoundPolitics: Little Green Footballs, NRO's The Corner, PowerLine, PoliPundit, The Volokh Conspiracy, Michelle Malkin, and as Jim discusses below, RealClear Politics.
So be encouraged. The major media may be letting us down, but the blogosphere is picking up the slack.
And more: Silent Running and Captain's Quarters, too.
Posted by Brian Crouch at January 01, 2005 09:49 AM | Email This
Folks,
The following is from Cris Shardelman and she is asking for some help.
I am also including a couple other articles from Washington area papers FYI.
Plain and simple - until the LAW is obeyed and rules are not made up or changed when it suits someone - we will not have honest elections. WE must force compliance with the LAW and not the OPINION of someone who thinks they are above the law.
Note to The Bat Girl - winning one out of three is NOT A MANDATE OR A LANDSLIDE or even a *WIN*. Close only counts in Horseshoes and you have not gotten a *ringer*
Jackie Juntti
WGEN idzrus@earthlink.net
Urgent: Note violation of Article 6 Section 1A
To: Secretary of State Sam Reed
From: Cris Shardelman
Dear Secretary Reed:
The Constitution Article 6, Section 1A is very clear that the homeless had no right to vote on any candidacy other than the President and Vice-President during this disputed election. I spoke with one of the poll workers in Spokane last night, and she stated Spokane had provisional ballots which followed Article 6(1). If any of the homeless in King County who used the Courthouse or any other false address for their residence, their ballots were unconstitutional, and all involved should be prosecuted, as well as anyone else who "acknowledges" those votes. Art.1A is very clear that the place for voting is only for the ballot, not the residence. WACs that oppose that provision are not valid! It was put in place to allow Presidential elections, but to disallow those who pay no taxes to vote 20- year bonds on those who do. Further, those who are allowed to vote by absentee in the other races is clear in Art. 6(4). The homeless do not qualify.
Article 1A: Voter Qualifications for Presidential Elections: In consideration of those citizens of the United States who become residents of the state of Washington during the year of a presidential election with the intention of making this state their permanent residence, this Section is for the purpose of authorizing such persons who can meet all qualifications for voting as set forth in Section 1 of this article, except for residence, to vote for presidential electors or for the office of President and Vice-President of the United States, as the case may be, BUT NO OTHER, Provided, That such persons have resided in the state at least sixty days immediately preceding the presidential election concerned. The legislature shall establish the time, manner and place for such person to cast such presidential ballots.
I respectfully request an answer
Cris Shardelman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cris Shardelman at cris@donobi.net wrote:
Letters Editor:
This Governor race fiasco emphasizes why Washington must stop using unconstitutional statutes and Washington Administrative Codes. We must return to Constitution Article 6 Election Laws.
Section 1 voters must be 18 years old, United States Citizens, and have lived in the state, county, and precinct 30 days immediately preceding the election. Those not meeting the residency requirement fall under Section 1A:
"Voter Qualifications for Presidential Elections. In consideration of those citizens of the United States who become residents of the state of Washington during the year of a presidential election with the intention of making this state their permanent residence, this Section is for the purpose of authorizing such persons who meet all qualifications for voting as set forth in Section 1 of this article, except for residence, to vote for presidential electors or for the office of President and Vice-President of the United States, as the case may be, but no other; Provided, That such persons have resided in the state at least sixty days immediately preceding the presidential election concerned. The legislature shall establish the time, manner and place for such person to cast such presidential ballots."
The homeless should have received special presidential ballots. This prevents those who pay no taxes from enacting 20-year bonds on others. The legislature was to establish the place to vote, not provide residences in the courthouse.
Section 4 reserved the absentee ballots for those in civil or military service of the state or the United States, students at any institution of learning, those kept at public expense at any poor house or other asylum, while confined to public prison (not infamous crimes) and those engaged in navigation of the seas.
Prior to the 1967 adoption of the scandalous punchcard voting, everyone else voted at the local precinct, according to Section 6: "All elections shall be by ballot. The legislature shall provide for such method of voting as will secure to every elector absolute secrecy in preparing and depositing his ballot."
When the voter went to the precinct polls, he signed for his ballot, voted in secret, and deposited the ballot in the box which never left the precinct until tallied. There were Democrats and Republicans counting, with observers present. If a voter needed another ballot, it was accounted for. Now our ballots are taken to the courthouse to be counted. Evidence the “found” and “lost” ballots of this election.
Mail voting removes accounting for every ballot. Voters aren’t visible when receiving the ballot. Voters may be vacationing, decide not to vote, or the ballots stolen from mailboxes. Voters have mailed, not deposited their ballots. Nor is secrecy secured since the ballot can be visible to others. Votes can be influenced by others or bought because others can watch and deposit the ballot for voters.
No businessman would allow a courier to take his money to the bank without accountability. Our votes must have Constitutional accountability. This election proved ignoring the Constitution gave us neither “convenience” nor “cost effectiveness”.
Cris Shardelman
#################################################################################
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/205764_messyed.html
Thursday, December 30, 2004
We are not alone
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
On the TV comedy "3rd Rock from the Sun," a character from another planet asks: "What's the point of having a democracy if everybody's going to vote wrong?"
Or half-wrong, as is the case in a close election.
Perhaps it's science fiction to suggest we are not alone.
The Montana Supreme Court resolved an election dispute for a state House race after the first count showed the people's vote tied. The court tossed out "one or more" disputed ballots, giving the Democrat the win. This resulted in a 50-50 party tie in the Legislature. Under state law, that will give control of the Legislature to the Democrats. (The House member promises to introduce a bill requiring hand recounts next time.)
In Puerto Rico, the next governor finally won his job after two months of recounts and legal disputes.
Yesterday the North Carolina Board of Elections ordered a new statewide election for the hotly contested agriculture commissioner race. This came about because one county's voting machine eliminated 4,438 votes when the difference between the winning candidate and the challenger was only 2,287 votes.
The list goes on: Ohio's presidential recount is complete, but questions continue about the role of a partisan secretary of state. That election is under litigation, too. But the secretary -- backed by a state attorney -- has refused to testify about how the election was run.
What's the point of having a democracy when it's all so messy? Just that: The messy nature of democracy is the natural counterweight to order or in other words, authoritarian rule.
While a new election would be desirable in producing a clean reult, contesting of the election will reveal the true nature of the mess in King County and also shorten the process by throwing out the manual recount and re-certifying the results for the first machine recount. All in all, a much better way for things to work out. Tis said, "The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Stephan, thank you for your dedicated efforts to do the investigative work needed to make the contesting of the election both evident and, I believe, readily achievable. Regards, RLG
Posted by: RLG on January 1, 2005 10:20 AMPREDICTIONS--
1) The Washington Dems should have heeded that advice starting with Mr. Berendt who tearfully brought in those 400+ affadavits on provisional ballots attesting to their validity. Paul, you should have personally validated all of them BEFORE you delivered them dude.
2) In a smelly situation like this where the actions are bad enough, it's the cover-up that ends up making it even worse. Rossi extended the olive branch...and the Dems (stupidly & aggressively) threw it at him.
I have been personally involved in this fiasco for some time now. I can assure you it's even worse than you all have imagined. Stefan is truly amazing. What Stefan is doing here is fundamental analysis and accountability. Something voters should expect from their Party's and elected officials. Stefan has stepped up to fill the gap.
Folks, you have only heard a fraction. Stefan does have King Co. cornered...they have given him a list that he will reconcile to future lists identifying the "updates, as Goldy calls them" that have been made. Keep in mind that BIAW made a records request back on 12/3. That was the date KingCo knew they had to admit errors...or try to sweep them under the rug. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what changes were made to the KingCo voter registration database from the date of BIAW's request 12/3 to the data of Stefan's report weeks later????????
Doesn't KingCo have "back-ups" of their voter registration database and save those backups on a monthly, weekly or daily base. All it takes is a couple CD's! What, they don't have them? Did they ever? Why not? How can voters know what "updates" have been made after election day???
Yes, they finally have replaced the systems with optical readers, etc. but that does not mean that the King County Department of Elections is free from problems. By building a better mousetrap we have only built a more clever mouse.
If the GOP had taken this problem on a few years ago when they had the chance, it would not have happened now. While I do not blame the GOP directly, you must realize that they had a lot of chances in the past to fix this BEFORE it happened.
I now have absolutely no confidence in the Washington State election process. I feel that my vote has been stolen with the absolute corruptness of the King County management, going up to the people who appointed the head of the King County Department of Elections.
Posted by: Keith on January 1, 2005 12:43 PMAll of your arguments about this election, were used to describe the 2000 florida presidental election. The Democrats came up with the exact same arguments you all are coming up with now.
And this is what the republicans told those Democrats back then:
GET OVER IT.... MOVE ON.
So, since now you attempt to use the same arguments to say that the Washington State Governors race is faulty... I say this as well:
Get Over It..... Move On.
Posted by: Magnum Serpentine on January 1, 2005 01:31 PMMark, go to the following website, where King County's official manual recount results are posted:
http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/2004recount/results2.htm
You will see that there are 1,363 write-ins, 21,297 undervotes, and 87 overvotes. When added to the numbers for the three ballot candidates, it matches the total of 899,199 ballots counted.
The problem is that only 895,660 people actually voted in King County. There are 3,539 more ballots than people.
It is even worse than that. In 684 precincts, there are actually 1,512 more people voting than ballots counted. In other precincts, there are 5,051 more ballots counted than people voting.
So 3,539 is just a net figure for the discrepancies. The true figure for discrepancies would be the sum of 5,051 and 1,512, which is 6,563.
Posted by: Richard Pope on January 1, 2005 02:04 PMI learned from a trackback on one of my posts about this post you might want to note: http://theanchoress.blogspot.com/2005/01/and-supposedly-nothing-can-be-done.html.
I received an email a little bit ago from a friend saying some of Kerry's campaign money was transferred (given? loaned?) to the Gregoire campaign and questioning the legality of doing that. Is that something you've mentioned and I missed? (I've emailed my friend asking for a link to back up what she said. I'll send it to you if she has one.)
Posted by: Bill Faith on January 1, 2005 02:08 PMBack in 2000, the Democrats in Florida never raised any issues concerning whether or not the number of ballot counted corresponded with the number of people actually voting. All of the concerns in 2000 related to how the ballots would be counted -- hanging chads, dimpled chads, voting for two candidates by mistake, etc.
It would be interesting to see if the number of ballots and voters in 2000 Florida matched by precinct and county. Of course, in a lot of states, making this reconciliation is required as part of the canvassing, counting, and certification process.
Posted by: Richard Pope on January 1, 2005 02:15 PMAs I've said elsewhere, if Rossi and Vance have evidence of fraud, let them file a formal challenge where the merits can be openly evaluated and proper responses can be made. Let them subpeona records if they think state officials aren't forthcoming. If you have evidence of specific acts of fraud, haul the miscreants into court and make them face the music. Maybe they are avoiding that because they have nothing that will withstand close scrutiny. But, I could be wrong. We'll see in the next few days if there's anything behind this huffing and puffing.
I just think it's strange that your guy hasn't taken this step.
Posted by: scottd on January 1, 2005 03:28 PMAs I've said elsewhere, if Rossi and Vance have evidence of fraud, let them file a formal challenge.... We'll see in the next few days if there's anything behind this huffing and puffing.
I just think it's strange that your guy hasn't taken this step.
Look at a calendar. A lawsuit to contest the election couldn't be filed before the results were certified by Reed after the second recount. Also, a lawsuit would need to be based on evidence from things such as the voting records -- and the apparently erroneous records of King County aren't yet available.
If you think it's strange that a contest of this election hasn't yet been filed, then you have a peculiar idea of how things should work.
You should have stopped typing after "...if there's anything behind this huffing and puffing." Up to that point, you showed an understanding of the situation.
Do you reconcile your checkbook? I've met people that merely write the total from the bank statement into there checkbook and wonder why they always get overdraft charges!!!! I can't wait to see the KingCo reconciliation. Hopefully Logan and staff will be forthcoming if they have screwed up because the R's won't just take his word for anything...ever again.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on January 1, 2005 03:58 PMIn my search for information on the usage of King County's admin address for voter registration...I found pages and pages in google of blogs and forums devoted to exactly what we are doing here! Every single forum and blog I found is against Gregoire's illegitimate win in Washington state!
Google search using the words *King County Fraud*...(skip the first page as it will contain King County fraud department phone numbers...sigh...etc.).Go onto to pages 2 and beyond and it is amazing! We are indeed NOT the only group devoting their time and energy sleuthing this election mess! (Though, of course, I believe Stefan's work is unique - and the best!)
No wonder the Dems are getting squirrely! Their wagons are surrounded....THEY HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED THIS! An actual challenge to their madness! Expect them to troll into this and other blogs more often over the next week - as they fish for information...
As Margaret Thatcher once said...."This is no time to go wobbly" .....
Posted by: Deborah on January 2, 2005 01:26 AM