Dec. 1: Democratic National Committee (Gregoire) sends out “Action Alert” with poor math: “Only 42 votes separate my Republican opponent and me. That's a difference of 0.0014 percent. The error for voting machines is somewhere between 1 and 2 percent, or 1,000 times as great as the vote difference.” The actual error rate is closer to 1 in a million.
Dec. 3: Democrats seek a hand recount of the 2.9 million ballots cast in the governor's race with financial assistance from John Kerry and the Muckleshoot Casino.
Dec 5: Snohomish and Yakima Counties hand count electronic votes. The vote might be decided “by lot.”
Dec. 7: The WEA, purportedly a union, sends out an urgent memo asking its members to "Please sign up to serve as a Democratic Party observer.” During a 1996 recount, Attorney General Gregoire advised that state law did not provide for the changes that the Washington Democrats now demand.
Dec. 8: Counties begin recounting ballots by hand. Paul Berendt contends that the 15,000 illegal, spoiled or otherwise disqualified ballots are associated with 15,000 imaginary legal voters who cast valid votes for his candidate.
Dec. 9: Gregoire claims she didn't know about the Democrats' motion to the Supreme Court to count all of the previously rejected ballots, although her web home page advocates the lawsuit.
Dec. 13: King County discovers 561 new ballots. "I've said all along, 42 votes out of 2.9 million is literally a tie," Gregoire says.
Dec. 14: King County finds more votes. The state Supreme Court unanimously rejects the Democratic Party's petition to force counties to reconsider about 3,000 invalidated ballots -- including the 700-plus from King County -- in the hand recount.
Dec. 15: 22 more magical mystery ballots are discovered bringing the total to 595. 24 votes vanish from Skagit. An audit of the DSHS shows that thousands of people who are dead or lack Social Security numbers are getting millions of dollars in benefits.
Dec. 16: King County canvassing board votes to start to verify the 573 magical mystery ballots. Snohomish County reduces Rossi's lead by 44 votes. Dean Logan explains that 100 voters were informed their signatures were not in the database… However, there are no consequences for a voter who fails to update signature. Even voters who fail to update signature, are sent a ballot, without being told their ballot would not be accepted.
Dec. 17: GOP seeks a temporary restraining order blocking King County from counting the newly discovered ballots. With every county reporting but King, Rossi maintains 49-vote lead in the hand recount.
Dec. 18: King County finds
150 more magical mystery ballots. King County's 561 573 735
mystery ballots: “the county cannot locate voter registration cards for 2/3 of
them, most of these voters were contacted months ago, asked to validate their
signatures but failed to do so… the county is attempting to “validate” the
ballots using driver license records, property tax records, signatures from
ballot initiative petitions and other inappropriate means.
Dec 19: A chronology of voting problems for the last 6 years.
Dec. 21: Berendt says Gregoire is winning statewide by eight votes -- without counting the newly discovered ballots from King County. County officials do not confirm his report. “King County election workers were told as early as May that if an absentee ballot came in without a matching signature on file they were required to make a concerted effort to verify that the vote was valid. King County election workers routinely violated state law by counting such ballots without making any attempt to verify the signatures."
Dec. 22: King County's unofficial results give Gregoire 10-vote lead. The Supreme Court rules that King County may reconsider the 700-plus mistakenly rejected ballots. Meanwhile, Precinct 1823 has 763 registered "active" voters: 527 of them list as their residence address 500 4th Ave -- the King County Administration Building, including a judge who works, but doesn’t live, there and voters who reside overseas, in violation of state law. Paul Berendt, speaking of Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire, says “God has placed her" in the governor's office.
Dec. 23: Gregoire “wins” the recount by a margin of 129 votes, after King County counts the newly discovered ballots and certifies its final results. “Keep the faith," Gregoire tells supporters. "The election process is working exactly as it should." King County's canvassing board certifies the final results after reviewing the newly discovered ballots.
Dec. 24: Almost all tally changes favored Gregoire in the recount.
Christmas: Gregoire says: “I think we have been a model to the rest of the nation and the world at large about how an election system, as close as this one is, can be done with the highest of quality... I am proud of it and I think it's an inspiration."
Dec. 26: Some voters are genderless.
Dec. 27: Hundreds of voters are found to have registered at storage facilities or mail stops, not at residences as required by law. Secretary of State’s office confirms it is trivially easy for anybody to register and vote fraudulently: there are very few safeguards to prevent voting abuses and false registration.
Dec. 28: Public disclosure requests and distributed vote fraud.
Dec. 29: Rossi calls for a new election, saying problems with the recount cast a cloud of doubt over legitimacy of governor. This is confirmed by thousands of obvious data errors: voters are recorded as having registered in 1904; 258 who are recorded as having voted in future elections. Several deceased people have been found in the voter rolls: one passed away as long ago as 1998. And finally, King County numbers don’t add up: more votes than voters. Meanwhile, the media is nowhere to be found.
Dec. 30: Secretary of State Sam Reed certifies the election, declaring Gregoire governor-elect, despite “total mess.” Private citizen Dan Stevens files notice of contested election. In Snohomish, more problems as their numbers also don’t add up, and10 people registered on January 1, 1900, 16 people registered in 1919, and 5 other people registered on various dates prior to 1910. King County Elections says even though Stefan found people registered at illegal addresses, they have no statutory authority to cancel their registrations.
Dec 31: 266 ballots seem to disappear, while 325 magically materialize. A petition demanding a revote is begun. The Seattle P-I calls a re-vote “preposterous:” this was a “generally well-conducted [laughingstock] election.”
Posted by Brian Crouch at December 31, 2004
11:59 PM | Email This