WA Republicans announced yesterday that over 1,000 felon were found to have voted in Nov. 2004. Naturally, state Democrats claim that most of these are Rossi voters:
[Democrat lawyer "Baghdad Jenny" Durkan] argued, the Democrats can raise questions about "the demographics of felons in Washington state."An alert Sound Politics reader cites John Fund's book "Stealing Elections" and points out that 68% of the felons who were found to be registered to vote in Florida were registered Democrats. But of course, we really won't ever know how Washington's felons voted. Which is why we the only fair thing to do is to toss them off the voter rolls and have a new election. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 23, 2005 11:34 AM | Email ThisFrom scattered media reports leaked by Republicans about felon voters, she added, several have said they voted for Rossi, and "they tend to be male and they tend to be in certain demographic areas that voted for Rossi."
:-)
Posted by: Jason on February 23, 2005 11:52 AMOnly a fool will believe another fool!
Posted by: Susu on February 23, 2005 11:52 AM"Consevatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
John Stuart Mill(1806-1873)
* Jenny Durkan will argue that Rossi's side will have to bring each felon before the court and have them recant their vote under oath.
* Paul Berendt will cry before Judge Bridges and claim that every vote for Rossi should not count.
* Paul will interview each felon and only those who voted for Rossi will be brought forward to swear under oath.
* All of these Rossi votes will then be subtracted off giving Gregoire an even wider margin of victory.
* Yay, Queen Christine keeps her throne.
Pinch, uh, wakeup Democrats, it was only a dream.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 23, 2005 12:08 PMIf you really want clean elections you'll demand that a paper trail be added to the "black-box" voting. I never hear you say much about that. Whatsa' matter? Cat got your tongue?
Posted by: headless lucy on February 23, 2005 12:32 PMPeople like Lucy would prefer that you think that this is all about partisan politics and that the Republicans are just making up all the evidence to cause trouble. The evidence is there if you care to look, the solution is to fix the problems and have a new election. IMO.
Posted by: Calvin A on February 23, 2005 12:32 PMI can see the conspiracy, and it does make sense. Whether it's true or not, hard to prove.
Posted by: FireWolf on February 23, 2005 12:46 PMHowever, according to an AP report, about 80% of the illegal felon votes were found in Dem territory, King County.
"Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane announced the 1,108 number(of felons) on Tuesday.Lane said 884 of those were found in Democrat-leaning King County."
GOP Alleges Felons Voted in Wash. Race
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ELECTION_CHALLENGE?SITE=WAVAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
King County is heavily demo. Conventional wisdom is that the heavy D influence in King Co. is the reason for incredible and unprecedented Get out the Vote effort on the part of King County elections officials and party workers, during and even after the election. Unverified provisional ballots, the 3500 duplicate ballots mailed out, the many rounds of extra ballots found here and there for various reasons. I would like to know the total number of provisional ballots cast in King County, and other counties as well, and how that compares to the last presidential election. If anybody has or can get that information, please post it. Has the number of provisional ballots skyrocketed compared to previous years?
Posted by: Margaret on February 23, 2005 12:47 PMposted by headless lucy at 2:33 PM"
Tried to post the link but it wasn't allowed.
Just an FYI - but I'm guessing HL is a male.
Posted by: Julie on February 23, 2005 12:47 PMSo we have an insane Turtle and Wolf beating the latest Dem talking points. The Lefty's just keep getting more laughable!
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on February 23, 2005 12:56 PMPeople like yourself, miss Lucy, are products of a generation (or two) that has been systematically deprived of the ability to use their brains for themselves by the Orwellian efforts of the überwacky left in America.
You may, of course, continue your schedualed two minutes of hatred at whatever defies your Demobrand view of the universe.
It is standard policy for the Democrat's Ministry of Truth to hand out the standard charges of So-and-so's "book is replete with factual errors,lies, half-truths, selective quotes from sources that favor only his side, and outright fakery." If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I'd have a palacial house on Lake Union by now.
Standard procedure also demands that some cock-eyed challenge and an allegation of willful refusal to acknowledge the 'facts' ('facts', in opposition to facts, are merely phantoms concieved by the überleft to obfusticate the truth).
I'm glad you found a venue, we just ain't cheerin your magic show. We see straight through it.
Posted by: AK on February 23, 2005 12:57 PMI don't see any reason why we can't have state-wide electronic voting using machines that are similar in design and function to ATM machines. The vast majority of people are familiar and comfortable with ATM machines. These machines process secure transactions accurately, and they provide a paper reciept of the transaction.
Given that voting is supposed to be secret, the reciept could be encoded, similar to the way Lotto tickets are. The voter, after casting their vote, and getting their reciept, could scan the reciept at confidential scan locations at the polling place, or any county office to verify that they choices they made in the voting booth match the choices recorded on the reciept. They could also go to a SoS run website a few days after the election, enter the PIN number from their reciept, and ensure that the SoS has recorded their votes as they entered them.
Of course, this does nothing to secure the front-end registration process, but it should at least do away with any reconciliation issues on the back-end.
Posted by: Jason on February 23, 2005 12:59 PMThat is all fine and dandy, but most of the fraud was by absentee there is only one way to remedy that, purge voter rolls and keep them clean
Lucy will never agree with us on that.
More votes for government give-away programs and the party soft on crime.
Posted by: Norm on February 23, 2005 01:19 PM1. Can anyone cite the "scattered reports" reference(s) that she is referring to?
2. Now is she admitting felons voted? If so, doesn't this prove that the claim of felons voting in this state is now a truth?
3.If in fact, felons did vote for Rossi and not Gregoire, then why are the Democrats scared of a new election? Should this not be a shoe-in?
The BEST solution (In My World):
1. Vacate the Office of Governor (Since by the admission of Dean Logan, Sam Reed and others), this state truly does not know and continues to be puzzled by the election results
2.Appoint Brad Owen as Governor - He is a Conservative Democrat who has worked on both sides of the aisle and has an understanding of small business (something that is vanishing in this state by the day thanks to a repressive B&O tax Rossi was wanting to repeal)
3. Save everyone alot of money and an ugly campaign (that will occur if an unelected governor continues in an office that she was questionably placed in) and we will continue on with the next highest (Lt. Gov) and (truly)elected official as Governor until the 2008 election.
Posted by: flexnfx on February 23, 2005 01:34 PMThe subject is people actively seeking to usurp the legitimate voting process by fakery, deceit, active ignorance, meddling, machinations, and nonsense on the front end, and HL has to identify paper trails as the primary problem here. (Never mind that ballotless voting was insignificant in this state in this election.)
For the record, and I detest Bev as much as John here, a couple of points need to be made;
1) Not the elections machines makers to blame for no paper trail. They are corporate whores, where if a customer wants a function and is willing to pay, they'll make it. They make money when a customer wants to buy something. Add ons bring more revenue. Stop blaming the manufacturers.
2) For a paper trail to be accurate, a logic and accuracy test must be performed at random intervals to ensure that the logic stands. No big deal by itself, but for a legal challenge, you will need that receipt to record the voter, the votes tallied, and represent those on paper to be validated by the voter. Say good bye to secret voting, unless you are able to have some paper destruction device available to destroy the vote. But, for a challenge, you are going to have to show that you were the voter, your votes, the time, the polling place, and have an election official compare that against the screen tally for verification.
3) Election challenges on the basis of paper are going to happen. So, to mitigate the ability of manipulative people who would, say, steal absentee ballots at nursing homes or such, you would need something more than a plain paper, non identified voting paper, otherwise clever people with printers will come up with a lot of 'found' votes to issue the challenge on. (Oh, I know, they'd be fair about it and demand an affadavit attesting to the veracity of their charge. Kinda like attesting to being a legal voter, living at an address, being a non-felon, and being named as the person they are registering as.)
John Fund/Bev Harris/Andy Stephenson, hey, they are all out for their piece of the dream, I guess. All worried about people screwing with the system in ways that don't benefit their agenda. None of them are any more creditable or fair than any other, and don't seem to complain about inequities that benefit them.
Detestable.
So, go with touch screen. You'll necessarily have to give up some of the secrecy. But if that's your bag, go for it. Still preferable to all mail balloting, and certainly an opportunity to do better than we have seen in this most recent election.
Lucy, you are a treasure. I don't care what anyone says about you, I have always found you to be delightfully inane and insipid, and you have often made my day. Thank you.
Steve
That is the issue, the election was fraught with errors and illegal voting and should be tossed. Then whether it is a revote or a new vote I don't care, but I want it to be fair and legal. If I had my druthers there would also be independent auditors of the vote counting. And the number of votes better match the number of voters.
Posted by: Jim in Clark County on February 23, 2005 01:38 PMWe have a secret ballot. All we know is that the provable number of ballots improperly cast far exceeds the margin of victory in the election race, and thus a revote is the only appropriate remedy.
Posted by: Paul on February 23, 2005 02:33 PMTherefore, in such a possible case, the felons would cause a legitimate election to be voided. I would think, if the republicans truly want fair and honest elections, they would see this as an issue.
For the record, I do not think that Greogire is an alien.
Posted by: Franklin on February 23, 2005 02:35 PM
Here is what Judge Bridges said in the election contest hearing with respect to showing who an alleged illegal vote was cast for:
"This same requirement was recognized early in our state’s history when in 1912 our Supreme Court in Hill v. Howell held that when there was no evidence to show for whom the elector voted and because both candidates were innocent of wrongdoing, the vote must be treated between the parties as a legitimate vote.
I know you hate the fact that this goes against your idea of what the law should be (and because it makes Rossi's case near impossible to prove since there are no allegations of fraud or wrongdoing against the Governor’s campaign or the Democratic Party), but there it is.
I don't know if this was added but it was not on the initial list of dates. I found this on SOS web page.
Please show up and support REAL Election Reform!!
And REVOTE!!!!
Sorry, hadn't seen a headlesslucy post in a while and felt a void had to be filled.... and yes, yes I know, it's impossible to parody the Left, since my loopy scenario above is exactly what they're doing with Rathergate!
Posted by: Chuck Miller on February 23, 2005 03:13 PMthe dem position du joir is:
we don't care whether or not there were illegal ballots cast, or even that there are more than a thousand ballots that don't have an associated voter, we still won (once) on a hand recount, and that's final.
Do I have it right? Is this your best argument?
Posted by: thecomputerguy on February 23, 2005 03:22 PM'No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime ...
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself'
If a felon admits to voting in court to tell the court which way he voted, isn't he then testifying against himself that he commited a felony by voting illegally?
Posted by: AnonymousCoward on February 23, 2005 03:22 PMInstead of making unfounded accusations provide supporting data. As many have said in this post, if the dems are so convinced that all the errors in this election went for the reps, let the reps have their election and then win by a landslide with all the fraud out of it. I can't imagine anything that would be more satisfying to the dems.
You might also notice that Rossi is not calling for nor has ever called for him to be declared winner. He wants a new election so the real result can be known. If he were declared the winner, he would ask for a revote.
Which way do you feel is more ethical and in support of making every legitamate vote count - a revote with a clean voter role, or say that the however many thousands of votes that are known bad would not change the 129 vote "victory"?
Posted by: Jonathan on February 23, 2005 03:46 PMAnd I like her. I don't think she's a troll. or if she is, she's not being overfed, yet.
Posted by: singer on February 23, 2005 03:51 PMThey know that a very large percentage of the felons are from minority groups that traditionally vote 80+ percent democrat.
Posted by: Gil on February 23, 2005 04:36 PMHere is what Judge Bridges said in the election contest hearing with respect to showing who an alleged illegal vote was cast for:
"This same requirement was recognized early in our state’s history when in 1912 our Supreme Court in Hill v. Howell held that when there was no evidence to show for whom the elector voted and because both candidates were innocent of wrongdoing, the vote must be treated between the parties as a legitimate vote.
I know you hate the fact that this goes against your idea of what the law should be (and because it makes Rossi's case near impossible to prove since there are no allegations of fraud or wrongdoing against the Governor’s campaign or the Democratic Party), but there it is.
Well, dpk, early in our state's history or not, there is NO precedent set for this kind of circumstance in our state's history. Judge Bridges, you, the Dems, the Reps... everyone can look back for SOMEthing, but they're not gonna find much that's helpful.
The TRUTH is that Judge Bridges ruling - and the subsequent ruling of the Supreme Court - will set precedent for Washington State. The decisions that are made now will set the standard of determining the effects and treatment of illegal votes in the future of our state's elections.
So, harken back to yesteryear and the days of old and try to divine some wisdom from nearly a century ago that can speak to the election of 2004, but you're not gonna find it. This election and subsequent contest are blazing new trails in the politics of the NW.
And I don't think you're gonna like the outcome.
Posted by: JRR on February 23, 2005 04:38 PMSo I have one question for the democrats who want to post here!
If in the opinions of the democrats attorneys in Washington state, Felons in this state mostly all voted for Rossi. Than why (please explain to me, Please) are both John Kerry and Hillary Clinton pushing to allow felons to vote?
I am awaiting your answers
Therefore, in such a possible case, the felons would cause a legitimate election to be voided. I would think, if the republicans truly want fair and honest elections, they would see this as an issue."
It's pretty obvious that much of the state's population is concerned about this being a fair and honest election, which is why we are calling for a revote rather than an installation of Rossi as Governor. A true winner outcome does not equate necessarily to a valid election. If Rossi had won despite all the irregularities, this election would still be in question, because the process has failed to be accountable to the voters. If Gregoire indeed got more votes than Rossi and is the rightful governor, we will never really know because the irregularities in the vote tally are considerably larger than the margin of victory. As it stands now, we do not know who received the most legitimate votes for the Governor seat. Given that it is impossible to determine now what votes were tallied twice, which ones were cast by inelligible voters, which ballots were cast without a corresponding voter, and which ballots were improperly tallied after the initial count, it is likewise impossible to determine who the real winner of the contest was.
The fact is, the only thing we really do know for sure about this election is that it is tainted beyond credulity. Whether it became tainted by ineptitude or intent does not matter. What does matter is that the people of Washington state deserve to have a clearly, unambiguously chosen representative as Governor, and the only way to accomplish that now is with a clean, fair, well documented revote.
Posted by: lunaslide on February 23, 2005 05:01 PMRemember, it's the Republicans who sued in Washington (and in Florida) to STOP legal votes from being counted. It's the democrats who had to go to court to allow legal votes to be counted. Guess, just maybe, they want all legal votes to be counted, unlike the republicans (as shown by their lawsuits).
Lunaslide: your point would have been more credible if Rossi hadn't declared the first recount to be good enough.
Posted by: Franklin on February 23, 2005 05:15 PMJust as the Dems went out and found signatures for Dem voters but not Republican voters, you will now see them out in force convincing felons to state they voted for Rossi.
Posted by: TimMan on February 23, 2005 05:16 PMMy point is no less credible regardless of what Rossi said. The fact remains that the election was tainted. It was incorrect from the start, and became increasingly corrupted as the recounts progressed and ballots were improperly added to the tally.
I don't work for Rossi, nor do I speak for him. I'm also not a Republican. My point of view is that of a citizen, deeply concerned with what appears to be the right of the people to self-govern slipping away due to the malfeasance or incompetence of government officials who are no longer accountable to the people they serve.
Posted by: lunaslide on February 23, 2005 05:40 PM With all do respect that is not what the
republicans have done in the state of washington
and you know it.The only thing republicans did
was try to only have those votes counted that
had already been counted.Thats what a recount
is.It is not meant as a way to continue to
add votes until you get the outcome you
want.!!
The constitution of the State of Washington states the following:
1)SECTION 1 QUALIFICATIONS OF ELECTORS.
All persons of the age of eighteen years or over who are citizens of the United States and who have lived in the state, county, and precinct thirty days immediately preceding the election at which they offer to vote, except those disqualified by Article VI, Section 3 of this Constitution, shall be entitled to vote at all elections. [AMENDMENT 63, 1974 Senate Joint Resolution No. 143, p 807. Approved November 5, 1974.]
2)SECTION 3 WHO DISQUALIFIED.
All persons convicted of infamous crime unless restored to their civil rights and all persons while they are judicially declared mentally incompetent are excluded from the elective franchise. [AMENDMENT 83, 1988 House Joint Resolution No. 4231, p 1553. Approved November 8, 1988.]
3)SECTION 6 BALLOT.
All elections shall be by ballot. The legislature shall provide for such method of voting as will secure to every elector absolute secrecy in preparing and depositing his ballot.
So this proposes an interesting question or even an argument that either side could/might argue in court:
A: Qualified elector = 18, not a felon, lives in state, etc...
B: Elector guaranteed secrecy for vote.
C: Felon ≠ qualified elector.
So the following logical conclusion now surfaces...
IF C is true, then B is no longer true for any members of C.
Which means that either side could ask the court to have all counties cough up every known felon ballot and then expose their votes, (since secrecy is no longer required for their ballots). Of course, they would then all be thrown out.
Probably will never happen, but hey I kind of thought it was interesting to think about.
Cid
Posted by: CidinDupont on February 23, 2005 05:45 PMThey would be truly ballistic if they lost the Washington hand recount despite all the illegalities. We would have all those Dem hacks all over the State and News.
The Dem's are the Soft-on-Crime party.
Look at the legislation down in Olympia right now.
Thats' why they will always get the majority of FELONS votes.
phil: sorry, the republicans sued to prevent legal votes from being counted. the reason was clear: rossi was ahead at the time. again, same as in florida. bush was ahead, so they sued to stop vote counting. very tough to argue for all votes being counted and integrity of elections after republicans TWICE showed they don't want that at all by suing to prevent exactly that outcome. also note...their argument was 100% rejected in washington state as the supreme court ruled that all legal votes should count (phew).
gs: talk about turning tables, if things were reversed you think the republicans would have said cg won after the first recount and ignored the last recount? ergo, your case should be far from rested. to the question you raised, the final recount is the final vote. remember, the republicans claimed cg would only request a recount in King county...but she didn't. she wanted all legal votes counted.
Posted by: Franklin on February 23, 2005 07:09 PMFor Pete's sake Get Real!!! They dont HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE.....Remember you head girl/guy, it's a RIGHT to vote, not a Given...
Posted by: Chris on February 23, 2005 07:15 PMThe R's are suing again, and there must be some merit to the case, or it would have been thrown out long ago....
BTW....Neither party did anything that the other would have done, if the shoe was on the other foot....
Posted by: Chris on February 23, 2005 07:18 PMYou seem to forget that Gregiore (or at least Paul Berendt) did want to just count King County, but that by law, they were required to recount the entire state. I don't think being compelled by law wins her any points for graciousness.
Posted by: Jason on February 23, 2005 07:31 PMKing County is in contempt of public trust lying to cover its tracks.
And now that the truth is being made public they attempt to hide behind even more lies, there is no escape this time. The glass house is cracked and crumbling. CG's days are numbered face it!
Yes there is.
Most felons are men who voted primarily for Rossi.
Nearly all of the felons interviewed to date voted for Rossi.
The felons appeared to want the benign hand of a realtor rather than the top law enforcement officer as the governor.
Posted by: Erik on February 23, 2005 08:44 PMSorry to break your train of thought (eye roll please), but I'm sure there's some enviro-freak, or workers-of-the-world sit-in going on right now that is hungering for your staggering perspective on granola, alternative fuels, and Che-for-deification. And they probably would appreciate your thoughts...just a thought.
Posted by: dkpcowboy on February 23, 2005 08:44 PMDid you know that to qualify to buy a Porsche, you either have have a 4" **** or smaller, or you have to be a Republican? Just some food for thought.
Posted by: headless lucy on February 23, 2005 09:00 PMWhich is why we the only fair thing to do is to toss them off the voter rolls and have a new election.
Why not let them vote and be done with it? If they've served their time and are off supervision, then they should be allowed to vote again.
But I will tell you a dirty little secret: Most people who have served time in prison, come out as conservatives. Why? Because they have seen what a socialist society is all about.
Posted by: Political Pulpit on February 23, 2005 09:15 PMNice for comic relief though, this whole banana republic thing gets a little heavy.
Posted by: Julie on February 23, 2005 09:19 PMAny reasonable person would understand that this count must be thrown out.
Am I saying anyone who doesn't admit/understand or believe in the contrary is being unreasonable ? YES ! Your lack of logic and reason stands out like a sore thumb, so deal with it; Erik, Franklin and Headless Churchill and the rest of your ilk. There is no credible evidence to counter the evidence that has been brought forth by the Rossi campaign embedded in their pablum and verbal vomitting - perhaps a bit graphic. In all fairness, this is all supposition to the result of the trial in Chelan county. To put the site of the trial in perspective; If the roles were reversed in the outcome of this election, the trial would have been held in King County.
"Purge ,control, deny access...." All your statements are about how to prevent people from voting and getting your killjoy presence over everything. You- all are the albatross around the neck of humanity. The odd thing is that you know it and it gives you a perverse pleasure.
I'm a Virginian. Would you have defended me if I had voted in the WA election? Would you have tried to PREVENT me from voting? What if I had voted for Rossi 130 times?
Posted by: VaCSProf on February 23, 2005 09:41 PMThey would probably be given immunity.
Posted by: VaCSProf on February 23, 2005 09:44 PMGood comment. That's why we post.
To bring some reasoned discussion to the subject whether one agrees with it or not.
Felon votes will never have a stamp of legitimacy no matter who he/she voted for. Giving the felon the time of day to try to find out, gives that vote a respect it does not deserve.
Provisional ballots are not legitimate until they are connected to a legal voter,...legally.
Hopefully, the judge will look at these two factors and decide against the current resident of the governor's mansion.
Posted by: Susu on February 23, 2005 10:13 PMYou confuse law with logic.....NOT the same thing.
(and certainly not in this election)
We've already heard:
1) Illegal votes from voters who don't admit that they knew it was illegal will not be prosecuted.
2) The _only_ check on an absentee ballot is the signature. Forged signatures aren't being prosecuted.
3) The election won't be thrown out unless it is PROVEN that the margin of victory is exceeded by illegal votes FOR the winning candidate.
That adds up to a de facto authorization to print as many ballots as one pleases, sign them, mail them.
Ohhh goody. It's like an internet poll with the added twist of a scavenger hunt for the signatures! The Mann hockey stick is more accurate.
(here's a hint....Moveon.org did NOT try to fund the Rossi campaign....I believe I read something about Gregoire however.....)
Posted by: Deborah on February 23, 2005 10:31 PMI think bringing reasoned discussion is a bit of a stretch based on reading posts from your ilk. Opposing viewpoints - certainly. Healthy debate is encouraged and can be productive, as in the case of John Barelli's well-though out posts, but why waste other's time in misrepresenting or distorting the facts and to suit your argument ? Says very little for the credibility of that kind of argument.
Posted by: KS on February 23, 2005 10:33 PMWe won't. This is why the judge will likely not be able to attrubute them to either party.
Judge Bridges explained his reasoning for the proposition as follows:
Hill v. Howell held that when there was no evidence to show for whom the elector voted and because both candidates were innocent of wrongdoing, the vote must be treated between the parties as a legitimate vote.
If you think it is hard get indisputable proof of fraud now, just wait for 2008.
Coming soon to a mail box near you...
Vote-By-Mail-Fraud
Bipartisan (Sam Reed?) support for, permanent and state wide, Absentee Voting (SB5744-HB1754) should have election reformists screaming bloody murder, but the silence is deafening.
Kick out Queen G., purge registrations, require ID and proof of citizenship. It will all be meaningless if Vote-By-Mail-Fraud is implemented.
2008 VOTE-BY-MAIL-FRAUD?..Stop it NOW!!!
Posted by: Splatter on February 23, 2005 11:34 PMOne just has to wonder what the heck they are thinking with the current effort to turn the state into 100% absentee voting! The timing is incredible! - almost an "in your face" for those of us who see how the absentee voting system has been a vehicle for fraud in our elections - especially in King County!
What are they doing? Why are they doing this?
Posted by: Deborah on February 23, 2005 11:53 PMFlorida 2000 was a mess and it was deeply troubling that the election system could go so wrong. That was about the time I started to seriously question the legitimacy of the mechanics of elections in the US. I was also troubled that the US Supreme Court was involved, but more so by the fact that the lack of standards regarding what constituted a legitimate vote is what caused them to be involved in the first place. The only relief of this situation came months after the inauguration, when independently several newspapers and others found that no matter how you counted the votes that they had in possession, that the outcome had been correct after all. And that came as very little relief indeed, for it came not as a result of a good, clean election, but in spite of the fact that it was a tainted one.
Four years later, we should be doing better. Florida seems to have learned the lesson of that election, but many other places in the nation obviously have not. What is particularly troubling about King County, however, is that they have not only not learned, but do not seem to care. Their position from the outset has been that the election proceeded fairly and accurately. Only after very serious issues have come to light because of people outside the elections process who have done the hard work of trying to reconcile the vote tally, have they admitted that perhaps there are some problems with the process. And even still, they will not admit the irregularities could have affected the outcome of the vote, which is patently ridiculous. As if that were not bad enough, they refuse to release all relevant information regarding the election. Without accountability to the people and transparency in the process, we can never really know what went so wrong.
It is true that these problems have existed in previous elections. But one should not be proud of standing upon that reasoning, especially as a basis for declaring the election legitimate. In fact, if these problems did exist in past elections, why has nothing been done to correct those mistakes? Because the previous elections were not close to within the margin of error, they were considered good enough. This time, Good Enough is not good enough. The election is closer than the margin of error. The only resolution now is to try again and get it right this time.
It is beyond me how anyone who thinks logically about this with an unbiased eye can claim that reconciling the votes with the lawfully registered voters is unimportant. It is also beyond me how anyone can say the same thing about verifying that only people who are lawfully allowed to vote are registered. These things are the foundation on which we can be assured that an election was properly performed. If we cannot guarantee that those who voted are entitled to and that ballots cast by those who were entitled to vote have been counted, how can we claim that our election system is genuinely an expression of the peoples' will?
Judge Bridges has overturned an election in the past. If it been one, or several felons who voted and the win vote margin was several thousand; they could be considered legitimate, because they would not affect the election results.
Since there are a thousand of them, they defintely affected the election outcome. Because there are so many of them, it indicates a problem with the election workers following state law and that error is aggregious enough to overturn the election.
Whether that error is deliberate fraud or not, is subject to exploration and discussion. Many believe that it is.
It definitely proves the Rossi position, that no-one will ever know who won the election fairly. That big binder full of reconciliations of the voter precincts that is hiding somewhere in King County has the evidence needed.
Posted by: sgmmac on February 24, 2005 01:15 AMDistort, deceive, deviate, denigrate, attempt to destroy, distract, use factless arguments, feelings...All in play and all tired and yawn inducing.
REVOTE is in order no matter who felons voted for BUT I would bet you my valuable land in Florida that the numbers match up more like 2/3 voted for Dems or more vs. the other lies being propagated by your wonderful liberal wing in Washington.
Let her sober up then....nah, that will not matter to the feeling party, never mind.
Posted by: niceville on February 24, 2005 04:50 AMHmmm, that's strange. Then why were all the republicans so vocal and sure that the dems would only count King County? Maybe, it's NOT THE LAW!
Chris said "The R's are suing again, and there must be some merit to the case, or it would have been thrown out long ago...."
Hmmm, suing in Chelan county was strategic (what did Rossi get, 67% of the vote there?) -- and whether a case had merit or not has no bearing on whether a superior court judge throws it out (as is evidenced by thousands of cases reversed by the state supreme court and then the US supreme court).
lunaslide: You have shown consistency that is byeond most postins here. Your logic is unflawed and your motivations clear and honest. I admire your candor and your willingness to speak out. I agree on many points (esp. that our elections should have been much cleaner now than in Florida). And i do think the law is the law (change it for the future; do not allow application of changes for the past). I respect Sam Reed so much for his equally party-free view of things as this progressed -- notwithstanding the intense onslaught he was sure to receive from his own party, as he did the right thing...not the partisan thing.
The Florida process stopped...not all legal votes were counted...and questionable local election decisions (e.g. butterfly ballot) caused many unintended votes. That last point brings up "voter repsonsibility" which was the crying call from the republicans before the final recount in Washington State which allowed votes from voters acting properly. Interesting how quickly that argument faded from the Republican arsenal....
Posted by: Franklin on February 24, 2005 05:43 AMa) for those that contend that it's more likely that felons would vote conservative, does that mean on the same ballot, they would vote for the Rep for AG? Clearly McKenna will be more vigorous in going after felons that CG was, simply 'cause he couldn't do less.
How does that square with the logic of saying that felons would not vote for CG because she had been the AG?
The end game of each of the lib arguments here are in conflict, so one of the lib justifications is wrong. I know, there is no surprise in that, but still...
b) libs admit that there is constitutional and case law basis for contesting an election, and there are precedents for elections having been overturned. Yet the lefties insist that the Reps be held to an admittedly impossible standard of proof. The lefty solution to the conflict is for the Reps to just get over it. Ignoring the fact that Dem election official incompetance or malfeasance is the major reason we have come to this point.
Doesn't it occur to anyone that there is a terrible irony here? They want the Reps to be held to an impossible standard, and they want no standards whatsoever to be enforced upon the Dem election workers.
These positions are being put forth by party leadership.
I have friends and family that still harbor loyalty to the Dem party, and they are sorely tested by this mess. Something I finally dealt with years ago when I took economics. One silver lining in this is that it's been a long time since one of my lib friends asked me how a nice person could be a conservative. Now the question for them is how they can, in good conscience, remain a Dem.
c) There has been much made here at SP that it's not just the 'net vote' that is problematic. It's that of the voterless ballots and ballotless voters, and the differential between the two by precinct that is the real problem...especially if it can be verified with certainty that, for example, Rossi precincts had more ballotless voters and CG precincts had more voterless ballots.
One question that I would ask, related to this, of Stefan and others is if it is possible that the problem could be even worse, on a precinct or by the machine basis? What if there's a precinct that has six machines. And let's say that somehow in the process with multiple machines and multiple workers, there are six voterless ballots and five ballotless voters, for a total error of eleven, but a net of only one. The question is, is this possible? And more to the point, is there any way to prove that it did or did not happen? And would the error be reported as eleven or as just one?
This is a particulary alarming question to me, in light of the ability of election workers of running unchecked provisional ballots. And if they were able to run the provisionals in a clearly illegal fashion, what's to say that they were not "cherry picked" for the "right" candidates? What check is there in place that this was not done?
Thus I do applaud the principle efforts of SP and others...create clean elections and vote in a legitimate governor. It should be a slam dunk that accountability measures be enforced, and with jail time, if appropriate.
Posted by: scott158 on February 24, 2005 06:14 AM1) Everyone is willing to concede that felons voted. This is well documented, although the Repub claim of over 1000 thousand has not yet been subjected to examination and verification.
2) Everyone agrees that there is statutory basis for contesting an election and that there is case law that controls election contest. However the disagreement is over the standard that is applied when contesting and election. I would sum up the Repub position as: “If the margin of victory is within the known margin of error, then the election is invalid, so therefore if we can prove that there are more illegal votes than the margin of victory the election should be thrown out.” We (lib/Dems) disagree with this position and our position is reasoned and our position supported by the case law ion election contents.
First, if you look only to illegal votes, the case law cited by Judge Briggs in the election contest provides that “when there was no evidence to show for whom the elector voted and because both candidates were innocent of wrongdoing, the vote must be treated between the parties as a legitimate vote.” This standard would require that the party contesting the election show “for whom the elector voted.”
Secondly, when looking at the alleged irregularities, negligence and misconduct of the election officials - Judge Bridges indicated: 1) that under the law election officers are presumed to have complied with the duties required of them in an honest and careful manner and 2) that the WaSC has held (McCormick v. Okanogan County) that irregularity in an election that does not affect the result is not sufficient to invalidate the election.
Therefroe the lib/Dem position is that he same standard applies both for illegal votes (you have to show “for whom the elector voted” and for irregularities or misconduct by election officials (you have to show that the contesting you have to show this favored the winning candidate over the losing candidate, thereby affecting the outcome).
We are willing to concede that this make an election contest extremely difficult to win, but this is the purposeful result under our election contest statutes. Judge Bridges acknowledged this when he pointed out that few election contests succeed because there are “well-recognized presumptions, if not policy reasons, why elections should not be overturned.” He also cited citied Dumas v. Gagnery that holds: Election contests are governed by several general principles. Chief among them is the principle long followed by this Court that the judiciary should exercise restraint in interfering with the elective process which is reserved to the people in the state Constitution. Unless an election is clearly invalid, when the people have spoken, their verdict should not be disturbed by the courts.
This is the core of our disagreement – was the election “clearly invalid”. Your side says YES because the election doesn’t feel like it was fair and square to you, our side says NO and we support our argument with long standing legal precedent.
The source of this information is," The Palm Beach Post",p.32 May 27,2001. Funny, it's the same as John Fund's source for his Factoid.
Posted by: headless lucy on February 24, 2005 08:40 AMAlthough he refuses to publicly state that this election is invalid, because in his mind he followed the letter of the law, he still cannot totally take the position that this election was good enough and without the “usual human errors”. We need to resolve this once and for all and clean up the voter registration rolls, enact stiff legal penalties for voter fraud, but more importantly enforce the laws that are on the books now!
BTW did anyone see Hannity and Combs last night, talking about the 1108 Felon votes in Washington State, Shawn asking if the Demos were up to something illegal??
National coverage always brings out the best in cover-ups.
From the real world: legal presumptions are overturned by factual evidence to the contrary. I'd recommend suspending your conclusions until the discovery process and the evaluation of the evidence is complete.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on February 24, 2005 09:04 AMFor those of us that live in the real world; Fund probably did talk about this in a prior article - and if not could site credible references thereof, but you likely went off half-cocked - as people of your ilk typically do and start finger pointing without checking everything out...so keep bloviating and spouting nonsense -Talk to the hand or moveon.org.
Posted by: KS on February 24, 2005 09:05 AMI believe you are misstating the standard for contesting an election on grounds of irregularities/misconduct. The precedent you cited (McCormick v. Okanogan County) as quoted states that the election cannot be invalidated if it is shown that the irregularity did NOT affect the result. This is quite different from having to prove that it did.
The whole point of the current contest is that it is unknowable how or whether the numerous documented irregularities affected the outcome of the election. As has been pointed out previously, it is also impossible to know whether many of the irregularities (such as processing provisional ballots without first checking their legitimacy) were intentional or inadvertent; the election procedures that were violated were designed to guard against fraud, so the possibility (even probability) of intentional fraud must be considered.
Judges have broad discretionary authority to craft appropriate remedies when the statute clearly fails to address the issue at hand. I believe the judge in this contest will reject the Democrats' narrow interpretation of the burden of proof for the election contest as unrealistic and impractical. He will exercise his judicial authority to declare the election void, which will trigger the constitutional/statutory process for conducting a new election to fill the resulting vacancy in the Governor's mansion. Hopefully he will also bring the full force of his authority to bear on the elections officers across the state - who abdicated their responsibility to ensure that all election laws are followed - and require them to strictly comply with election law in the future.
Posted by: Patrick on February 24, 2005 09:05 AMYou accuse the Republicans of wanting a revote because it "doesn't feel like it was fair and square" and cite numerous past rulings as evidence of the law. And yet various people on the Democrat's side of the issue make comments about how Rossi's people tried to block the counting of additional ballots that were found just in time for the recounts. A recount is supposed to be a recount, and that includes canvasing of those ballots already counted to be sure the "intent" of the voter was followed. This was done in all counties, hence the difference in numbers in alot of counties. But a recount by definition is a recount of those ballots cast, not a sudden influx (9 times!) of additional ballots. Now we can argue "'till the cows come home" as to whether or not those ballots should have been counted, but the point is the Republicans were asking a judge to follow the law and keep a standard, in that all the other counties had already certified the election and were not able to use the same standards that the judge ended up granting to King County. Where is the legal precident (in this state) for that and do you consider that ruling to be fair to all parties?
There is a tremendous amount of evidence that the election was seriously flawed and that will come out through further investigation and in the courts, as it should. But to say that the election is being contested because it "doesn't feel like it is fair" is rediculous.
Another point of law is the certification of the election by the SOS. Does not the WAC state that the election shall be certified by the SOS after the counties have provided a written report of their reconciliation process and whether or not all the votes were accounted for? This was not done in many counties and King County - that I know for sure - still has not done that.
One thing your superior intellects seem not to grasp is that even if Gregoire lost the second recount, SHE WOULD BE IN COURT JUST LIKE ROSSI!!
If you don't believe this, you live in a fantasy world. Ergo, we were destined to be in this position thanks to King County, Ron Sims, Dean Logan, Bill Heunnekens, and all the rest of those loser jokers. The Dems were gearing up in just the same was as the Republicans are now.
This entire fiasco is not the fault of the Republicans. It's the fault of King County Elections Commission, and every person in the state who cast an illegal ballot.
Personally, I'd rather Rossi won the third count. But I'd much rather be going into the lawsuit with a two-time winner than a two-time loser.
Put that in your tree-planter and give it a big hug.
Posted by: Larry on February 24, 2005 09:35 AMYour (and Rossi's) argument is equivalent to saying the Mariners won when they were ahead in the 1st through 6th innings but lost by the end of the game (but they won 2/3 of the innings!)....of course, only the final score counts....
The most surprising thing is that Rossi himself used this logic...
Regarding the court thing...I don't necessarily disagree. Politics creates weird things...
Posted by: Franklin on February 24, 2005 11:58 AMThis is pretty easy to answer. The WsSC held that election statues allow the correction of errors and that those ballots were erroneously not canvassed in the provisions counts. Once the WaSC interprets the law and rules on an issue, that becomes the established precedent. You might not consider it “fair” but it is the law.
She makes the point that: “There is a tremendous amount of evidence that the election was seriously flawed” I don’t disagree – my point is that showing “serious flaws” is not enough to overturn an election unless you can show that the “serious flaws” actually affected the result. To do this you have to overcome the presumption that election officers complied with the duties required of them in an honest and careful manner. Insufficiently Sensitive’s comments notwithstanding – in the “real world” legal presumptions are very difficult to overcome – they serve to set the bar very, very high. This same presumption would serve to protect the SoS in the certification of the election.
As for Patricks comments: I think you have is backwards. The equation is irregularities w/o affecting the results = contest fails so you have to prove the affect to prevail. That’s my reading, anyway.
Larry writes: “One thing your superior intellects seem not to grasp is that even if Gregoire lost the second recount, SHE WOULD BE IN COURT JUST LIKE ROSSI!!”
I will take the “superior intellect” comment as a compliment (even if undeserved) and just say – I agree with you, if Gregoire had lost the Democrats would have filed an election contest. We agree.
However the burden for the Dems would be the same as it is now for the Repubs you have to show that the proven illegal votes and/or the proven irregularities by the election officials had the affect of changing the outcome. It is not enough just to show that hey exist, you have to go the extra mile and prove that they had the affect of changing who won the election.
Finally, my turn. May I be so bold as to say that you are going a little too heavy with all your bold statements. Lighten up a little.
Posted by: JG on February 24, 2005 12:47 PM#2 The demographics of felons indicate that they should be Republicans? What happened to the claim that minorities are overrepresented in prisons?
Posted by: Dogbert on February 24, 2005 03:45 PMIf so, I'll accept your wishes and not post again. If not, I'll try to continue to share my views.
This is not my blog so I respect the wishes (and control) of those in charge....
Posted by: Franklin on February 24, 2005 04:14 PMYes! Franklin - you are a troll!
Now quit wasting this blogs bandwidth with your nonsense circular counter point drivel and go away! And take your fellow trolls with you!
But I do take issue with you calling reasonable, logical argumenbts "nonsense circular counter point drivel". Really, that only reduces the crediblity of your postings.
Here's hoping that people who support the one-sided ideas, continually posted in this blog, will take the time to understand and appreciate the full facts...the complete set of information...not just the selective data put forth here.
I've enjoyed the time here...and appreciate those who disagreed with me using logic and good reasoning. To those who called me names, I say, it's good you are in the minority as those with closed minds make for scary futures for everyone.
Bye.
(PS...I've noticed on the horses website that they encourage dissenting views. Perhaps you will take the same approach sometime in the future. If not, I fear that your one-sided arguments will forever find their homes in closed minds.)
Posted by: Franklin on February 24, 2005 07:47 PMBy the way Rossi isn't making these arguments either. He is saying that we have a statute that allows a judge to vacate an election when there is sufficient evidence that we do not know who won that election and that there is sufficient evidence that we do not know who won the manual recount because the gap between the lead of the winner and illegal votes is enough to establish that uncertainty. . . and that our laws do not allow people to remain Governor in such uncertain elections. You may not like the policy, but it is the law in place and it is the law the judge will presumably follow.
Posted by: barchester on February 25, 2005 09:28 AM"both Conservatives and Liberals (if I may continue to call them what they
still call themselves) have lost confidence in the political creeds
which they nominally profess
Well would it be for England if Conservatives voted consistently
for every thing conservative, and Liberals for every thing liberal. We
should not then have to wait long for things which, like the present
and many other great measures, are eminently both the one and the
other. The Conservatives, as being by the law of their existence the
stupidest party, have much the greatest sins of this description to
answer for; and it is a melancholy truth, that if any measure were
proposed on any subject truly, largely, and far-sightedly
conservative, even if Liberals were willing to vote for it, the great
bulk of the Conservative party would rush blindly in and prevent it
from being carried."