1. Does anyone know who her ballot was cast for?

In either case it would be a cause for fraud, I just hope it wasn't something her widower husband may have filled out.

Posted by: Cascadekid on January 5, 2005 12:00 PM

2. Seems most likely that it was her Republican hubby, who cast her vote. It would have been sent to thier address, after all. looks like you folks have done gone a proven fraud for Rossi.

Posted by: John on January 5, 2005 12:03 PM

3. I'm impressed with how quickly "most likely" went to "proven" in John's comment. That's really remarkable.

Posted by: Timothy on January 5, 2005 12:05 PM

4. The ratifaction vote will go along party lines. From what Ive heard the majority leader threatens fellow liberals when they cross party lines.

There has been enough fraud exposed in KC alone to question all elections within (aka Monorail, 695, etc).

Does this constitute enough malfesence to recall Sam Reed?

Posted by: nulled Voter on January 5, 2005 12:06 PM

5. John,
You assume that the husband is also an active Republican. He may well be neither.

Posted by: Snowy Owl on January 5, 2005 12:09 PM

6. John:

And your reasoning for this is what? Because she's described as a Republican, her husband must've voted for her? Where's the logic?

And even if he did, so what, it's still voter fraud and he should be prosecuted. I have no tolerance for this. I can understand that a spouse might say, well, she would have voted for so and so anyway so I might as well do it for them. Problem...it's still illegal.

Whoever was responsible, the fact is that a dead woman's vote was counted and shouldn't have been.

Posted by: megs on January 5, 2005 12:10 PM

7. It doesn't matter who the fraud helped unless you can prove that the candidate or the party assisted or asked the voter to commit fraud. It only matters that there is fraud and enough of it to potentially change the outcome of the election. 130 cases of fraud are enough because at this point you cannot prove who someone voted for.

Like Stefan asked: why did King County send her an absentee ballot NINE months after her death (may she RIP)? THAT'S the real fraud!!

Posted by: Scott in Carnation on January 5, 2005 12:12 PM

8. You say the "ballot was cast".

Was it counted or thrown out? You don't indicate that.

Posted by: Daniel K on January 5, 2005 12:13 PM

9. John,
From the point of view of the voters, what matters that the county election officials, on whom the voters rely, did not do their job as required by law.

Is this difficult to understand?

If the election officials do not take steps to catch voter fraud, then pretty much anyone can do anything.

Posted by: Bostonian on January 5, 2005 12:14 PM

10. Keep in mind people: we have no evidence whatsoever that it was her husband who cast the absentee ballot, let alone that it was cast for Rossi. That's the most likely, but by no means the only thing that could have transpired. Her ballot could have been intercepted in the mail by someone waiting for it, knowing she had passed away. Someone could have filed a change of address for her and recieved the ballot somewhere else. The husband could have given it to a friend or family member - that makes him a co-conspirator, but not the perpetrator.

Think, before you just string this guy up. We don't need a lynching party, we need prosecution in a court of law.

Posted by: Scott in Carnation on January 5, 2005 12:20 PM

11. Also, was it not mailed out and then cast?

Posted by: Susu on January 5, 2005 12:21 PM

12. "From the point of view of the voters, what matters that the county election officials, on whom the voters rely, did not do their job as required by law."

How can you be so sure the election officials are to blame for mailing the ballot to the (deceased voter)? It would seem to me that the department that is responsible for maintaining death certificates could be at fault for not getting their own records updated in a timely fashion, or for not having their records transmitted to the elections department in a timely fashion.

And, again, regardless of whether the ballot was mailed to the (deceased) voter, you have to also know if the ballot was counted as valid, or rejected as invalid.

Then if it was still counted, the question again remains whether that was done because election department records did not have the information about her death, and if so what was the cause for the delay in updating that information.

Clerical errors, or database reconciliation and information transfers in government are certainly more likely possibilities than purposeful fraud.

Posted by: Daniel K on January 5, 2005 12:26 PM

13. Fraud is criminal, no matter whether it was an attempt to help the eventual victor or the eventual loser.

To ignore fraud on the part of gov't officials should be criminal as well.

To say that Rs are only unhappy with the "results" is, in CGs words, "ludicrous". If the final hand could had put Rossi ahead by only 2 votes, they would be doing the same mining, only it would be in red counties instead of KC. Just because the losing party is the only one with any motivation to really dig for problems doesn't give the current ruling party a free pass to ignore what gets turned up. Regardless of who it favors, the problems with the election need to be thouroughly investigated and reconciled. Without a complete INDEPENDENT investigation of the election, there is no hope of restoring voter confidence in the state of WA.

BWT, "independent" doesn't necessarily mean "federal", but it may have to...

Posted by: Koeppel on January 5, 2005 12:27 PM

14. It could have also been that the ballot was cast out by the owner, retained by someone else ( a relative? a friend? a caregiver?) and slipped into the ballot box at one of the precincts that allowed people to place their provisional ballot in the ballot box while no one was watching...the problem is that we will never know and that is the issue at hand. When the margin of victory is so small it does not take much for fraudulent ballots to really count.

Posted by: Cliff on January 5, 2005 12:31 PM

15. As I mentioned before, we received at our address an absentee ballot, from KC for the general election, for the deceased (5 years!!) previous owner of our home. Even after we notified the county and sent back the ballot (with 'deceased' written on the envelope), she is STILL registered as an 'inactive' voter (thanks Stefan).

People, this is indicative of systemic mismanagement of our voter rolls. If KC elections cannot be bothered to clear dead folks off the lists, why should we expect them to properly and diligently manage the handling of provisional balotts? Furthermore, wasn't this all supposed to be cleaned up after '98, or 2000?

Posted by: Shaun on January 5, 2005 12:32 PM

16. John: "looks like you folks have done gone a proven fraud for Rossi."

Hyuk, hyuk! That's pretty funny! You caught us blowing the whistle on fraud without regard to whom the fraud benefits. Democrats would sure never do anything like that!

Posted by: ScottM on January 5, 2005 12:34 PM

17. Daniel K: iIf the ballot was cast, the person casting it is guilty of election fraud because the only person who could legally cast that ballot was Anne M Witte. Stefan says that according to the (incomplete) records King County has so graciously let out so far, she was recorded as having voted. I assume that means her ballot was accepted and that means that King County was in error in having accepted it. If you want to dig deeper and find out why King County Elections did not know she was deceased, fine. The more heads that roll over this, the better!

Posted by: Scott in Carnation on January 5, 2005 12:34 PM

18. Has anyone tried to find a death record at http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/ ? I can't find anything on Anne Witte, having tried various searches. To verify the system can find such things I looked for and found my own grandparents. Shouldn't it be accessible there? Maybe someone else can try.

Perhaps her death paperwork was not processed in a timely fashion.

Really, it seems most likely that the one person to possibly get outraged about in this case was the person who cast a vote on her behalf, and the most likely person to have done so was her husband who perhaps thought he could get away with it.

Unfortunately he probably never suspected the votes would be so closely scrutinized.

BTW, Vernon, her husband, seems to be a Republican too. Here is a letter he wrote to the King County Journal in 2003: http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/142751

Posted by: Daniel K on January 5, 2005 12:41 PM

19. Check the Seattle Times voter database. She's the only Anne Witte that comes up, and she voted absentee. Unless that voter database has some preposterous unstated disclaimers, her vote was indeed counted.

But isn't that what the Democrats are incessantly demanding? Count EVERY vote?

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on January 5, 2005 12:42 PM

20. Daniel,
The people here have said many, many, many times that what matters is not WHO benefits from fraud, but that the election officials DID NOTHING to prevent it.

I know you really really think this is all about who wins and loses, but I have news for you: some people mean what they say. Just maybe not the people you know.

Posted by: Bostonian on January 5, 2005 12:46 PM

21. Obviously John-the-Troll's brain couldn't handle the concept of ETHICS being used.

Realistically it will be impossible to prove WHO cast it, and whom for. As stated, if the number of provably false ballots exceeds the margin of victory, the election is tainted.

Why is it so bad to demand verified ID to cast a vote, anyway?

Posted by: cadrys on January 5, 2005 12:51 PM

22. Oh, and if it *is* provable that her widower cast the ballot, prosecute. There's those pesky ethics again!

Posted by: cadrys on January 5, 2005 12:54 PM

23. If you search the Seattle Times database for "Smith" or "Jones" you get 12,854 matches. The only info provided for these voters is:

Didn't Vote
Voted Absentee
Voted at Poll

It seems likely that at least one "Smith" or "Jones" would have been rejected, but if so, that status is not indicated.

So, I don't think Voted Absentee or Voted at Poll indicates anything more than the manner in which the vote was cast - not whether it was counted or rejected as invalid.

Posted by: Daniel K on January 5, 2005 12:55 PM

24. Anne Witte is recorded in the SSDI.

Try the search tool at
http://www.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693

Posted by: no thanks on January 5, 2005 01:01 PM

25. LEGAL NOTICE THAT RAN IN THE SEATTLE DAILY JOURNAL OF COMMERCE

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

Estate of
ANNE M. WITTE
SUPERIOR COURT OF Washington for King County.

In Re the Estate of Anne M. Witte, Deceased. No. 04-4-01188-1 SEA. Probate Notice to Creditors. (RCW 11.40.030).

The Administrator named below has been appointed and has qualified as Administrator of this estate. Any person having a claim against the decedent must, prior to the time such claims would be barred by any otherwise applicable statute of limitations, serve their claims on the Administrator or the attorney of record at the address stated below and file an executed copy of the claim with the Clerk of this Court within four months after the date of first publication of this notice or within four months after the date of the filing of the copy of this Notice with the Clerk of the Court, whichever is later or, except under those provisions included in RCW 11.40.011 and 11.40.013, the claim will be forever barred. This bar is effective as to the claim against both the probate and nonprobate assets of the decedent.

Date of filing copy of notice to creditors: February 18, 2004.

Date of first publication: February 20, 2004.

VERNON E. WITTE,

Administrator.

2303 248th Ave. SE, Issaquah, WA 98027.

GLEN R. CLAUSING, Attorney for Estate, 10900 NE 4th, Suite 850, Bellevue, WA 98004-5841. 425-451-0508.

Date(s) of publication: February 20, 2004; February 27, 2004; March 5, 2004

Posted by: johnnymc on January 5, 2005 01:05 PM

26. Bostonian - Fraud is legally defined as a deception deliberately practiced to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

If someone made a mistake and didn't update a record somewhere, or a computer system has a bug, or a ballot was emailed out to a citizen in a mass mailing of ballots based on a list that wasn't up to date, that is not fraud. That is error, it may be due to incompetance, but it is not fraud.

You must live in some utopia where records are perfectly kept and mistakes are never made. When was the last time you were accidentally mis-billed, or an insurance company didn't have the correct paperwork, or you were overcharged for something you bought? Did you start shouting "FRAUD!! LOCK THE BASTARDS UP!!"? Or did you think that perhaps the problem was due to some kind of random error or processing delay?

Posted by: Daniel K on January 5, 2005 01:06 PM

27. I remember this name as someone who often wrote republican-oriented letters to the editor. IF her hubby 'voted' for her, shame on him.I don't want Dino winning anything with 'dead' votes and I'm sure he feels similarly. But we also know that republicans have called into talk shows and reported that they never received their absenteee ballots but were told by King County elections dept. that their records show that they HAD voted,meaning that some stranger apparently had intercepted said ballot and voted FOR them. It would not surprise me to hear that that was the case here.

Posted by: Michele on January 5, 2005 01:07 PM

28. no thanks - Thanks for the link. I found a listing that is likely her's.

Posted by: Daniel K on January 5, 2005 01:10 PM

29. So, who's going to notify the King County elections office of this situation? The ballot envelopes should have been retained along with all other election-related material (if they make any effort at all to close the barn after the horses leave). A handwriting analyst ought to be able to figure out whether the signatures on the widower's ballot envelope and on the deceased's ballot were made by the same person.

Validating mail-in and absentee ballots by having amateurs examine the signatures is a pretty weak method of preventing this sort of fraud, but we seem to have accepted such things.

Now that the weak system has allowed an illegal vote to be cast, they ought to take the trouble to investigate and try to identify and prosecute the perpetrator.

Posted by: Micajah on January 5, 2005 01:16 PM

30. Daniel K:

So, I don't think Voted Absentee or Voted at Poll indicates anything more than the manner in which the vote was cast - not whether it was counted or rejected as invalid.

Thank you for sharing your deep thoughts, as incorrect as they happen to be.

What shows up in the Seattle Times database as "Voted Absentee" or "Voted at Poll" is a ballot that was counted. (The latter including Provisional that were counted) The "Didn't Vote" means the ballot was not counted, but doesn't distinguish between the cases of a cast ballot that was rejected and a ballot that was never received.

Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on January 5, 2005 01:23 PM

31. Daniel, you continue to wilfully misunderstand.

The intentions of any particular voter are irrelevant here.

It is the job of the election workers to take reasonable steps to prevent cheating and/or dumb errors. There is ample evidence that they did a very poor job.

I do not particularly care about their motivations either. What matters is that they failed to protect the most important institution in our country.

It is either the basest, lowest kind of stealing, or it is wanton disregard for voters' rights. Both are awful.

I find myself wondering where you spent Nov. 2.

Posted by: Bostonian on January 5, 2005 01:25 PM

32. Stefan - Thanks for the clarification.

Posted by: Daniel K on January 5, 2005 01:35 PM

33. Micajah: "Validating mail-in and absentee ballots by having amateurs examine the signatures is a pretty weak method of preventing this sort of fraud, but we seem to have accepted such things."

Which is precisely why I oppose the use of absentee ballots by voters who are physically capable of voting in person at their local precinct. If we limit the absentees to those who actually need to vote by mail (due to physical restrictions or having to be out of town on election day), validating the ballots would remain a manageable task.

Posted by: Patrick on January 5, 2005 02:49 PM

34. I was checking the Seattle Times database and looking up my family. I noticed that it said my brother hadn't voted. He is in college and did an absentee ballot. Is there a way to check if it was received or track it or something?

Posted by: Confused on January 5, 2005 02:55 PM

35. Daniel:
"When was the last time you were accidentally mis-billed, or an insurance company didn't have the correct paperwork, or you were overcharged for something you bought? Did you start shouting "FRAUD!! LOCK THE BASTARDS UP!!"? Or did you think that perhaps the problem was due to some kind of random error or processing delay?"

Interesting analogy you chose. No, you probably wouldn't shout "FRAUD!", but you would have a very reasonable expectation that it would be fixed (and it very likely would be). That is all many of us are asking here , yet the trolls would paint us as whining "losers".

In your world, you'd get the billing error and think "Oh, what a shame. They messed up. I guess I'll need to pay up anyway." This "mistakes will happen" BS is a con job and those who care are not going to let you sweep it under the carpet.

Posted by: Ken on January 5, 2005 03:22 PM

36. Confused: You may want to post this on one of the most recent threads. Most people don't go back and read the old ones.

Posted by: Helpful on January 5, 2005 08:33 PM

37. Remember when the Republican office was broken into in Bellevue (I think)? Does anyone think they could have gotten some information that could "help" the dead people to vote?

Posted by: Miriam on January 5, 2005 11:03 PM

38. Actually - there were two (2) persons named Anne M Witte that voted absetee in the November lection (as below)

Thursday, December 30th, 2004: Page updated at 3:12 PM

King County voter list: November 2004
39 match(es) found

ANNA M WITTE FEDERAL WAY 98023 Voted Absentee
ANNE M WITTE SAMMAMISH 98075 Voted Absentee

I don't pretend to know what this means.

Posted by: Yellow Dog Dem on January 6, 2005 08:00 AM

39. So dizzy dino is upset! Using his own words quit snivling and concede. How did the deceased lady vote. How did 750 to 800 votes get mislaid at the K.C. court house. Whoever cast her ballot more than likely licked the envelope has any one heard of DNA? Why from the Federal elections to the local county elections have screw ups. One answer Dishonest employees, perhaps a republican working in a position to make ballots disappear. From the first to the last it goes back to the type, calibre, quality, of people hired in government employement. Government agencies are required to hire people because the are a ______ or a ________ you fill in the blanks not because they have skills and character of the quality employee needed for the job. A very careful investigation should be done who sent the deceased lady her ballot, who voted it, who logged it in to the system. Who recieved the ballots that were misplaced. Finally FIRE THEM. And relace with qualified help from the President down to the last man standing.

Posted by: E.F. on January 6, 2005 10:35 AM

40. I knew Anne Witte - a funny, bright lady. Sad that her name is involved here.

Posted by: steve miller on January 29, 2005 11:44 AM

41. The thing I really hate about politics is the way it polarizes people. I wish I had the solution, but I don't. It seems like these issues are too often viewed from a partisan perspective. If I'm a Democrat, then the Republicans are evil, the cause for all that's wrong with the world. If I'm republican then Democrats are evil. All the while, the issue here is voter fraud, whatever the cause, no matter who benefits.

Posted by: Marty on March 29, 2005 11:50 AM

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