Secretary of State Sam "What, Me Worry?" Reed proposes a package of "election reforms", which can best be described as lame-assed and too-little, too-late. Some of these ideas are not bad
The 2005 Legislature prohibit third parties from collecting or returning absentee and/or provisional ballot signature affidavits.Okay, that one would help get rid of the Bawling Berendt fraudulent affidavits.
Most of what he proposes is pissant. Among the more fundamental reforms we need that Reed hasn't proposed:
1) documentation of identity and citizenship to register and vote.
2) strict controls against duplicate registrations
3) strict enforcement of registration at bona fide residence; documentation of residence required -- including (especially) for new absentee where the mailing address is in a different precinct (or state or country) from the residence address.
4) Immediate purge of the deceased from the voter rolls, using data from vital records.
5) requirement that ballot counts strictly reconcile with voter counts prior to certification. If counts don't reconcile within the margin of victory, the election is tossed.
I'm sure we can come up with plenty of other changes that are needed to restore confidence.
In the meantime. Some free friendly political advice to Sam Reed: Get serious about this or do the people a favor and find a different line of work.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 06, 2005 03:28 PM | Email ThisI have NEVER heard a legitimate arguement against this. Why is this such a difficult request? I was very disappointed when I looked over Reed's requests and did not see this.
Posted by: recallgregoire.com on January 6, 2005 03:37 PMThis is the classic case of closing the barn door after the horses are out for the new millennium.
Can we recall Sam??????
Posted by: SnoCo Voter on January 6, 2005 03:42 PMI just rented a video this week and had to show ID...don't even have to do so for voting.
Posted by: megs on January 6, 2005 03:47 PMProvisional ballots must be cast at the voter's own poll site or at the voter's county elections office.
If a provisional ballot is cast at the county elections office, the voter will be given the proper ballot type for his stated residential address.
Ballots counted in poll site machines will be checked for wrongly-cast provisional ballots on Election Night. If any provisional ballots are found in poll site machines, the votes on such ballots will be subtracted from the totals and will not be counted. The ballots will be marked on both sides "DO NOT COUNT" with red ink and signed on both sides by the county auditor or elections supervisor, and will be preserved in secure storage for not less than two years.
If the voter states an incorrect residential address or goes to the wrong polling place, and as a consequence is given the wrong ballot type, none of the votes on that ballot will be counted.
Vote-by-mail and absentee ballots must be:
Received in the Elections Office by poll-closing time on Election Day, OR
Received by the time the election returns are certified by the county, AND postmarked no less than three days before Election Day.
It should be a felony to vote twice in the same election or otherwise fraudulently influence the outcome of a election.
Anyone convicted of multiple voting or other election fraud can never have their voting rights restored, even by pardon.
Posted by: ScottM on January 6, 2005 04:04 PM(1) An instant run-off of the top two vote-getters in races where the results are less than 0.2% apart (thus hopefully dampening incentive for parties to game the system and hijack elections); and
(2) Taking away authority from canvassing boards to "divine" a voter's intent. I know this would get all sorts of howls from the partisans, but come on! Voting is our solemn duty as citizens, and those among us too sloppy or too stupid to read simple directions and fill in a bubble completely or punch out a chad all the way should not have the privilege of having our vote count. Undervotes, overvotes and write-ins of candidates already on the ballot should be thrown out.
My 2 cents.
Posted by: LoneWolf on January 6, 2005 04:09 PMAnd for the deluded fans of Gregoire reading this who will want to call as often as they voted in the election, they do take your name and address down when you call.
Posted by: Chris on January 6, 2005 04:10 PMI even called the SOS office last August and expressed concern about the 'cleanliness' of the voter rolls and fraud, as I had last year read an article from CA pointing out that 37% of democrat registrations in some Kern County precincts were fraudulent! It made me realize that that was probably going on here. But all I kept being told was that we have 'clean' elections here and I never bought it. There's just not the concern for clean elections that there should be on so many levels.
Posted by: Michele on January 6, 2005 04:23 PMAnd as for Reed, he had to make a choice, take the high road and do the right thing for the objectivity of elections, or take the low road and play ball with the power structure in Olympia.
Sam, given everything that is coming out now, you chose poorly. Luckily for him, he seems old enough that he'll probably retire after this term. If not, voters will take care of that for him.
Posted by: Jeff B. on January 6, 2005 04:34 PMIf so, who is going to submit the necessary documents to recall him?
Posted by: jaybo on January 6, 2005 06:15 PM1. no voting by absentee, except when physically unable or you can demonstrate the fact that you're not able make it to the polls, e.g. show proof that you'll be out of the country, etc. Employers should be explicitly compellled to permit employees to vote without having to secure permission.
2. When you vote, you MUST provide state issued ID.
Posted by: dpmiv on January 6, 2005 07:05 PMWhat problem is that supposed to cure?
The one absolutely indispensible reform is to require the counties to reconcile the number of voters and the number of votes.
That requires them to have a current, up-to-date, accurate and complete record of which voters have already voted.
The counties cannot properly decide whether to take an absentee ballot out of the envelope until they know whether the voter went to the polling place and voted in person by provisional ballot. They need to cancel one of those ballots as invalid -- but which one? If the absentee ballot was stolen and cast by someone other than the voter, it wouldn't be right to invalidate the provisional ballot cast in person at the polls.
Ah, but no one seems to ask for any kind of personal identification at the polls. Do they even do it when a provisional ballot is cast?
Without that ID at the polls, which ballot is valid? The absentee or the provisional?
Without an up-to-date reconciliation of ballots and voters to look at, how would you even know there is a question to be asked when looking at an absentee ballot envelope or a provisional ballot envelope?
Why in the dickens are the "professional" election officers so reluctant to maintain a current list of voters whose ballots have already been cast? They cannot do their job without it, yet they treat it as something to be done some weeks after the votes are counted and the result is haphazardly "certified."
Posted by: Micajah on January 6, 2005 07:36 PMToward the end of the conference, he called upon Dean Logan (who was standing just off camera), to answer the question "if he and Reed were personally listed in lawsuits over the election"?...
They both seemed to stumble over each other with that question! They both reached the conclusion that they had NOT heard of being named personally in any lawsuits......yet. To be personally named in lawsuits seemed to bother them!
Hmmmmm.....I wonder how much it bothers them?
Posted by: Deborah on January 6, 2005 07:50 PMFor my more extended tirades on this subject, see http://stromata.typepad.com/stromata_blog/2004/12/doityourself_vo.html and http://stromata.typepad.com/stromata_blog/2004/11/this_years_less.html.
Posted by: Tom Veal on January 6, 2005 08:32 PMBecause no one in KC can fathom corruption, it would be so easy for a group to figure out ways to stuff the ballot box. Why can't Reed and Logan see this? Denial and the need to keep one's job, that's why.
I wish just one person involved in the "stuffing" ring would lose enough sleep, gain a conscience, and come forward with how they cased polling places and set up the plan to stuff.
Posted by: MB on January 6, 2005 09:23 PM
Why do I think you want to find out?
It's a more secure way for a voter to prove his/her identity in absentia.
Posted by: Rusty on January 6, 2005 10:31 PMHeh....
Ya think?
It just seemed as though they showed an inappropriate amount of concern - in the way they began *publicly* dwelling on the possibility of being named in these lawsuits...
They are either getting worried or were playing the public for sympathy.....
Either way...I suppose their fears will become reality before this is over....
Posted by: Deborah on January 7, 2005 12:14 AMI have NEVER heard a legitimate arguement against this. Why is this such a difficult request? I was very disappointed when I looked over Reed's requests and did not see this.
Posted by recallgregoire.com
Democrats call this type of measure "voter intimidation." Any proposed reforms that might limit vote fraud are referred by the liberal-left as "racist", "anti-poor" and attempts at "voter suppression." From the days of the big-city machines to the present the Dems thend to benefit much more from vote fraud because the Reps tend to be more affluent and less dependent on government favors.So the motivations of the Dems are not hard to figure out.
No, he didn’t say that there was rampant fraud in King County. Neither did the Republican member of the elections board, nor the Republican observers. He seems to be staying out of that particular fray, saying that it is a matter for the courts, and otherwise keeping his mouth shut. Probably the only decision he could make and still keep some appearance of impartiality, which is what he needs to do in order to be an effective Secretary of State.
One of the things that kept (and keeps) Florida such a sore subject is that the Secretary of State there made no real attempt to appear impartial. That election is long over, but it does appear that Mr. Reed has learned a valuable lesson. If he is to be able to do what we pay him to do, he has to make every effort to appear (and hopefully be) impartial.
Now, if fraud can be proven, then it must happen in the courts. Mr. Reed should cooperate fully with investigators and both parties to get at the facts, not as someone would like them to be, but as they can be proven.
Then the courts need to weigh the facts, as presented to them (regardless of public opinion,) and reach a decision, both on the validity of the election and on the remedy if it must be rejected.
On a side note, I would urge Gregoire supporters to sign the ReVote petition. It will be meaningless if the court upholds the election, but if the court rejects it, that petition could be used by the court to determine the remedy. Since the alternative remedy would likely be to go back to the first recount numbers, well…
As to election reforms, I restate some of my earlier thoughts on another thread of this board:
1. Require identification. This really isn’t that hard, although requiring someone to prove citizenship is harder. Remember that a driver’s license or even a military ID is not proof of citizenship. Still, just checking ID would be a big step in the right direction.
2. Use voting machines that perform instant verification of ballots. (They are available and in use in some counties.) That way if there is an obvious problem (double votes, extra marks, etc…) that prevent machine reading of the ballot, the voter (rather than a canvassing board) can fix it immediately.
3. (a new one) Move up the primary, and require that ballots be received (not just mailed) by the election date. For those that would consider this a hardship for the military, I would point out that I spent over 20 years active duty, and never missed an election, even back when mail service sometimes took a month to get back home. (It’s much faster now.) Of course, some of my shipmates would complain “I didn’t get a chance to vote,” but somehow I did, even though we were both on the same ship.
With only hours left before the Legislature votes to ratify this fraudulent election, there is no time to waste to commence a RECALL SAM REED drive for failure to carry out his obligation to protect the people from the fraudulent election results which have been documented, verified, admitted to, beyond anyone's reasonable doubt.
What Sam Reed is guilty of is not only (A) doing what he should not have done, but (B) not doing what he is required to do, under these documented and verifiable reasons. If we, the people, take this -- and accept promises the process will be cleaned up "later," we indeed are fools who allowed it to happen.
ALL who read this site, and agree with (A) the election must be decertified at once, (B) Sam Reed has the obligation to decertify, (C) and agree with (A) and (B): write, call, communicate, with anyone who might feel likewise, and lets stop this madness.
If you agree: contact anyone who may aid in the effort. Perhaps a revotewa.org move to spot another petition, to parallel the petition to revote.
Thoughts, comments, agree, disagree?