The Bothell Regional Library polling place counted a net 30 more ballots than voters. The election worker's note on this polling book cover explains what happened:
31 "no labels" went through Accuvote
That's election official slang for "unverified provisionals were inserted into ballot machine and counted as if they were legitimate votes". King County gave me a [hard] copy of the worksheet that lists the precincts where the widely reported 348 unverified provisionals were found. Oddly, the Bothell Regional Library precincts are not on that list. This confirms what Joe O'Donnell and others have told me, namely that the number of unverified provisionals is much higher than the 348 that King County has acknowledged.
This polling book "accountability worksheet" from another Bothell Regional Library precinct (BOT 3271) shows that 154 ballots went into the Accuvote even though only 138 regular ballots were issued. Oddly enough, my ballot/credit worksheet shows the same numbers.
The polling books are sitting at King County Elections for anybody to look at, generally available with a couple of days advance notice.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 10, 2005 06:10 PM | Email ThisThe "dungheap" of information from KingCo that is about to come forward will blow everyone's mind.
I believe they are "BUSTED" because these pollbooks were REQUIRED to be reconciled, discrepancies noted, discrepancies investigated and discrepancies REPORTED to the Canvassing Board BEFORE certification. We desperately need the tapes of those Canvassing Board meetings to find out what Election Official Logan reported to Canvassing Board member Logan (and his faithful bloodhound Larry Phillips). What action did the Canvassing Board order to further investigate discrepancies before certification???
ANSWER---NONE!!!!!!
They had 3 counts to certify.
3 opportunities to require further investigation.
I'LL BET THEY NEVER DID BECAUSE GREGOIRE ENDED UP WITH ENOUGH VOTES!!! They knew it before they released the FINAL HAND RECOUNT #'s..
Had they been short, I can assure you SOME of these precindt discrepancies would have been highlighted for further investigation by:
ELECTION SUPERVISOR/CANVASSING BOARD MEMBER LOGAN!!
Logan has a huge appearance of fairness problem.
Let the depositions begin!
"(Numbers for B and C should be equal.)"
They are obviously not, even though it looks like someone initally wrote 154 and then scratched it out before writing and crossing out 141 with a final tally of 138 written in red ink in the margin.
"This election was a model for the country and the rest of the world." - Former AG Gregoire
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...
Posted by: JRR on March 10, 2005 06:43 PMYou might be tired of being told how great you are....... so I'll shout it
YOU're GREAT!
What a mess! What an utterly complete goat screw! Maybe everyone was too hasty in supporting the SOS. This stuff just reinforces what the Evergreen Report says, a lack of rules and a total lack of leadership, has created this nightmare. The way it is looking, Rossi should have won by a landslide. Only 250 of the 348 provisionals were valid. I'm not that good with math, but I think it's already over 129 valid illegal votes counted. Pierce County unregistered their felons a couple of days ago. The Columbian.com reported a few of their felons voted for ludachris. King County is finally getting around to investigating theirs according to the times........
Good Job and keep their toes to the fire!
Posted by: sgmmac on March 10, 2005 06:51 PMJRR - ha E^999999 ---
(The pictures are worth a billion words)
sgmmac - I'll second that.
JCH - One can only hope.
JCH - Now a rich white female - no racism possible
dkcowboy - Say'n it like it is Posted by: zapporo on March 10, 2005 07:49 PM
No proof.
Just baseless allegations from sore losers.
Horse. Beat. Dead.
Posted by: name on March 10, 2005 08:18 PMThe Ballot Accountability Sheet make's the rough draft on my taxes look pristine! I can't believe anyone would accept those Ballot totals as valid! I'd love to see Ballot sheets from other polling stations in King County..
My God! Were they using their fingers and toes?
As a former banker of 24 years, I cannot believe a huge and sophisticated government entity such as King County would dare to try to pass this po-dunk scratch off as official 'anything'! Even in the low-tech 70's the bank could reconcile millions in a day! There is simply no excuse for any polling place to not reconcile their numbers - then for King County as a whole to gather and not reconcile all of the polling place totals. They have the technology - Heck!- McDonalds can tell you instantly how many cheeseburgers have been sold to date in the world! I could pull up to the penny - the most complex commercial lending totals for the day, month, years, region, office, etc...billions - updated daily! To the penny! Of course, the bank didn't hire felons to produce our software as King County did in the past...but the software is available everywhere these days!
This is incredible!
Posted by: Deborah on March 10, 2005 08:34 PMThe line "After the Polls Close Ending Ballot Stub Number"...if you're staring at the ballot, how can you get that wrong???? Now, if you weren't looking at it...
And how did the number of spoiled ballots increase from 2 to 5? Or were the "red" markes reverse engineered? In other words, five ballots were missing (or became missing), so there must have been five spoiled ballots...
A Rossi Ballot is a Spoiled Ballot....
Posted by: VaCSProf on March 10, 2005 09:07 PMA box of 10,000 votes stashed in the corner at KC Elections found long after the election is over can be counted unfettered without being examined - Amazing !
This can be compared it to the current steroid scandal in baseball, where the new highly sophisticated designer steroids are able to be a step ahead of being able to be detected by urine tests, but they eventually catch up and start to nab the steroid users - but when will Barry Bonds be tested positive ? everyone knows he has used them, but he hasn't officially been caught yet. The similarity is that the binder and the overall accounting procedures in King County is like the designer steroids in that up to now they had been a step ahead of detection (or even catching Barry Bonds- if you will). However, thanks to Stefan and this blog and the Rossi campaign factfinding teams- the "urine tests" for voter fraud have a strong chance of coming up positive before a court of law - given that the judges are not blind to justice (as activist judges often are).
Posted by: KS on March 10, 2005 09:29 PMUn-be-freaking-lievable.
Off by say 500 on 3,000,000 votes - ok. Understandable. Not acceptable mind, but understandable.
One thing this highlights is provisionals MUST be different from normal ballots. I'd do two things to make them different.
One, all _types_ of ballots are immediately distinguishable to a human glance. Make poll ballots green-edged, absentees blue-edged, provisionals red-edged, and 'remakes', which are only done by the canvasing board yellow and black edged.
Second, make the very first set of circles on the page mark the same information for the accuvote. So normal ballots have a blank spot that the machine reads as 'normal', and all other ballot types have blackened circles in that same spot so they're rejected just exactly the way 'overvotes' are currently rejected. This requires _no_ code changes - just a 'fake' election at the head of the list.
Posted by: Al on March 10, 2005 10:08 PMAlso it is required for those doing the recount to also sign the document saying it is correct or do they produce a new document with their signatures.
I am totally confused just looking at the document.
It looks like someone brought in their own ballots to put in the machine. I wonder how that could happen. Copy machine action anyone. Posted by: david anfinrud on March 10, 2005 10:19 PM
What does the handwritten “180 hc” after the printed word “Signature” mean?
(I notice that the King County ballot accountability form has no place for recording the precinct officials' count of the signatures in the poll book, so the King County polling place officials apparently didn’t comply with RCW 29A.44.280:
“Immediately after the unused ballots are secure, the precinct election officers shall count the number of voted ballots and make a record of any discrepancy between this number and the number of voters who signed the poll book....”
It figures, since in WAC 434-253-160 the SecState failed to include that statutory requirement as part of the ballot accountability form. The signature count will apparently be part of the new rule, but that’s too late to keep King County from failing to know of the statutory requirement to count the signatures in the poll book at the polling place as part of the election night ballot accountability process. So, there is apparently no signature count other than possibly one done by the elections office personnel as part of their effort to reconcile their ballot totals during the canvassing process -- assuming anyone even tried to count the signatures before the initial certification of election results.)
What does the handwritten “177 + 2 add-on” after “Computer” mean? What is being counted by computer? What is an “add-on”?
Where does the term “no label” come from? What “label” is “no(t)” there?
“Spoiled ballots” should mean ballots that were handed back by the voters who messed them up and got another ballot issued in place of the spoiled ballot.
I ask all this, because I cannot otherwise know how (or whether) the numbers add up.
Does anyone know the answers?
How many of you believe that the library polls were occupied 2-1 in the R's favor?
Keep up the hard work Stefan, and I am still waiting on that tax refund...........your raise is soon to be in the mail
Jim Posted by: Jim L on March 10, 2005 11:36 PM
No one's called yet.
Posted by: Michele on March 10, 2005 11:55 PMBaseless means without fact or substance. Referring to a dead horse means all arguments and options are over. As that has more applicability to the Democrat spin,legal tactics, and win record (they have yet to win in court on their challenges) I feel you are exhibiting greater support for a revote. If I am wrong about your intentions please raise your standard of debate or concede that your arguments are truly baseless and insipid. If you insist on trolling with your emotional arguments then you are simply reinforcing the stereotype of the brainwashed, herd mentality, enforced substandard education, liberal, Democrat. At least some of the other liberals here attempt to make valid points. Buy some intelligence or go to HA and rant there. Posted by: Mark Beyer on March 11, 2005 12:16 AM
If you read the recommendations on page 48 of the King County Citizens Election Oversight Committee May 2004 Report advising King County on its election process you will see a series of recommendations regarding provisional ballots (which they were concerned about)
http://www.metrokc.gov/mkcc/docs/CEOC_report.pdf
Recommendations
• Review the reasons provisional ballots are issued and note any cost effective steps that can be taken to reduce their number – such as timely processing of voter registration and early voter registration drives – without interfering with a citizen’s right to vote.
• Estimate the number of provisional ballots that will be returned during the 2004 presidential election and person hours required to process them to ensure adequate staffing.
• Consider establishing a position of provisional ballot judge for general elections in high turnout polling places.
• During the canvass process, track the number of provisional ballots counted by poll machines each election.
• Determine provisional ballots counted by poll machines during the canvass process and subtract from machine totals
• Track the error rate and if significant, implement procedural and/or technical changes to reduce errors.
• Consider strategies – such as color coding ballots – so that they can be identified more easily during canvass.
Gosh, if this weren't so many months ahead of the election, one could accuse the Committee of Monday morning quarterbacking. Was the problem really this obvious this many months in advance?
I guess, then that the reason for the problems were that officials intentionally ignored the problem for some partisan reason.
How interesting. Where is the MSM when you need them. I guess there are no MSM investigative reporters in Seattle, but then we all knew that.
Posted by: Bob on March 11, 2005 12:28 AMDuring the second "reconciliation" audit of early January, the election workers had access to several different numbers, plus the poll books. For each precinct, they had 1) the number of ballots fed through each AccuVote machine as reflected by the AccuVote machine tape, and 2) the number of voters that had been credited with voting. They would also conduct a 3) hand count of the number of signatures (or other indications of a person having voted) in each precinct poll book.
Bear in mind that observers were not allowed to closely observe the workers during the "reconciliation" process in order to find out how they arrived at their various conclusions.
Nevertheless, I may speculate on what the numbers in the first graphic (precinct BOT 01-0254) represent.
First, I think that the notation that reads "+1 for polling place, 31 'no labels' went through accuvote" refers to a remaining net discrepancy of +1 ballot for the entire polling place, and an assumption that 31 "no labels" were improperly fed through the AccuVote machines in this entire polling place--not just this one precinct. So this notation can be ignored for now.
The "wanda 171" notation refers to the scanning of the bar codes next to the names in the poll book in order to give poll voters credit for having voted. (171 bar codes had been "wanda'ed".)
Incidentally, this number may or may not match up with the actual number of voters credited for this precinct, due to the migration of provisional ballots between precincts.
The notation on top says "180hc", probably meaning "180 hand count" of signatures (apparently provisional voters' signatures would be counted too).
I think that the "computer" number refers to what the AccuVote tape (a printout) said: 177 ballots passed through on election day. Then there were 2 add-on ballots that were not fed through the machine for some reason, but it is my understanding that the term "add-ons" means ballots that "should" have been fed through the machine, but they were not for some reason. The total, then, is 179 ballots that were accounted for at this polling place on election day.
There was one ballot that was spoiled (that is, it was destroyed by the voter or poll worker). It is my understanding that this occurred when a voter made a mistake and wanted a new ballot. (Alternatively, perhaps this was a ballot that was force-fed into the machine despite errors, at the voter's insistence.)
There were 8 "special" (provisional) ballots issued to provisional voters.
The parenthetical comment on the bottom appears to say "4 no label".
The "+7" refers to the remaining ballot discrepancy in this precinct.
BOTTOM LINE: I am wondering how the election worker came up with "+7". The math just does not add up--assuming that all the other numbers are right. Perhaps there is a simple explanation, but I can't figure it out, based upon the data presented here.
(One possibility is that the "4 no label" really ought to have been "7 no label" but the person copying the numbers onto the cover page mistook the 7 for a 4. But this explanation would also require that the one "spoiled" ballot represented someone whose vote was not counted by the AccuVote machine--for example, the ballot had overvotes on it but the voter insisted that it be forced into the machine that way, anyway.)
I hope my rambling post answered some of your questions.
Frankly, I still have more questions than answers. Posted by: Tim B. on March 11, 2005 02:35 AM
After eeking out a lead in the THIRD re-count of a statewide race, the 'chosen' candidate was (finally) leading.
Those who were 'put in place' to see that it happened, have NO paper trail to (a)prove their actions.
Stefan (and others) doubted the 'final' results enough to request said proof. These pages (with all notations) SCREAM of of misuse of public trust and office!
'BOUGHT AND PAID FOR' should be written across the 'BIG BINDER'.
Now watch and see who starts their CYA campain first!
Stefan, You have proven your doubts.
You and those (like you) who seek the TRUTH, should be VERY proud. [;-D
Will they charge GREGOIRE rent for the use of the Govenor's mansion? (along with the obvious Federal charges) [;-P
Posted by: Arky on March 11, 2005 04:50 AMThe screenshots prove Stefan's points hand and foot over. Their own reconciliation methods will damn them in the court of law. My guess to the reason for the delay is they have projected the amount of it will take to "reconcile" each of the 2671 precincts, and March 31 still is a good KC date. So how can they deliver an unfinished document for Stefan to review when it would not be complete.
When estimating any job, one has to keep a schedule. I would be that there are late nights in the KC Elections offices where some poor minion/s is/are burning the midnight oil trying to get that book cleaned up for Sharkansky's consumption. Can you imagine if we had access to the trash cans from the Elections offices. Too bad one of us doesn't work there. Oh yeah ... you have to be a unionized Demoncat for that payola job!
Their big problem is that Stefan has kept for all of us to review each set of numbers released from November 3rd. So Bill and Dean have to show the same totals for each partial vote release. BUTT, (yes that is correct), BUTT I say, they are pulling them out from where the sun has never shined.
Go Shark, go!!!
I am originally from Philadelphia. When we don't like certain results, we burn down major city blocks to get rid of those we disagree with. Or we implement graft so blatant the FBI has little problem catching the crooks in the mayor's office.
To those who specifically say one has to initial changes, this is very correct. Any REAL government agency knows this. For the Volunteer argument, they are supposed to be trained. When I used to visit vote, the same ladies worked my precinct. So don't spew the argument they didn't know the rules. They chose not to implement the rules in KC.
Regarding my English, I am from the city. In my neighborhood we all spoke the same way, as it didn't matter what hue you were. In the simple venacular --> "Some of my best friends are ...!"
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on March 11, 2005 06:52 AMOf course, they would have a different view if it were a Republican taking office under less than clear conditions. Then they'd be investigating the hell out of it. One need only look to the media's shenanigans in the 2000 Floridah presidential race. The media bought and paid for their own version of a recount. Of course, that story died and was quietly buried when their own recount showed that Bush won anyway.
Posted by: Interested Observer on March 11, 2005 07:25 AMEven the Rossi people know this dog doesn't hunt. The accuracy rate for King County...despite Stefan's best efforts to make something out of nothing...is 99.8%. The reconciliation process has nothing to do with whether or not the votes were properly cast or counted. It's bookeeping.
This can be written about seven days a week and twice on Sunday if it makes the SP bunch happy...but it doesn't actually have much relevance. Especially when the focus is only on King...with other counties have nonreconciled. It's not just irrelevant..it's dishonest.
Rossi is basically down to the felon vote..which is looking less and less like a winner and more and more like a drain on taxpayer dollars.
Carla@preemptivekarma
Posted by: carla on March 11, 2005 07:26 AMIn all fairness, there was a reporter from one of the newspapers in the room looking at poll books too...
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on March 11, 2005 07:27 AM"In all fairness, there was a reporter from one of the newspapers in the room looking at poll books too..."
Trying not to be too optimistic here, but in stories like these, i.e., where lefties have gotten themselves in deep fecal matter, reporters tend to show up when it becomes impossible to ignore the story. (Too many examples: Clinton/Lewinsky, Rather, Eason, etc.)
We can but hope.
alaric
Posted by: alaric on March 11, 2005 07:40 AMHave you tried contacting the Poll Book Judge (Eleanor Hill) shown in your 2nd image? It might be interesting to see what she has to say about the source and timeline of the "red corrections." There's a Bothell telephone listing for an Eleanor Hill.
In all likelihood, you will find that Ms. Hill is a sweet, middle to golden aged person. She might have basic math skills, and she might not. She might be totally capable of reconciling the used and unused ballots with the poll book and Accuvote tape, but it is just as likely that she is incapable of doing that. One hopes that the polling place inspector is capable of helping close out the books at the end of the night, but I'd guess that at least 25% of the polling places have inspectors who are not capable of doing that.
Unless someone knows that Ms. Hill is politically active, and an astute person, I'd say leave her alone. She would probably not know anything about the red marks, assuming they were added by downtown election workers.
Posted by: Huckleberry on March 11, 2005 08:12 AMIf anyone can explain to me how having millions of people with no health care hitting the emergency rooms and then not being able to pay the bill, thereby continuously increasing my coverage rates, helps me---I would love to know. I would also love to understand how the recent bankruptcy bill helps anyone but the credit card industry. Real answers, no polemics, please.
Posted by: headless lucy on March 11, 2005 08:13 AMYou start shoveling the Horse Sxxx where there is the most of it! KC is obviously where the most organized effort was made. The Demos figured that the large number of voters would conceal their efforts at distributed fraud. A "minor mistake" here and a "litle discrepancy" there add up. Just like building an airplane. Each part doesn't weigh very much, but put 'em all together, and guess what! You've got a 747! I may be just a dumb OKIE but, when you come into a barn full of Horse Sxxx, you normally can count on there being a horse around somewhere! In other words, KC elections STINK!
Posted by: Okie on March 11, 2005 08:17 AMCarla, just like a typical leftist refuses to examine the facts - because...her mind is already made up. We'll see just how much relevance this has when the court in Chelan County reconvenes. Until then, you're bloviating without substance...
Posted by: KS on March 11, 2005 08:24 AMSpolied ballots occur when a voter notices that he/she has voted incorrectly, and requests a replacement ballot. The old ballot is returned to the poll book judge, who "spoils" the ballot by tearing it half through the middle, and places it in a "spoiled ballot" bag that will be returned to county Elections at the end of the night. The poll book is amended to indicate a spoiled ballot occurred, and a new ballot was issued.
At the end of the night, the number of spoiled ballots is tallied, so it can be subtracted from the total number of ballots issued by that judge. (Provisional ballots and challenged ballots, which are not supposed to be processed through the Accuvote machine, are also tallied and subtracted from the total.)
At the end of the night, the Accuvote machine spits out a tape summarizing the number of ballots counted from each precinct. The number from the Accuvote tape should match the number of ballots issued, minus the number of spoiled ballots, number of provisional ballots, and number of challenged ballots.
One common mistake in filling out the Ballot Accountability Sheet is to write down the number of ballots issued, rather than the sequence number of the last ballot issued. Our brains do the math automatically, even though the form is designed to do the math mechanically. I would not be surprised if 10% of the accountability forms experience this problem. Usually the error is caught on site with a little "damn" muttered under one's breath. But some undoubtedly make it all the way downtown, where they must be corrected by the central office workers.
What is unusual about his precinct is the large discrepancy between ballots issued and ballots counted by the Accuvote. Apparently, the poll book judge was handing out ballots without recording them. The county seems to feel that this sometimes happens because the judge hands them out as provisional ballots, without properly segregating them from the normal ballots. Another possibility is that somebody just grabbed a handful of ballots and fed them into the Accuvote.
You could answer which is more likely by looking at the entire logbook. The ballot number issued to each voter is recorded in the poll book. If you could see that, say, ballots 1 through 100 are accounted for, and ballots 117 through 168 are accounted for, that would likely indicate that somebody grabbed ballots 101 through 116 and voted multiple times. If the ballot numbers of the "missing" ballots are scattered randomly, it would support the idea that they were provisional ballots mistakenly fed through the Accuvote, or that someone was pilfering ballots throughout the day.
Another part of the process is for the judge to tear a stub off of the ballot before it is handed to the voter. These stubs are kept in a special bag marked "Ballot Stubs" and returned to the cental office at the end of the night. In principle, if the ballots were stolen, there should be no way for the stubs to make it into the bag.
Has anybody at the county used either of these procedure to investigate Precinct BOT-3271?
-- or --
Regarding incompetent pollworkers
Provisional ballots are issued when a person demands to be issued a ballot, with or without evidence that the person is a legal voter. The theory is that the person's vote will be accepted, and quarantined, and the canvassing board will determine if the person is a qualified voter, and whether the vote should be counted. (I would like to know that all unqualified voters are turned over to the county prosecuter for investigation and possible prosecution, but I doubt that happens very much, and that is altogether a different topic.)
The key to safely issuing provisional ballots is for those ballots to be quarantined, that is, to be kept separate from the regular ballots and to have voter information attached.
The ballots are supposed to be folded into thirds before they are given to the voter, which is supposed to prevent the Accuvote machine from accepting them, although I have never personally seen this demonstrated. In a well run polling place, provisional ballots will only be issued with the permission of the elections inspector, on a case by case basis. A competent inspector will keep an eye on provisional voters, from a distance, to make sure the provisional ballot gets returned to the inspector or judge, sealed inside a properly filled out and signed provisional ballot envelope, and inserted into the side slot on the black box.
The problem is, this whole process depends on qualified, or at least, competent election workers. Visit several polling places and make your own judgement as to the qualifications of the typical poll worker. They are not a disaster, but there are many questionable workers.
Somebody offered the idea of issuing provisional voters ballots with a "double voted" special race. I really appreciate the simplicity and elegance of that idea. More commonly, people recommend that provisional ballots be printed on different colored paper. I am skeptical that either innovation would make much difference. They are both dependent on the same marginally qualified poll workers... can people who forget to tri-fold provisional ballots be relied upon to implement any of these proposals? The current system will work if there is oversight and correction. We do not need to change the systems or the rules, but just manage them better.
As we move into the brave world of absentee voting, and voting by mail in general, the polling place procedures will become more and more lax. Too many polling places have no visibility by party operatives, or worse, lop-sided representation by one party.
One remedy is for both parties to dedicate themselves to producing a small army of volunteer polling place workers. Ideally, all poll workers would be highly partisan, and matched one for one at all polling places. Of course, this doesn't make sense if we go to voting by mail, resigned to rely 100% on the honesty and integrity of King County Elections.
Remember that next time you are balancing your check book, and make sure you call the bank CEO when your account is overdrawn.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=reconcile&x=12&y=19
2 : to make consistent or congruous ***reconcile an ideal with reality***
4 a : to check (a financial account) against another for accuracy b : to account for
Someone suggested contacting Poll Book Judge Eleanor J. Hill to explain what happened in her precinct. Please realize that it is the Polling Place Inspector who is responsible for the integrity of the procedures followed at the polling place. I would recommend that if someone wanted to take this investigation closer to "the people" that they talk to the inspector rather than the poll book judge.
Now then, looking at the excellent photo posted by Stefan, I see that the ispector for BOT-3271 is &)&%#)&#%)()&&@&^#&. Can anybody make out his or her signature? Obviously a professional signatore. A doctor perhaps?
Puddybud wrote:
"When estimating any job, one has to keep a schedule. I would be that there are late nights in the KC Elections offices where some poor minion/s is/are burning the midnight oil trying to get that book cleaned up for Sharkansky's consumption. Can you imagine if we had access to the trash cans from the Elections offices. Too bad one of us doesn't work there. Oh yeah ... you have to be a unionized Demoncat for that payola job!"
While I concur that the reconciliation documents are apparently a mess, the fact that they are available and that the photos show that mess seems to counter your statement.
That incompetence played a (large) role seems indisputable, but if it was fraud, we would never have been given the chance to see these images. Those cover sheets would have been run through the shredder and replaced with "correct" ones.
There is a concept often attributed to Robert Heinlein (actually called "Hanlon's razor", and written by Robert J. Hanlon). "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Still, even your friendly token liberal is glad that Mr. Sharkansky is gathering this information and getting it out to the public. Facts are facts, and it is said that "sunlight is the best disinfectant". While I doubt that some here will belive it, most Democrats don't want a replay of this fiasco any more than the Republicans do.
The fact that I belive that these mistakes were simply errors does not mean that I think that the people that made them should keep their jobs, and with the information now publicly available, the temptation to "correct" the documents is now greatly reduced.
Posted by: John Barelli on March 11, 2005 09:10 AMStay on topic you feltching troll.
Posted by: Jessi D. James on March 11, 2005 09:15 AMhttp://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/18/scandal/
False. You can't know an 'accuracy' without perfect knowledge. We know that there were as a minimum 0.2% errors. You could measure the 'precision' of the election - that's the difference in the observed count between the three separate counts. But to measure 'accuracy' you have to know for a fact 'if I eliminate this specific error, there were NO other errors of any sort'. One single felon voter changes the number (the vast bulk of the alleged illegal votes weren't used to come up with the 0.2% number). If you assume that the alleged illegal votes are 100% of the errors (because it's adversarial - any error anyone can think of will be on the list), you could come up with a minimum accuracy.
Huck: ...a "double voted" special race. [Can they] be relied upon to implement any of these proposals?
The 'double voted' special race approach has the _machines_ enforcing the no-provisionals-through-machine part. Then you have only one person at each precinct to deal with provisionals (no one else has any to distribute), so the random poll book person just has to say "You aren't in the book, talk to _her_." and "You have to sign to get a ballot from me."
Posted by: Al on March 11, 2005 09:35 AMThe 'double voted' special race approach has the _machines_ enforcing the no-provisionals-through-machine part. Then you have only one person at each precinct to deal with provisionals (no one else has any to distribute), so the random poll book person just has to say "You aren't in the book, talk to _her_." and "You have to sign to get a ballot from me."
The machines [allegedly] enforce the no provisionals in Accuvote now by virtue of the provisional being tri-folded by the poll book judge or inspector. The double-voted scenario still depends on a poll worker handing a voter the proper ballot. Probably the only way to reliably segregate provisional voters is to have a totally separate, mini-polling place. One door in, one door out, no Accuvote machine in sight, and a full body cavity search upon exiting.
... or something like that... :)
Posted by: Huckleberry on March 11, 2005 09:43 AMThe big issue is what the local books say (the displayed reconciliation sheets in the main frame) vs. the big book. If Stefan received a reconciliation sheet that is different from the "big book" sheet then we have a scandal. All I was saying is the sheets Stefan displays here may or may not be the same in the big book of the precinct reconciliation reports. I feel that there are some shenanigans happening on these reconcilication books and they have to worry if the sample sheets Stefan has seen don't match up to all the recounts performed. Imaging the discussion in the courtroom when this meets sunlight when they try to discuss the growing number of votes found in warehouses, on tables and there is NO PRECINCT FOR THEM!!!! I just ask all to think about this for a second.
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on March 11, 2005 09:47 AMThen you have only one person at each precinct to deal with provisionals (no one else has any to distribute), so the random poll book person just has to say "You aren't in the book, talk to _her_." and "You have to sign to get a ballot from me."
Oh, I get it!
Instead of having provisional voters draw a ballot at random from a real precinct, create a special provisional precinct at each polling place. That might work... and is remarkably close to what I just said about a provisional ballot mini-polling place.
We are in agreement, I think.
However, this will make polling place voting more expensive, at a time when liberals, and our friend Kathy Lambert, seem intent on completely destroying the voting process by moving to 100% voting by mail.
Posted by: Huckleberry on March 11, 2005 09:47 AMUpon reflection, our current system is set up to operate as Al and I were discussing. The Elections Inspector is, in effect, the poll book judge for provisional voters. Perhaps all that is needed is a small poll book and a small package of ballots for the inspector to use to record provisional activity. Or add a provisional judge as Al suggests. The bottom line is that inspectors, and all election workers in general, need to take their work more seriously, and do a better job of protecting us from fraud and/or incompetence. As I said elsewhere, the problem isn't really in the way the system is designed, but in the way it is managed.
Posted by: Huckleberry on March 11, 2005 09:54 AMSomeone ends up paying for their abuse of the system. What is wrong with not making it so easy for them?
Posted by: Fred on March 11, 2005 10:36 AMPuddybud wrote:
"John Barelli: I too agree that sunlight sanitizes Demoncat activities."
So, by that statement, I presume you are opposed to sunlight in your Repugnican activities?
Now that we have both managed to use cute but deliberately offensive names for each other, perhaps we can try some actual dialog to start fixing the problems.
As I stated, most Democrats, while perhaps not happy with what is being revealed, are in favor of getting the facts out. Better that the problems be out in the open, where we can try to fix them.
The good news here is that if deliberate fraud were the problem, we would not be seeing any of this. Shredders are cheap and easy to use.
This leaves us with incompetence. No excuse, and it needs to be dealt with. But the evidence shows a comedy of errors. If it were fraud, we would be seeing nice, clean, properly completed forms.
Personnally I don't care what it was, the net result is an unresolved election - which means that we should have a revote with a clean voter registration record and clear rules for all concerned.
Posted by: Fred on March 11, 2005 10:48 AMThanks for the additional info in response to my questions "Posted by Micajah at March 10, 2005 11:30 PM".
It appears that we both need more information in order to know the meaning of the handwritten notations on the cover sheet of the poll book for Bothell 01-0254.
Perhaps someone will eventually show up and post a comment to let us know what these scribblings actually mean.
As it stands, there is no reasonable way to draw any sane conclusions based on scribblings that aren't translated into plain English.
I agree that "WANDA 171" probably refers to the number of bar codes next to signatures that were scanned and uploaded into the database. "WANDA" is used in Kitsap County to refer to the process of scanning bar codes on absentee envelopes to begin the audit trail for them. Probably, then, "WANDA" is also used to refer to the process of scanning bar codes on the poll books to capture the identities of people whose signatures appeared in the poll books as having been issued regular ballots at the polling places.
If "Computer 177+2 add-ons" refers to the AccuVote ballot count from the polling place, then the "+2 add-ons" would make no sense.
I suspect that "add-ons" are provisional ballots cast in other polling places which were found to have been cast by voters registered in Bothell 01-0254. In which case the "Computer 177+2 add-ons" refers to a ballot tabulation done sometime after election day -- and the "+2 add-ons" explains the presence of 2 ballots in that later count which weren't physically cast at the polling place for Bothell 01-0254. But then, I don't know the jargon used by the election office -- I'm only guessing.
We need information so we don't have to guess.
Smoke may come out of guesswork, but not "smoking guns."
Posted by: Micajah on March 11, 2005 11:38 AMSince there were 4 ballots which were "blank voted" in Bothell 01-0254 for the governor's race, and there were 4 "no labels" noted at the bottom right side of the cover sheet, I suspect that the person who says "no label" is jargon for ballots improperly inserted in AccuVote machines guessed wrong.
I think "no label" means "blank voted" -- in other words, it simply refers to ballots which contained no vote marked in the governor's race.
If someone was trying to reconcile ballots and votes by precinct, it would be important to recognize the number of ballots which had no vote marked in the governor's race. Yet, the 4 ballots which were "blank voted" for the governor's race don't appear to have been noted on the poll book's cover sheet -- unless, of course, "(4 no label)" refers to them.
I wonder who that person was who claimed to know the meaning of "no label."
Posted by: Micajah on March 11, 2005 11:57 AMSome people need to be fired.
Some people need to go to jail.
Start boiling tar!
Posted by: Walter E. Wallis on March 11, 2005 12:13 PM
Since all of the ballots look alike, how do we know that it was unverified provisionals that were fed into the Accuvote, and not some of the 3500++ duplicate absentees?
Posted by: ewaggin on March 11, 2005 12:19 PMYou present
1) the polling book cover sheet for Bothell Library 1-0254.
2) the ballot accountability form for Bothell 3271 which shows 16 more regular ballots fed thru the accuvote machine, than were issued.
Q1: Does the King County list of misfed provisional ballots show this occuring in precinct 3271. If yes that explains the 16 extra votes.
Q2: Do you have the "ballot accountability form" for precint 1-0254. Does that explain the cryptic "31 no label" notation on the cover. Was it actually a "3 no label" notation? Why don't you post the ballot accountability form for 1-0254 if you have it, and if you don't maybe you should have waited to post.
So far these could just be errors by little old ladies and probably republican old ladies at that.
Fred wrote:
"John B - I don't think they would be that obvious! Blatent disregard for the instruction (B and C must match) makes it look like incompentence, which can be brushed off and an excuse to leave things as they are"
No, this level of incompetence cannot be brushed off. I suppose you could argue that the appearance of incompetence could be the difference between being fired (along with at least some new safeguards to prevent it happening again) and people going to jail, but even that would require a lot of people going along with the gag.
It has been said that two people can keep a secret, so long as one of them is dead. The number of people that would be required to keep this secret boggles the mind. Incompetence and apathy, however, know no bounds.
No, this should not and must not be ignored. A number of people need to be held accountable, and Mr. Logan is at the top of the list. Regardless of his personal involvement, this mess happened on his watch.
It would have been nice if he acknowledged his responsibility and announced his resignation. Failing that, it's up to the people of King County. A good first step would be to change the elections director to an elective position.
Posted by: John Barelli on March 11, 2005 04:53 PMI agree with you...
I've always believed KingCo was guilty of gross incompetence. I don't believe there is any major conspiracy going on here....up until it came time to admit it OR try to minimize or marginalize what actually happened.
It appears Logan choose the latter.
In the last several months, Logan has had opportunity after opportunity to admit to the gross incompetence underneath him. Perhaps Logan arrogantly thought he could talk his way out of this. After all, the other County Auditors used to look to Logan as the "technical expert" on elections many because a lot of County Auditors don't have the experience...thus anyone who knows more than they do and is articulate is their INDUSTRY EXPERT> Logan relished in that "Know-it-all role.
Logan must now understand that the errors and negligence is huge. Perhaps Logan didn't even recognize the mess underneath him until recently.
No matter....if Logan is uncomfortable with what has transpired, he needs to admit it TODAY!
Ron Sims will cut him loose like an old eskimo on an ice float if it is politically advantageous.
The jig is up-----
I really hope Logan will quickly (perhaps Monday) do the honorable thing and be forthright with the citizens of Washington.
I didn't know you are a wascally Democrat. Wow, you actually want to clean this up? Congratulations from me a conservate Democrat who lately votes Republican for the last few elections. This is refreshing news.
In reality, if you go to downtown Seattle and ask if they want to change the election issues to make it fraud proof, I bet you that you would get many why?s as your answer.
After church the other day I had some friends for dinner. One husband said he saw no problem with the outcome even if the issues are true. My jaw hit the table. Another husband said why do we need to revote? Guess who they voted for? It wasn't Dino. One is a financial analyst and the other is a pathologist. I'll let you figure out who said what.
When pressed they said even if there are problems do we need to revote. I explained to them about the issues found and they said if forced they would go along. Many Democrats don't see the need to clean the elections process up. Why change the status quo. So John, you may be in the minority, as Nelson can't see it, chew2 I wonder about, and I have no understanding of Unkl Witz.
I hope many Democrats will want to see the problems and say this is bad, we need to clean it up. You won't see Rapacious Ron or Dealing Dean or Bubbling Bill say this of course.
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on March 11, 2005 05:36 PMIf you look at the ballot reconciliation sheet that Stefan posted above, 138 voters signed the poll book, but 154 ballots were counted in the AccuVote machine. 25 provisional (ADD-ONS) ballots were issued, so 9 provisionals should have been counted in the regular envelopes.
If you look at the King County election tallies, these same figures should be reflect. The manual recount tally on-line is not broken down by POLLING, ABSENTEE, and ADD-ONS, but the machine recount is.
http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/canvass/2004/nov/RecountResults.txt
These show 154 POLLING ballots and 9 ADD-ONS counted – exactly what one would expect with 138 real poll voters, and 25 provisional ballots, with 16 of these being stuffed by fraudulent voters.
Next, look at the breakdown of ABSENTEE ballots. 276 cast. Rossi 149 or 53.99%. Gregoire 118 or 42.75%. Bennett and Blank 9 or 3.26%.
Then, look at the total 154 ballots counted as POLL. Rossi 72 or 46.75%. Gregoire 77 or 50.00%. Bennett and Blank 5 or 3.25%.
That is quite a big discrepancy between the percentages cast in ABSENTEE ballots and POLL ballots. How do we explain this?
Let’s take the 138 legitimate POLL voters who signed the poll books. If their preferences were distributed the same way as the ABSENTEE voters in that precinct, then we would have: Rossi 74.51 or 53.99%. Gregoire 58.99 or 42.75%. Bennett and Blank 4.50 or 3.26%.
In reality, we have 72 Rossi votes out of 154 (138 + 16), instead of the expected 74.51 Rossi votes out of 138. And we have 77 Gregoire votes out of 154 (138 + 16), instead of the expected 58.99 Gregoire votes out of 138.
So the simple statistical analysis of compared the number of votes expected out of legimate POLL voters, using the same percentage of votes cast by ABSENTEE voters, and comparing this with actual POLL votes (which include stuffed provisionals), proves the case.
The overwhelming likelihood is that all 16 of stuffed provisional ballots in Precinct BOT 01-3271 were cast for Christine Gregoire.
Since provisional ballot stuffers presumably voted in most or all of the races, and not just for Governor, similar results should be obtained by comparing other partisan races in Precinct BOT 01-3271.
I would be willing to bet that we can find similar results in most, if not all, of the other precincts where there were a significant number of stuffed provisional ballots.
By the way, while all of the 16 stuffed provisional ballots in Precinct BOT 01-3271 appear to have been cast for Democrats (or at least Gregoire), the 9 legitimate envelope provisional voters seem to have roughly mirrored the ABSENTEE voters – five for Rossi, three for Gregoire, and one for Bennett.
Here are the figures from the machine recount canvass as to how all of the POLLING, ABSENTEE and ADD-ON ballots in Precinct BOT 01-3271 voted for Governor:
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Christine Gregoire","POLLING",77
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Christine Gregoire","ABSENTEE",118
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Christine Gregoire","ADD-ONS",3
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Christine Gregoire","Total",198
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Dino Rossi","Total",226
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Dino Rossi","POLLING",72
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Dino Rossi","ABSENTEE",149
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Dino Rossi","ADD-ONS",5
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Registered Voters","Total",482
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Ruth Bennett","ABSENTEE",6
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Ruth Bennett","ADD-ONS",1
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Ruth Bennett","Total",7
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Ruth Bennett","POLLING",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Blank Voted","ABSENTEE",3
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Blank Voted","ADD-ONS",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Blank Voted","POLLING",5
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Blank Voted","Total",8
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Counted","ADD-ONS",9
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Counted","POLLING",154
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Counted","ABSENTEE",276
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Counted","Total",439
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Over Voted","Total",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Over Voted","ADD-ONS",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Over Voted","ABSENTEE",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Times Over Voted","POLLING",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Write-in 2661″,"Total",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Write-in 2661″,"ABSENTEE",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Write-in 2661″,"ADD-ONS",0
“01″,"1″,"BOT 01-3271″,"Governor","Write-in 2661″,"POLLING",0