The latest of Secretary of State Sam Reed's Election Reform Task Force public meetings was last night in Pasco. Sound Politics reader and tipster Hanna attended the meeting and sent us this report:
The meeting went pretty much as expected. Sam Reed etc. gave their pitch then citizens started giving their comments. The first guy up was a wacked out liberal that literally was boo’d back to his seat. Any other liberals walked on egg shells and didn’t say too muchJAnd be sure to check out Hanna's Election Reforms Blog, which also has a version of this report and other election reform resources, including discussion of some of the reform bills that are being proposed in Olympia.Anyway what I wanted to share with you is this. There was a guy there whose daughter worked with the Rossi campaign during and after the election, so they are aware of this, but it was an aspect of this whole debacle that I had not heard before so I thought maybe you would like to bring it to light.
He says that the democrats would find people on the voter registration list that had not voted in the past 4 elections or more, and they would then go vote in their stead.
Sam Reed did not seem the least surprised by this, but the lady retired Senator did ask if it had been reported and he said yes.He also said that she witnessed the deal with the democrats going out trying to get affidavits for missing signatures where they did in fact ask if they voted democrat, if yes, the got the needed signature, if no, bye have a nice day.
Other than that most people had the same concerns. Re-register everyone, then maintain a clean database, show ID, etc. etc. At the end one of the guys read off a list of comments and asked for a raise of hands. Several county auditors and their minions were there…Benton County, Franklin County, Walla Walla County, Klickitat County…maybe others I forget….anyway we the people raised our hands in favor……they all were on the nay side.
One of the auditors at the end got up and “scolded” everyone for not showing any interest until now, and claiming this was all about some being dissatisfied with who the winner was…..that made me lose it. I had already spoken but I raised my hand asking to make one more small comment. I told them that this was not about WHO won, but rather HOW the winner came to be and that most people were like me in that up until now we believed that our elections were being run accurate and honest. When all the shenanigans started with this election some of us got curious and started looking into things and we found that our elections have not been fair, honest or accurate. She really ticked me off!!!
The next Election Reforms Task Force public meeting is at Spokane Community College, Tuesday, February 22, 6-8pm.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 17, 2005 10:35 AM | Email ThisThe fraud was on the part of various election officials, especially in King County, who when told about past voting problems told the public that the problems had been fixed, when the problems had not been fixed.
Sam Reed is part of the "consiracy of silence" and fraud. Specifically, there were questions about late ballots to the military. It took a long long time before Sam Reed finally told the public that the Fed's had threatened litigation if the ballots didn't go out by a specific date. Had the public and press not been asking questions, Sam would have never allowed this "dirty laundry" to be aired.
Yes, there was fraud and that fraud was keeping the truth about how bad things were from the public in a way that lulled the public into thinking everything was working well and relying upon officials to properly manage elections, when the election officials at the County and State level were not up to the job.
That was fraud by election officials.
Posted by: Bob on February 17, 2005 11:36 AMWhen this is all over, we'll make sure a web site gets set up that shows WA voters which representatives and senators voted for or against election reforms. And this information will be made very public in 2006 and 2008 before the elections.
I will predict right now, any Democrat that is not for cleaner elections and reform is going down in 2006 or 2008.
I know I will be actively campaigning against and informing everyone in my community of the 27th about how legislators, Darneille, Flannigan and Regala have let them down.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 17, 2005 11:36 AMHere's an example of a legislator who is among the leadership of the Democrats in the House, and who is on the House committee that is considering the election reform bills, and who apparently doesn't know what he did on January 11, what the constitution and laws now state, and what the bills propose:
http://crokersack.blogspot.com/2005/02/rep-sam-hunt-sets-mark-to-beat.html
Posted by: Micajah on February 17, 2005 11:47 AMThen, in a recent election, an endorsement list ad for a Leftist came out in the paper. We laughed because there were actually a couple of dead people, many people not registered to vote in our County, some poor seniors with Alzheimers including one that was in a coma.
UMMMMMM...Does this sound familiar??
Oh, and keep in mind, the Democratic Party in Washington has a voter registration database which is better THAN ANY COUNTY's!!!!!!!!!
In our County, they have personally contacted every registered voter and know almost to a certainty who the hard-core Dems are....and especially who hasn't voted in recent elections.
Stefan---this is a great one to look at if you have it in your database.....
How about a list of registered voters who voted in this 2004 General Election but who did not vote previously since say 1996????????
Is this doable??
It would be interesting in some HIGHLY DEMOCRATIC PRECINDTS to check on some of these folks to see if they are legitimate..
This is a good one.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on February 17, 2005 12:23 PMYour last comment is right on the money! Frankly I always thought it was those OTHER places where elections are determined by vote fraud. Or that our auditors and other officials could at least be trusted to keep it down to a low level. But this is not a low level, and clearly they CANNOT be trusted- and like you this makes me mad!
Well technically they CAN be trusted- they can be trusted to be part of the problem not the solution. At least they have shown us the answer: police the voter rolls and voting process ourselves. We're on it now and just need to get more of us networked and watching for next time.
Posted by: Chuck Miller on February 17, 2005 12:55 PM"As we entered the room, we saw a long table where EIGHT WORKERS WERE CHECKING IDENTIFICATION." (my emphasis)
And here's another priceless, amazing statement from the same paper about the kind of ridiculous things the Yanukovich-ites were saying about the happy-warrior Yushenko supporters:
"In Donetsk, Mrs. Yanukovich gave a speech for her husband saying that the Yuschenko people were wearing American boots and passing out oranges that had been injected with narcotics and that is why the people were so happy. It has become a national joke."
Posted by: Michele S on February 17, 2005 01:56 PMhttp://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&u=/ap/20050217/ap_on_go_co/voting_machines_clinton_1&printer=1
Nevermind that there is already a process for this... it's called paying restitution. She is also asking for a federal holiday to encourage voting and paper receipts. They just want to make sure every vote counts. How about make sure every "legal" vote counts first?
Posted by: Ken on February 17, 2005 02:22 PMI think it should be illegal to "help" a person vote who doesn't have the mental capacity to understand ballot/candidates themselves. What that practically does is it gives the person who "helped" additional votes.
I used to play the piano for the old folks at a home, and this one lady had had a stroke. Smiling and happy, always nodding, but couldn't communicate at all. I can see the leading questions now: "Do you want me to help you fill out your ballot?" ...head shakes yes with a smile... "Do you want to vote for Mr/s Democrat?" (or Republican) ... head is still shaking yes with a smile ... "Want me to fill it in for you?" ... etc.
I don't want to sound like I'm discriminating against the elderly...but we don't give people the right to vote if they're younger than 18 for a reason. If my 1 y/o could vote, I'd have to "help" her...that really would give me 2 votes (unless I gave her a crayon, in which case the ballot would be an overvote (unless processed by an over-zealous voter-divining board..."The drool is definately nearer the left oval")
Posted by: VaCSProf on February 17, 2005 05:48 PMWhy wouldn't it have surfaced sooner and with a brighter light?
Posted by: Andy on February 17, 2005 07:34 PM