I've been going through the Binder documents and summary spreadsheets in an attempt to reconcile the ballot counts with the county's latest informatoin, but the information that has been provided almost seems as if it's designed to impede rather than help understanding of what really happened.
1. In the actual pollbooks you can get the counts of the number of signatures in each section of the book: polling ballot voters and provisional voters. As the rest of the explanation shows, the sum of these two numbers is almost meaningless for reconciliation. Any transparent attempt at reconciliation would report them as two separate numbers. Nevertheless, the Binder documents only have the combined total, not the breakdown.
2. If everything is done correctly, the number of signatures in the poll ballot section of the poll book should be close to the number of poll ballot voters credited in that polling place's precincts. In most of the poll books I looked at, that was indeed the case, but not always. More on this in a later post.
3. The number of provisional ballots issued at a polling place will generally bear no resemblance to the number of provisional voters credited in the polling place's precincts, for the following reasons:
a) not all provisional ballots are validated.
b) a voter can cast a provisional ballot in any precinct, but if they are registered at a different precinct, the ballot will be duplicated onto a ballot for the voter's proper precinct and tallied in that precinct.
4. In some exceptional cases, a voter will sign the poll ballot section of the pollbook and receive a ballot, but the ballot will not go into the Accuvote. For example, the ballot might be damaged, or the Accuvote malfunctions. In this case the ballot will be counted by hand. These ballots are called "Add-on" and the voter will be credited as a poll ballot voter, but the ballots are usually canvassed with the provisionals and go into the precincts count of provisionals, although apparently not always. (The Binder documents identify the number of Add-ons per precinct).
5. In the first two certified counts, the numbers of absentee, poll and provisional/add-on ballots were tabulated separately. In the manual recount, the poll and provisionals were combined and counted together. Recount observers told me this was a management (Logan/Huennekens) decision. This makes it that much harder to tell whether or not the manual recount was indeed more accurate than the earlier counts (e.g. how well do the numbers match the Accuvote totals). 31 brand new polling/provisional/add-on ballots appeared out of thin air in the manual recount. There has never been an explanation for this.
The Binder numbers show the total number of signatures in both parts of the pollbook and the number of ballots that were counted by the Accuvote. There are also handwritten notes about "no label" ballots, implying that a provisional ballot was not returned to the envelope (I'll have more about provisionals later). The "no label"s tend to correspond with unverified provisionals going through the Accuvote. But the better way to confirm this would be to report the number of signatures in the poll section of the poll book, and compare that with the Accuvote count. Oddly enough, these numbers haven't been reported even though they're available in the pollbooks. I'll ask King County if they have any documents where these numbers are explicit, otherwise the only way to get them is to look at all 2,600 poll books.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 15, 2005 05:19 PM | Email ThisThe boxes are shipped to a warehouse. Then when attorneys for the plaintiffs request discovery, they are invited to plow through hundreds of boxes devoid of any discernible filing system.
Stefan, you hit it on the head. It is, to put it mildly, NOT user-friendly.
Posted by: dkpcowboy on March 15, 2005 05:46 PMDropping the analogy, the real question is whether there is ever going to be a remedy for this situation. In any case, sincere thanks to Stefan and company for persistence and painstaking analysis and exposition. I hope it has a good result.
Posted by: Boonie on March 15, 2005 05:50 PMThe only evidence of their corruption is the statistically impossible fact that every "mistake" or "poor decision" that they allege they have made always benefits the side of the issue in their's or the county's best interest?
Why doesn't King County ever make a mistake that screws government and helps the taxpayer? For example, why does the county always settle lawsuits against it when government is guilty of the wrongdoing by spending taxpayer dollars to settle? When Jane Hague violated campaign finance laws a few years back, why did the taxpayers pay for her lawyer, her penalty and the cost of the investigation? When David Krull, the county Ombudsman, was fired for sending an innocent email to the current Ombudsman who was his deputy at the time (Oh, and all his investigations of county wrongdoing were halted), why was it that the taxpayers had to pay the $400k to settle his wrongful termination lawsuit? That money should have come from the county council members involved in the illegal termination.
2 DOT whistleblowers have sued King County for retalition after they came forward and challenged alleged illegal and fraudulent actions committed to help one special interest. Are we all ready to open our wallets to settle that suit?
Stefan, believe me that you're not the first to be stymied by King County's ability to bury the papertrail. Others have tried for years with no more success to weave some of King County's bogus processes back together, and with far less success than you have attained. Congratulations!
Thank you for trying.
Posted by: Mike on March 15, 2005 06:01 PMIf I understood you correctly (and my head hurts from following this), Logan and Hunnekins effectively destroyed information when they conflated the provisional and poll ballots. Since summing the two numbers up is easy to accomplish, it is hard to imagine a legitimate reason for eliminating that data.
Also, as an earlier poster has noted, the refusal of King County to provide the data in readily useful form (e.g. spreadsheets, database, comma delimited, etc.) indicates an unwillingness to allow review. Interestingly enough, if King County doesn't have this data in electronic form then Logan cannot have reconciled the vote in any meaningful way nor could he have done any sort of investigation into the vote and two recounts.
Sometimes I get the distinct impression that Sims & Logan are just laughing their butts off at everyone struggling to examine the data. Even when clear illegalities like enhancing undevotes--let alone massive irregularities like missing voters for ballots and missing ballots for other voters--are discovered, there appear to be no consequences. Logan will not be fired; he seems more likely to get a raise. The State Attorney General doesn't seem likely to begin an investigation, nor does the County Prosecutor (forget about the US Attorney). The SoS either has no power or is irrelevant--either way, he clearly has no way to sanction King County in any meaningful way. Logan ignored the RCW and administrative codes laid out well before the election--do you see any consequences forthcoming from that source? I don't.
Posted by: iconoclast on March 15, 2005 06:39 PMSo when can we convince the feds to take a serious look at these problems...or is that another rhetorical question to add to the pile?
Posted by: timman on March 15, 2005 07:07 PM32 ballots were included in the election night ballot and vote count that had not been lawfully cast. Of those, 31 were apparently issued as provisional ballots at the polling place and inserted into the AccuVote machine rather than sealed into a signed, labeled envelope for later verification of the voter's status.
The 1 ballot that couldn't be accounted for joined the other 215 ballots in King County which cannot be shown to have been issued at the polling place where the ballots were cast.
That 1 ballot may have been an absentee ballot that was inserted into the AccuVote machine rather than into a signed envelope for later verification. Or, it may have been a ballot issued at the polling place by someone who didn't require the voter to sign the poll book -- in which case you might find that as the source if you were willing to count all the unused ballots in those 7 precincts to see if one was missing. Or, it might have been a forged ballot, but that seems highly unlikely -- no one willing to forge a ballot would stop at just one.
The precincts using Bothell Regional Library probably show up in the voter registration records as being short at least 33 voters listed as having voted in November compared to the number of ballots cast. The bar code scanning only captured the info for 171 signatures in BOT 01-0254, but there were 172 signatures for regular ballots. That's one "voterless ballot" in Stefan's list, but it's actually a person who really was credited with voting in the poll book. Then 31 ballots were cast by unknown people who inserted ballots issued to them as provisional ballots into the AccuVote -- adding another 31 "voterless ballots" to Stefan's list that really are voterless ballots. Finally, the one ballot that came from who-knows-where is really a voterless ballot. I don't have the images of the other precincts' poll sheets, so I don't know whether their "WANDA" signature count differed from the hand count done by the members of the canvassing team.
That's 32 illegitimate ballots cast and counted at Bothell Regional Library.
The source of 31 can be figured out, but that doesn't transform them into legitimate ballots. They're still ballots which were not cast lawfully.
After listening this morning to Mike Siegel, Bob Williams (EFF) and Stefan all saying that based on this fact alone, Dean Logan should be behind bars - in jail for condoning this fraudulent practice - claiming that this is a voter intent state. All of these people were at the King County Council presentation yesterday by Logan aided by the partisan Democrat politburo headed by Larry Phillips, so this comment should be heeded. It is good that there are other claims of illegitimate votes that are well over the margin of so-called victory. It seems that the enhanced-ballot activity should at least trigger a Federal investigation, which would be able to occur after the court trial is over, regardless of whether there is a new election in November or not !
Posted by: KS on March 15, 2005 08:26 PMI'm using both Stefan's database and the Seattle Times....Just wondering what the big draw was to vote provisionally in the 2004 November election..other than to perpetrate fraud? 31,000 provisional voters is way over the top for a county that brags about it's huge and growing absentee ballot popularity....
Has anyone checked these provisional voters for duplicate voting or if they are even eligible voters? (other than King County's alleged attempt at verification?)
I still am unsettled with the hundreds - possibly thousands of voters who registered their residence at county office buildings and their mailing addresses out of state and out of the country......Has anyone verified if these people are even citizens of this county? state? nation?
As far as I'm concerned...with 55,000 ballots 'enhanced' by county employees...and 31,000 mysterious provisional ballots that may have been run through the accuvote machines or may have double voted or may have not been verified at all by King County,....and hundreds possibly thousands of people who simply listed their residence at a King County office building and their mailing address in other states or countries... King County did not mess around when trying to steal this election! We are sitting here looking for chump change felons...when it's obvious that King County broke the bank with questionable ballots!
*We have over 10,000 mystery ballots that appeared before the first certification.
*55,000 'Enhanced' ballots that credited races such as the Governors race when it may have not been the intention of the voter..
*31,000 record breaking Provisional Ballots that were fed through the accuvote machines - or may have been counted without verification of eligibility.
* Hundreds/thousands of voters who's residences are in private mailboxes or county office buildings and their mailing addresses are in France, Italy, Canada, etc....with no verification of citizenship, residency, eligibility!
Hell! King County has over 86,000 questionable ballots if we really think about it! We are assuming the county has actually verified these people as eligible to vote! Why would we make such an assumption? In the few samples we checked when the database first came out - we found numerous questionable voters!
King County is stonewalling everyone - so no one has access to check these things out...How convenient! The Feds can come in and lock down everything - make their own verifications, interview election employees, run the software, check the numbers, ask the hard questions and actually get past the stonewall! Why are they not here yet? I know how the Feds work in this state on other cases...If Abdulla is suspected of money laundering - they will swoop down and lock up everything - investigate - etc...Why - would they not consider something as precious and important as our election process - important enough to investigate? If a bank next to a King County office buildng were robbed - the area would be crawling with feds!!
Posted by: Deborah on March 15, 2005 09:33 PMNow I know why KingCo was oh so slow in counting and waited until the very last minute to report to the Canvassing Board! So they wouldn't have any time to investigate further. Great strategy by Logan.
Jefferson County had 6 people hand count 18,772 ballots in 3-1/2 hours. With the number of people counting in KingCo, if they were counting at the same pace as Jefferson County, they would have been done in 2 DAYS!! Instead, it took over 2 weeks.
Clearly, the hand recount timetable was orchestrated to intentionally not allow any time for further investigation of discrepancies.
Masterfully orchestrated by Maestro Logan!!
US District Attorney & Federal Marshall pay attention - investigate this election and break down this local axis of EVIL !
Posted by: KS on March 15, 2005 10:18 PMCorrupt politicians are handled out of the same FBI department as Corporate CEO's...And according to the Feds Strategic Plans 2004-2009...Corruption on the Federal, State and Local Government levels is a priority to investigate!
Are they here and we just don't know it? Because they sure jumped quickly into Ohio's election in November after the bogus claims of fraud and corruption....Why would they NOT be here? Our problems make Ohio's seem silly! We - as citizens, have uncovered more than enough tangible evidence to warrant an investigation...I've read through their web pages and policy on what merits an investigation..and I believe they very well could be here....
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/strategicplan/stategicplantext.htm
Posted by: Deborah on March 16, 2005 12:26 AMThanks for doing what you do!
Posted by: Arky on March 16, 2005 04:40 AMAs you noted, Dean Logan,the so-called expert on election laws and rules, claimed that the canvassing board had to certify no later than the 15th day after the election.
Naturally, Logan was wrong. The law says it's a crime to refuse to certify the election returns "if they can be ascertained with reasonable certainty."
In other words, the job of the canvassing board is to determine whether the returns are a full, true and correct representation of the votes cast in the county -- not just to rubberstamp the numbers put in front of them by the 15th day after the election.
I wonder if Logan informed the other members of the canvassing board about the many hundreds of illegitimate ballots that had been unlawfully cast and then included in the vote count.
If he had informed the other members, would the one Republican have had the courage to argue that no one could ascertain the correct returns with reasonable certainty when so many illegitimate ballots had been included in the count?
I guess we'll never know, since I suspect that the canvassing board was led to believe that there were only 216 more ballots than voters in one group of precincts and 158 fewer ballots than voters in another group of precincts -- leading the canvassing board to believe that this was the magnitude of all discrepancies, namely less than a one-ballot "variance" at each polling place. Meanwhile, nothing was said about 1800+ illegitimate ballots.
Posted by: Micajah on March 16, 2005 09:34 AMLogan & Huennekens are screwed in this regard. I think Logan probably got in over his head....but arrogantly thought he could talk his way out of it because he is the "EXPERT" (remember many other County Auditors willing to sign a letter of support for Logan BLINDLY saying Logan did everything properly??). Other County Auditors look to Dean when they have questions about the law. Logan's problem is that he is more of a policy wonk than a real administrator. A policy wonk knows the law. But if he is not a skilled administrator, the law underneath him can be circumvented. Logan don't impress me much as he has repeatedly minimized and marginalized what happened underneath him.
Logan's arrogance will come back to haunt him when he is deposed.
Micajah--YOU ARE CLEARLY CONNECTING THE DOTS!
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on March 16, 2005 10:06 AMI am a little bit puzzled by #4. During my stint as a poll watcher in Pierce county things worked a little differently.
If the optical scanner could not read a ballot, usually because the wrong type of pen had been used to mark it, a poll worker would mark the ballot "spoiled", place it in an envelope and place the envelope in the same bin the provisional ballots were placed in. The voter was then issued another ballot and a notation was made in the poll book.
Seems simple to me. I can't imagine why King County didn't do that.
Posted by: Nathan Azinger on March 16, 2005 10:26 AM