People who are familiar with the elections process explain what probably caused King County Elections to count roughly 500 more absentee ballots than absentee voters credited.
First, there is absolutely no way for there to be more absentee ballots counted than voters credited unless either (a) an insider slipped extra ballots into the pile, or (b) the election workers (not Julia Patterson's old lady volunteers, but real staff) seriously screwed up. An absentee voter is credited at the same moment the signature on the outside envelope is validated, before the ballot is even removed from the envelope. When an envelope is rejected for missing a signature or other problem, it is supposed to be set aside unopened.
I'll post more details later about how absentee ballots are processed. But what seems to have happened (if it wasn't outright ballot stuffing) is that somebody who was canvassing absentee ballots permitted (presumably in error) large numbers of rejected ballots to go into the do-count pile. Ouch.
Another source of extra absentee ballots were the ones which were fed into the Accuvotes. These ballots of unknown provenance were not set aside as they should have been, but at some point mixed in and counted with the other absentees, again irretrievably.
And in case you're still of the belief that the crediting of voters "has nothing to do with the ballot-counting" and is a "process that is done after election results already have been certified", see the pictures of the King County Canvassing Board Administrative Rules document:
See paragraph 7.1.b from the section on canvassing procedures for Absentee Ballots:
"The initial processing of absentee ballots which includes signature and postmark verification and crediting of the vote ... ". But don't tell any of the lunatic-fringe bloggers in order not to hurt their feelings.
thanks to Bob Williams of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation for passing along the documents he obtained from King County Elections.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 18, 2005 12:20 AM | Email ThisThey all add up, don't they!
So many different "errors" each of which seems to help Gregoire.
Hmmmmmmm?
Maybe what we have is DISTRIBUTED Distributed Vote Fraud. Posted by: Mr. Cynical on March 18, 2005 02:02 AM
The process should go something like this:
--- Scan the bar code on the envelope to make a record of receipt for each ballot, and simultaneously capture the voter's identifying information.
--- Confirm that the ballot was mailed no later than election day, then verify the signature.
--- If the ballot arrived on time, and the signature is found to match the one on file, "credit" the voter with voting -- and move on to the next ballot in the batch.
--- Once the batch of ballots has been processed through the postmark and signature checking step, and the voters have been credited with voting, send the batch of ballots to the next stage in the process.
--- At the next stage, sort the envelopes containing the ballots by precincts.
--- Once sorted by precincts, open the envelopes and remove the ballots from the outer, signed envelopes. The ballots must remain in their inner, secrecy envelopes at this step.
--- After the ballots are all removed from the outer envelopes, remove the outer envelopes from the area before opening the inner, secrecy envelopes.
And from that point, it's too late to match ballot to voter and remove an invalid ballot from the stack -- so what is the exact step which would specifically tell a worker in no uncertain or doubtful terms to "put that ballot down, set it aside, lock the damned thing up, don't let it into the stack of ballots on which we are going to count the votes, step away from this ballot, don't take it out of its signed envelope, blow a whistle, sound a horn, get some help if you're confused -- a ballot from this voter has already been received and accepted."
What is that step? How is the worker notified of the situation, and what is the worker required to do once notified?
Posted by: Micajah on March 18, 2005 08:35 AMTHe duplicate ballot rejection process should be done at the bar code step. If you flip your steps 1 and 2, assuming receipt of a ballot is noted when the bar code is scanned, then any duplicate ballot should be flagged for rejection (that is, if the process is logical and reasonable).
Posted by: MIMike on March 18, 2005 01:11 PMThank you for writing with your questions.
Mr. Logan asked that I respond to your concerns.
First, it is important to point out that the vast majority of the provisional ballots that were put through the voting equipment on election day before being verified were actually cast be registered voters. Of the 348 confirmed instances of this happening 252 of them were determined to be from properly registered voters.
Further, it is important to note that it is not necessarily that a poll worker allowed or directed the individuals to put provisional ballots through the voting equipment. We have heard from many poll workers that in fact voters actually ignored the instruction of poll workers to return with the voted ballots as described in your letter. Some responsibility must be placed upon n the voters.
It is also true that some poll workers did not follow the training we provided them. In some cases the provisional ballots were put through the equipment when workers were busy or distracted by observers at the polling location.
Please be assured that this is an issue we are working on.
Bill Huennekens
Superintendent of Elections
Email Sent to DEAN LOGAN
TO: Dean Logan
Dear Dean:
Who is the person or persons that allowed non-verified voters to feed their invalid ballots into the ballot counting machines in King County. I think that is a legitimate question. State law requires that elections workers hand provisional voters a ballot and an envelope, then must assure that the provisional voter puts the ballot in the envelope, and that envelope into another envelope that must be signed and include the address of the provisional voter. That signed envelope must be set aside for voter registration verification, and not counted.
So who allowed these provisional voters to Break The Law.
I as a LEGAL voter deserve to know who commited these fraudlent actions and allowed these clearly established State Laws to be publicly Broken.
Please respond ASAP
I don't believe you can flip steps 1 and 2, since you need to make a record of the date of receipt of every single absentee ballot. I believe the only practical way to do that is to scan those bar codes ASAP after arrival of the ballots in order to get the fact of their existence into your database.
Even if a postmark shows the ballot was mailed after election day, you would still need to scan the bar code and account for the receipt of it -- and then, of course, its disposition, that is, rejection.
Until you've verified the signature, you cannot know whether to credit the voter with voting. It could be a ballot with a forged signature that was stolen from a mailbox for all you know until you confirm whose signature appears to be on the ballot envelope.
Once the signature is confirmed, the voter is credited with voting. That crediting is supposed to be done by making an entry on the computerized voter registration record of each voter.
What I'm looking for is someone who actually knows what King County actually did.
I want to know what step in their process was used to screen out any absentee ballots submitted by people who had already been credited with voting.
Posted by: Micajah on March 18, 2005 02:35 PMYou are onto something good. Your reasoning is entirely too logical and KC can't have that! They like to hide within confusion.
Unless ballot stuffing was going on wouldn't you expect 348/348 versus a pathetic 252/348?
Call the next witness. Posted by: Keith on March 18, 2005 11:13 PM
Keep you powder dry. The US may still fall though I pray otherwise.
Posted by: Jericho on March 19, 2005 12:56 PM