Here are the highlights from yesterday's County Council meeting featuring Dean Logan.
* A Republican Councilmember speaking with me afterwords, called the meeting "orchestrated". Chairman Larry Phillips front-loaded the agenda with the less controversial issues, postponing the ballot/voter discrepancy to the end of the schedule. Certain Democrats, especially Edmonds and Patterson, burned a lot of time making speeches in favor of Dean Logan, and they ran down the clock before the discrepancy could get addressed. The Republicans tried in vain to save their time for the discrepancy issue. Now Phillips is refusing to schedule another meeting to discuss the incriminating discrepancy.
* The best line of questioning came from Steve Hammond --
Hammond came armed with this 1999 report from the Elections Office to the Canvassing Board, which analyzed in great detail some minor discrepancies in one race. The point is to show that under Logan's predecessor, Bob Bruce, the Elections Office took great care to reconcile and explain any discrepancies that had the potential of changing the outcome of an election. They certified the 1999 election as required by law, but only with documentation acknowledging that the discrepancies might have changed the outcome, setting the stage for a much easier post-certification contest should anybody file one.
Hammond asked Logan if he produced any such reports and the answer was no. Logan insisted that the Canvassing Board had to certify the election by a certain date because that is what the law required. He denied Hammond's allegation that he seemd to take certification as a mere calendar-driven event. But what was very clear is that Logan's position is that it's fine to certify an election (both in the legal sense and the political sense) even when there are more than enough errors and questionable votes that might change the outcome. Even though the law requires certification on a particular date, he didn't think it's his duty to be more forthcoming about serious problems. Had Logan been honest from the very beginning about all of the problems that likely changed the outcome of the election, the contest could have proceeded much more quickly. What was crystal clear to me is that he either doesn't give a whit about maintaining reasonable quality control over the process he's overseeing, or that he is pleased that the irregularities changed the outcome.
* Other interesting admissions and statements from Dean Logan:
- Many more unverified provisional ballots appeared to have gone through the Accuvote than the 348 that had been acknowledged earlier. Based on the "Binder" and companion documents that were released last Friday, it appears that the number of additional provisionals is at least 660 [I'm still going through these documents and hope to have a final number soon]. Even though these extra provisionals would have been known to the elections office weeks ago, they were never acknowledged until Friday. Logan's story is that the 348 are the provisionals that were specifically identified by pollworkers, but even without a specific eyewitness report, the evidence in the pollbooks is pretty clear as to what happened, as was the assumption of canvass workers who processed the poll books.
Logan also asserted that the number 660 is the total number of provisionals that went into the Accuvote, including the earlier 348. Not true. It's clear from the Binder and companion documents that it was 660 in addition to the 348 and the number of unverified provisionals is at least 1,000. Unfortunately, both daily papers this morning (P-I , Times) merely repeated Logan's incorrect assertion instead of challenging it.
- Logan also gave an incorrect answer to Bob Ferguson's question whether any absentee ballots went into the Accuvote. Logan said that none did. But the Binder says otherwise. The Notes file lists 3 cases of this. Joe O'Donnell also told me that he saw several absentee ballots mixed in with the polling ballots. We'll probably never know exactly how many, and it's all but impossible to tell where they came from.
- Logan acknowledged that thousands of ballots had been permanently "enhanced" using black felt-tip markers. He said that this was done consistent with WAC 434-261-080: "Ballots shall only be enhanced when such enhancement will not permanently obscure the original marks of the voters.". He believed that as long as the marker is only making a new mark and not covering up an existing mark, the enhancement is consistent with the WAC.
* With the exception of Bob Ferguson, who asked some good questions about the flaws with polling place procedures, the other Democrats all revealed themselves to be blindly zealous partisans, praising Dean Logan at every step and excusing away every irregularity and illegal vote.
* After Republican Kathy Lambert expressed dismay about all the questionable interpretation of voter intent and insisting that voters should follow the rules to fill out their ballots properly so they can be interpreted objectively. Democrats Julia Patterson, Dwight Pelz and Carolyn Edmonds started to compete with each other to praise the voters who are too incompetent to fill out the ballot.
- Pelz equated having any standards for filling out the ballot with the disenfranchisement that used to take place in Mississippi.
- Edmonds bragged about the fact that she won a primary race in a hand recount, only after including the ballots from all the dummies who couldn't figure out how to fill in the ovals.
- Ron Sims chief-of-staff Kurt Triplett, who was babysitting Dean Logan, said something to the effect that because most English speakers wouldn't be able to fill out the Chinese ballots, we should be as inclusive as possible counting as valid whatever marks people choose to make on their ballots. Seriously.
* Larry Gossett made another speech complaining that Martin Luther King County doesn't let felons vote.
* Julia Patterson objected to any measures to catch felon voters, claiming that maintaining a list of known felons to is equivalent to performing background checks on every new voter registration; She also railed against "hot talk radio" for discussing problems with the election, and generally made everybody in the room want to throw-up.
* Dow the Mao Constantine was again, after Ferguson, the second best Democrat on the panel, but only because he hardly said anything.
* David Irons asked Logan to get back to him with comparative election office budgets for 2000 and 2004. His point is that Sims helped cause the mess by starving the election office of adequate funds for training and materials.
* Reagan Dunn disagreed with Logan over the latter's claim that he has no statutory authority to reject registration applications from felons, asserting that he has broad statutory authority to renforce the integrity of the voting rolls.
* Pete von Reichbauer staggered in late, fondling Reagan Dunn on the way in. He made a couple of phone calls from his seat and left early without asking any questions.
* Jane Hague followed Hammond's tough questioning and ended the session with an appeal to support the effort in the legislature to move the primary up a month. As a former superintendent of elections, she should be working a lot harder to expose this mess than she has been. It's really a shame that Reagan Dunn chose not run against Jane Hague. Both Dunn and Hammond are assets to the Council while Hague has been mostly useless.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 15, 2005 11:48 AM | Email ThisWe should have voted to reduce its size to 0 instead of 9.
GreGore is our Governor like a fish can ride a bicycle.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on March 15, 2005 12:08 PM
I think its important you understand a few
things about the hammond-dunn race.Jane hague
Is one of jennifer Dunn's good friends.There
was never going be a race between hague and
reagan dunn.Let us not forget chris vance
and michael young would rather have reagan
dunn than steve hammond anyway.Remember he's
conservative for them.
Good write-up of that putrid display. It made me want to hurl just watching it.
We need to educate the populous. Robert-in-Tacoma posted a great idea in the "Dean Login in the hot seat" comments.
Let's do it.
Posted by: lee egg on March 15, 2005 12:09 PMHas there been any answer yet about the fate of the 3500++ duplicate absentee ballots that were mailed out?
Unless KC Elections is able to positively account for these, it appears that these duplicates may have been the pool from which many of the voterless ballots came from, based on your comments about known incidents of absentees bein fed into the AccuVote.
Posted by: ewaggin on March 15, 2005 12:17 PMThe link to the 1999 report doesn't seem to work.
Robert-in-Tacoma posted a great idea. We must follow up on the idea of a full page disclosing all the facts and points of why this election is a FRAUD! Post a simple 'Blog Poll' if we are willing to fund a full page (every week) of updates and facts. I will do any graphics work if you need it, plus I'll kick in some cash for the project.
It may be time to stop feeding our selfs this imformation and show others what facts really are. Just do it.
Everyone in council chamber (including council members, MSM, but I trust not SP's Sharkansky) seems to have fixated on the notion that the 348 PV number had inched up to 660, and ignored the possibility that the number could be as high as 1008.
Why bother?!
Posted by: Huckleberry on March 15, 2005 12:24 PMIt is named after Vice President William Rufus King.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~waking/index.htm
Good summary. Nice to see that this corroborates very well with the interpretations that many of us who were watching at home had regarding the meeting and commented about in your previous post.
It was pretty clear to me that Logan was really on pretty thin ice in terms of his ability to tolerate a line of questioning without wilting. This may have been intended as sort of a warmup/ training for what he might face in court. I can't wait to watch him shrivel when the real questions are asked.
As for Robert-In-Tacoma's idea, yes let' do it. We need to get the message out to even more Washingtonions.
Also for those who have to read it yet, Micajah's analysis of the Big Binder over at Croker Sack is really very good. http://crokersack.blogspot.com/ Check it out.
Bottom line, Logan, Phillips, Sims, KC, et. al. are just not presenting an accurate and forthcoming picture of what happened in November 2004. This is of course strategically very unwise, because while this obfuscation may serve them in the short term, when the truth is forced out in court, it's going to appear as a coverup, delay, intentional ommitance, etc.
My prediction is that this will ultimately cost Sims his job, and thus Logan his job. In addition, there will be many political paybacks in the elections of 2006 and 2008 when the voters get a chance to vent.
King County handed out 31,000 provisionals. How many were returned? Because ultimately you're starting out with 31,000 potentially problematic ballots and trying to whittle _down_ the number to come up with a 'maximum error' rate.
So we're looking for:
1) Number of provisionals returned and NOT a valid voter.
2) Number of provisionals returned with a valid voter - but no valid vote for Governor.
3) Number of provisionals returned and denied - voter already voted absentee.
4) Number of provisionals returned and denied - voter already voted at the poll.
5) Valid & correct provisionals.
We already know that those five aren't going to add all the way up to 31,000. 30,000 seems to be the estimate - but what is the 'outside bounds' of this error?
Posted by: Al on March 15, 2005 12:33 PMAl -- The number of provisionals that were validated is around 28,000 of the approximately 31,000
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on March 15, 2005 12:42 PMAgain---ZI encourage my conservative friends to refrain from using the F----word(FRAUD) at this time. FRAUD is a legal term with a very, very high standard. Incompetence is not FRAUD. Turning ones back is not FRAUD. FRAUD is almost impossible to prove....and fortunately we do not have to prove FRAUD to have this election set aside. I love the "passion" but the FRAUD -word is counter-productive. You saw one of the LEFTISTS ask Logan if he was aware of any FRAUD. That's an easy question to answer NO to....however that question has no bearing on this election contest.
Son Of Liberty--I appreciate your passion. Please stop using the F----(FRAUD) word.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on March 15, 2005 12:52 PMFraudOire committed fraud with the help of Ron Sims and I'm gonna keep calling a spade a spade. Have some friggen guts.
Posted by: Manco_Dollars on March 15, 2005 12:59 PMYou said: "he number of provisionals that were validated is around 28,000 of the approximately 31,000"
I recall Logan stating that 83% of the provisionals were valid, which would make about 25, 700 valid votes. Or was he referring only to 83% of the 348 known provisionals.
I glanced briefly at the reconciliation spreadsheets and it seemed to me that whenever there was a notation of a number for some of the 348 pbav, there was a nearly corresponding number, for the "adjusted #'s". Check out the Beacon Towers precincts which first caught my eye, with 13 pbav and 13 adjusted #.
I suspect that much if not most of the 348 are included in the 660 figure. But I don't pretend to be an expert here.
One other check would be to total all the "no labels" in the reconciliation notes and see whether they add up to 660 or some other number.
How do you reconcile your claim of 1800 ballots without voters, with the reconciliation report showing only 216 ballots without signatures, and 158 signatures without ballots? Granted the reconciliation doesn't include absentees.
Posted by: chew2 on March 15, 2005 01:03 PMJust to complete your thought. 28,000 of 31,000 provisional ballots verified represents a provisional ballot accuracy rate of 90% or put another way a failure rate of 10%. Is that really something to be proud of? Don't bother telling me, I know the answer.
Posted by: barchester on March 15, 2005 01:05 PMWhat word will you use?
Posted by: Son of Liberty on March 15, 2005 01:09 PMSo Mr. Cynical, will you kick in some Funds For a Full Fact page in the paper?
Posted by: Son of Liberty on March 15, 2005 01:33 PMSometimes you scare me with you rhetoric Son.
I'd suggest you to take Mr. C's advice and calm down a little. I think we've now established a case of incompetence. We're a long way from fraud.
This situation is exactly why we are allowed in the constitution to raise and arm militias. When crooks and tyrants take over the government, we have a constitutional right to revolt.
The reason that totalitarian "progressives" want to ban guns is precisely because they don't want the people to fight back when they take over.
Now, before you have a heart attack, Unkie, let me tell you that I don't think we need to do this. We still have a court system that is semi-functional and people like the Shark that are getting the facts and cutting through the mis-information.
Eventually, justice will prevail in this case.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on March 15, 2005 02:27 PMAllowing for the fact that 2002 was an off year election, one would expect about 5,000 provisional ballots in Washington in the 2004 election -- if we had the same sensible rules as Missouri.
Posted by: Jim Miller on March 15, 2005 02:52 PM"The dialogue remained civil. In contrast with strong Republican rhetoric in the past about King County goofs in the election, the toughest talk yesterday came from Democrats."Posted by: Sopater on March 15, 2005 02:54 PM
There is clearly "distributed" fraud...by some partisan voters...by voting more than once, by using other peoples ballots (dead or alive!). I'm sure there wasn't a memo from Democrat headquarters...but their army (Move on, etc.) knew what they had to do...and, obviously, they did it!
Posted by: J. C. on March 15, 2005 02:58 PMDon't leave us hanging. What are Missouri's provisional ballot rules?
Posted by: barchester on March 15, 2005 03:12 PMYou are either very old and bitter, or very young and stupid.
Posted by: Unkl Witz on March 15, 2005 03:32 PMIt would seem that you carried that further because you believe that we are, in fact, living under a totalitarian government.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on March 15, 2005 03:40 PMI caught the tail end of a discussion between Logan and a councilmemeber yesterday concerning the enhanced ballots...
Did I hear this correctly? - that Logan supplied approximately 1600 of the 55,000 enhanced ballots to the King County council to review? And that of those 1600 (cherry picked) enhanced ballots - the council, as a whole, was satisfied that the enhancements made were proper? I thought I'd heard remarks from the Republican members echoing that everything looked fine as far as enhanced ballots - based on those few examples they reviewed....
Posted by: Deborah on March 15, 2005 03:49 PMIt seems that the f-word is starting to get play. If undervotes were enhanced, then it would seem that criminal charges should be forthcoming. Otherwise fraud accusations are self-defeating.
Posted by: iconoclast on March 15, 2005 04:07 PMIt seems we both read a lot into each other's posts that really isn't there.
You've drawn some wholly inaccurate conclusions about me concerning gun control and whether we live under a totalitarian govt. I have apparently misunderstood the intent of your comment: "When crooks and tyrants take over the government, we have a constitutional right to revolt."
I am greatly relieved to hear you are not advocating violence in this matter. My concern is there really are folks out there who are foolish enough to take you at your word and start shooting. Even if they misunderstood your comments.
That would be tragic.
Posted by: Unkl Witz on March 15, 2005 04:12 PMEverything else within this state, law enforcement and the media included, is focused on damage control. The good guys have no allies except for independent organizations like the Evergreen Freedom Foundation that can't possibly fight everything.
Maybe if that "dog and pony show" they called a hearing yesterday had been attended by 1000 people, maybe Phillips would have been knocked out of his preplanned stage show.
If 5,000 had shown up, then maybe Phillips would have made the time for a complete vetting of all the issues.
Maybe!
Posted by: Mike on March 15, 2005 05:13 PMI wish I could be sure about that. Especially with the judges we have today. Take a look at Calif....the people's will to have marriage between 1 man & 1 woman is overturned by ONE JUDGE...one man's decision! This is justice???
Hope that we have true & fair justice when this case goes into the courts....if not..what happens then?
Posted by: Susu on March 15, 2005 05:17 PM"To cast a normal ballot in Missouri, votes must be on the registered voter list. Thyer sign their names, verify their addresses and show some form of identification. Parties are allowed to post "challengers" at each precinct, but they can not unduly interfere with the election process.
To cast a provisional ballot, a voter shows identification and the election judge then attempts to verify elgibility by calling the central registration office. Voters who show up at the wrong polling place are sent to the correct one. If they insist on casting a provisional ballot at the wrong location, they are given a ballot that lists only the offices such as president and governor that voters in the state are allowed to vote on." "Stealing Elections" by John Fund, p. 135.
And just below is this, which may have some relevance here in Washington:
"The concern in 2004 in other states with less well-defined rules is that outside voter-turnout groups that aren't formally affiliated with or responsible to political parties will urge people to show up at the polls and vote regardless of what precinct they walk into." (pp. 135-136)
Posted by: Jim Miller on March 15, 2005 07:18 PMTo date I have had no responses.
Dear King County Council Members,
On Friday March 11th King County Elections office released it's binder containing the canvass crew's reconciliation data to the press and public. This is information that members of the press, public, and I believe a few members of the council had been requesting for weeks. The data contained in the binder calls in to question many of the numbers published in the 2004 Election Report.
Primarily, the number of unverified provisional ballots that went through the acu-vote on election day. Putting provisional ballots directly into the acu-vote machines on election day is the biggest loop hole there is to allow double voting. The published 348 is incorrect. The number looks to be considerably higher. The elections office has furnished a misleading report to the council and the public.
In addition the published discrepancy level should also be re-examined, as well as the methods used to arrive at that the number. Including the "netting out" of ballots more then voters, and voters more then ballots.
Minimizing numbers and providing inaccurate information to save face only works to cover problems that need to be addressed and reformed. Having false information with the county's stamp of approval will only further damage the public's trust in the election system. I would urge the council in light of this new information to have the report pulled from the County's web site and from any public location where it is available. The council needs time to review this new information as well as answers provided by Dean Logan before deciding that the report is indeed accurate and fit to print, or in this case re-circulated for public viewing.
Thank you for your time and your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Joe O'Donnell
Kirkland, WA.
Mr. Phillips,
It appears as though the most controversial issues were saved to the end of Mondays meeting. I urge you to call Dean Logan back to discuss these. Proper time was not allowed for provisional ballot issues as well as the level of discrepancy.
Questioning when Mr. Logan knew about the real number of unverified provisional ballots need to be asked. Why were inaccurate numbers published in the 2004 Elections Report at great tax payer expense? Also he is either misinformed or lied to the council on Monday when he said that no absentees went through the polls on election day. I physically saw them when hand counting some of the more questionable polling sites pre-certification. Some are even logged in the documents released on Friday by the elections office. The public has a right to hear him answer these questions and many more regarding the most controversial issues concerning the election.
Sincerely,
Joe O'Donnell
Logan & Huennekens are screwed folks....screwed.
Once the depositions begin, they will be forced to explain every discrepancy.
And Logan will be forced to explain why he took so long to hand count those ballots leaving no time for further investigation of discrepancies before certification.
Obviously Maestro Logan orchestrated this debacle.
Maestro Logan isn't as smart as he thinks he is...and his critics are not as dumb as he thinks we are.
I still ask folks to lay off the F----word, at least for now unless they can flat out prove FRAUD in a Court meeting all the 7 tests.
IT'S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE and not necessary to contest this case.
I also encourage folks to be a little more patient.
Remember how Muhammed Ali used to rope-a-dope his opponents? He let them punch themselves out hitting his elbows, shoulders & arms. When the opponent was totally exhausted, Ali would tear him apart.
Rope-a-dope..
Logan is a dope who has been given lots of rope!
Thanks for the excellent information on Missouri's provisional ballot rules.
Posted by: barchester on March 16, 2005 08:03 AMPlease explain how you could spot absentee ballots among the polling place ballots during the the hand counts. You said:
DEAN LOGAN LIED TO THE COUNCIL AND THE PUBLIC.
I physically saw absentees mixed in with the poll ballots during hand counts of some of the more disturbing polling sites pre certification. It is logged in the binder report as well, and I also mentioned it to my direct supervisor when we saw them.
What visible markings or features made it possible to spot the absentee ballots?
If it was the way they were folded to fit into envelopes, how do you know they weren't unlawfully cast provisional ballots that had been folded by precinct officers before being handed to the voters?
I ask, because it puzzles me that no effort seems to have been made to examine the polling place ballots to see how many folded ballots in each precinct could be identified as the missing ("no label") provisional ballots which had been issued but had not been returned to the precinct officers in the labeled, sealed envelopes.
If you could spot the difference in ballots at a distance, why couldn't anyone else spot the difference at close range? 216 ballots found their way into the AccuVote machines with no explanation of their source -- they were probably absentee ballots that could be spotted in the ballot box if anyone bothered to examine the ballots for folding creases. Approximately 1000 provisional ballots found their way into the machines -- and most if not all of them were probably folded by the precinct officers before being handed to the voters, so they could be spotted in the ballot box if anyone bothered to examine the ballots for folding creases.
Do you know of any effort made by anyone to find the folded, and therefore creased, ballots in the ballot boxes?
Posted by: Micajah on March 16, 2005 09:59 AMI imagine that many of the 216 "voterless ballots" which remain in the "Net Difference" column of the reconciliation summary may have been absentee ballots that were brought into the polling places and inserted into the AccuVote machine.
Either that, or they were simply polling place ballots issued without a signature in the poll book, and no one took the time to check the unused ballots to see if that precinct issued one more ballot than was recorded as issued.
Since you saw absentee ballots among the polling place ballots, it seems more likely to me that the 216 "unadjusted" ballots in that summary were absentee ballots that were unlawfully cast -- and that could have been easily removed and rejected by the canvassing board.
Why didn't anyone remove and reject them?
Posted by: Micajah on March 16, 2005 03:06 PM