A lot of people were surprised by last Tuesday's Seattle Times article which implied that Republican Councilmember Kathy Lambert was advocating all-mail elections "Vote-by-mail test is proposed"
King County should consider conducting elections entirely by mail, County Councilwomen Julia Patterson and Kathy Lambert said yesterday.Councilmember Lambert was also surprised by the article. While the legislation she proposed with Julia Patterson does include a provision for a small pilot project to test an all-mail election, she does not support conducting elections entirely by mail and says that the article did not accurately portray her positions.
I spoke with Kathy Lambert at length and am pleased (but not surprised) to report that her position on election reform is far more sensible and well-rounded than what was conveyed in the Times article.
The starting point is that the King County Executive and 7 of the 13 Councilmembers are all Democrats. Any Republican who wants to influence election reform or any other issue will have to work with and compromise with the Council Democrats.
By working with Councilmember Patterson to draft the legislation, Kathy Lambert says she was able to add some important provisions that the Democrats wouldn't have included otherwise. The proposed legislation is posted on Patterson's website here. This section, Lambert says, was added at her insistence:
F. The executive shall by July 1, 2005 report to the council on administrative improvements that may be adopted to better verify voter eligibility in the areas of residency, citizenship and felony status with an emphasis on coordinating these improvements with current state data sources and with future changes the state may implement including the single state managed voter registration system that will be implemented in 2006 in accordance with federal law.Emphasis added. This important provision was not mentioned in either the Times article or the P-I's article on the subject.
Lambert also pointed out that the all-mail election test was only one of seven parts to the proposal and she was surprised the Times gave it such prominent billing. Her reasons for supporting it:
1) 70% of the electorate already votes absentee and that number is growing.
2) She is personally skeptical that absentee voting is either more cost-effective or secure than polling place voting. Her preference is actually to shift away from absentee voting and encourage more voting at the polls.
3) Given the existing popularity of absentee voting and the fact that some Democrats on the Council are already proposing to move to an all-mail system, it is infeasible to simply try to limit absentee voting without engaging the public in a process that carefully examines the implications of all-mail elections.
4) By having a limited pilot test program, we can get more data on the costs and consequences of an all-mail election so we can have a more informed public debate on the subject.
Finally, Lambert explicitly disassociates herself from Julia Patterson's "Election Reform Fact Sheet", which Lambert says is too quick to forgive the irregularities in KC Elections as "administrative errors". (We should wait to see how the court rules, Lambert says). I've found a number of problems with Patterson's "fact sheet", which I'll address in a forthcoming post.
I've spoken with Kathy Lambert on a number of occasions and I know her to be exceptionally thoughtful and practical. She's also very accessible. If you happen to read in a newspaper that she's associated with a proposal that seems misguided, it could well be that her position is misreported. Before you leap to conclusions, it wouldn't be a bad idea to contact her office and get the the whole story from her directly. Same holds true for anybody you read about in a newspaper, for that matter.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 06, 2005 10:50 AM | Email ThisWatch for democrat election "reform" proposals to start popping up that will be designed to allow for fraudulent manipulation of the system by democrats and partisan election board supervisors. I expect one to be a variation of the international Iraqi poll sites in which democrats will offer to run polling places for Washingtonians who are now living or working in places like Boston, NY, or S.F. -- maybe Cuba.
I question whether voting in person is necessarily more fraud-resistant than voting by mail, by phone, or online. Mail, online, and phone are standard ways of doing banking, and buying, and securities transactions, after all.
The basic way of doing any of these things is not as important to fraud resistance as the steps that are specifically embedded in the proces, by design, to ensure fraud resistance. If that sounds obvious, it's supposed to.
If a voting system is designed by people like the election officials of King County, who say they feel no responsiblity to detect fraud, it doesn't matter what the mode, method, or technology is.
Posted by: Boonie on February 6, 2005 11:14 AMThis is an extremely important point... One that dems might try to let slip by in their election reform proposals! The information for verification is already out there. Some county auditors have chosen either by mistake or out of neglect to ignore the resources to enable us to have clean voter rolls.
In King County, Dean Logan claims it is not his job to verify voters... Maybe with the help of technology we might be able to make verification unavoidable! Have a system that automatically cross references name + birth date against the current roll to determine if the person is already registered at another address. A second cross reference to check to make sure it isn't a felon, and finally one to check for citizenship.
Posted by: Joe on February 6, 2005 11:16 AM
This doesnt make any sense to me....Who is the "police" in verifying the eligibilty of a voter?
Just a question....
Posted by: Chris on February 6, 2005 11:21 AMI don't propose that he gets to pick who does and doesn't vote but people who register need to meet current standards of eligibilty as stated by law. One being you aren't dead. Second, that you aren't a felon, and lastly that you are a citizen of this country.
Posted by: Joe on February 6, 2005 11:37 AMPosted by: Boonie on February 6, 2005 11:47 AM
Jan. 5, 2005
Dean Logan responds to reports of discrepancies in accounting of voters credited with voting and votes cast in the Nov. 2, 2004 general election.
-- snip --
State election laws address ballot security and accountability on the front end of the elections process – at the polls, in ballot counting centers, and throughout the certification process.
The process of crediting voters for voting is not designed to determine if voter fraud occurred, but rather a process to ensure voter registration lists are updated and current, to assist in administering and managing elections (i.e.; merging voter registration update information, updating absentee ballot requests, etc.), and to be available for use by political organizations for tracking voter participation.
-- snip --
In summary, combined, we believe the statutory protections have worked well in this election. We have not found voter fraud in this election. King County conducted the election and the subsequent recounts in an open, fair and transparent manner and in accordance with state election law.
Thanks again....
Posted by: Chris on February 6, 2005 11:56 AMA removable label identifying a ballot as provisional will be put over the "timing marks" on a ballot, preventing the ballot from going through a counting machine.
Unfortunately, if the only distinguishing feature of a provisional ballot is a removable label, committing fraud using a provisional ballot involves only one additional step: removing the label.
Posted by: Daniel Kauffman on February 6, 2005 11:57 AMMake them a different color, unless of course they hire only color blind poll workers, that could be a problem.
Posted by: Chris on February 6, 2005 12:01 PMThat is fine for the the 99% of us are honorable... But it certainly leaves the door wide open for abuse of the system especially when offenders are only sent a "warning letter" when they violate the system!
Posted by: Joe on February 6, 2005 12:52 PMThe only thing that will shock me more is when Goldstein @ the HorsesAss.org spins the article as accurate.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 6, 2005 01:16 PMMight as well throw out the voter fraud laws, they are not being enforced- since they operate on the honor system, why not simply run our entire system on the honor system- we could lay off lots of police, security, military, ....
Posted by: Dennis on February 6, 2005 02:32 PMOur election problems escalated as absentee voting became popular in this state. Absentee ballot control has been in question for years - especially in King County. Remember the felons who were in charge of printing and sorting and mailing - and receiving the completed ballots for sorting as well!
With absentee ballots - there are simply too many hands touching them. - Too many opportunities for error and fraud! Not to mention the lack of ability to verify voter signatures. To explore an all absentee voting system in a state where we are already experiencing so many problems....is an absurd consideration!
What in the heck are they thinking?
I would think, with the thousands of questionable absentee voters, the ballot discrepancies, the felons and dead voters..... this is a time to go back to poll voting - unless you fit certain verifiable criteria..
Posted by: Deborah on February 6, 2005 05:26 PMWe must be proactive in making certain that all of our representatives know how we feel. If you're opposed to vote-by-mail, let them know. And the more pressure we bring to bear on them to force our county auditors to do their job and police the rolls, IMHO, the better.
Posted by: SnoCo Voter on February 6, 2005 08:52 PMSome polling stations were shuttered. Others ran out of ballots. A provincial governor's name was left off the list of candidates. And some minorities complain it is all a plot to silence them.
One week after Iraq's historic election, allegations of confusion, mismanagement or worse are surfacing, complicating the vote count and perhaps providing ammunition for politicians to question the entire process if they do not fare well in the final tally.
Sound familiar?
Posted by: Alan in Las Vegas on February 7, 2005 07:06 AM