News releases from King County Elections in November suggest that the county prematurely counted provisional ballots in violation of state election rules.
See, for example, this announcement of Nov. 10
King County Elections today counted 20,839 ballots, which includes 1,978 valid provisional ballots, bringing the total number of absentee ballots counted to 554,260. Election officials project an estimated 25,000 absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted.The simultaneous counting of provisionals with the absentees seems to violate this state rule
The special [provisional] ballot shall be securely retained until all absentee ballots have been received and credited. If the voter did not return his absentee ballot, the special ballot shall be processed as a valid ballot. If the voter has returned an absentee ballot, the ballot shall not be counted and should then be referred to the canvassing board for their disposition.As I discovered yesterday, at least 91 of the voters who returned absentee ballots were credited with voting a provisional ballot. I'll be asking King County for documentation explaining this.
But where is the MSM on the King County Election? Stefan is single-handedly exposing flaw after flaw, miscount after miscount, ignored statute after ignored statute - ON HIS OWN TIME.
We pay the MSM to report news that affects our daily existence. Yet what is more important, the delicious shiver of an imaginary oil spill, or the jolt of realization that through County mis- or malfeasance our elected officials have no clear title to their lofty positions as our representatives? Obviously, the P-I would prefer to exploit the dramatic potential of the imagination instead of diverting reporterial resources to dig up facts.
Our MSM is deliberately avoiding the story of the year, and moving mountains to divert our attention from it. Imaginary oil spills indeed - GET CRACKING ON THE ELECTION, P-I, TIMES, STRANGER - heck, even the Weakly could lap the competition on this one.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on March 24, 2005 01:33 PMCould it be that they are finally finding themselves shamed into silence, or am I just dreaming?
Posted by: ScottM on March 24, 2005 02:55 PMThat WAC section says that it applies to the situation created by a voter who had been issued an absentee ballot but comes to the polls and requests a ballot -- usually saying the absentee ballot didn't arrive in the mail, I suppose. Such a voter should be issued a provisional ballot.
If they were only counting provisional ballots cast by people who had not been issued absentee ballots, there wouldn't be any reason to wait -- since there wouldn't be an absentee ballot that those people could cast in addition to the provisional ballot.
Once they got down to roughly Monday, Nov. 15, they had apparently counted all the absentees that were going to come in the mail (but their failure to reveal information about returned absentees after that 11/15 report doesn't allow anyone to figure out whether there were any that came in after the last 396 they reported).
Posted by: Micajah on March 24, 2005 04:12 PMI wish I'd checked for myself before posting. I withdraw my remarks above.
Posted by: ScottM on March 24, 2005 04:17 PMSo, while they were only required to delay counting the votes on provisional ballots in a limited situation, they may not have done so.
Posted by: Micajah on March 24, 2005 04:26 PMHow do they know if someone voted provisionally at more than 1 precindt?
How do you know if someone voted at the poll somewhere else and provisionally at a different location?
I think there may be other reasons why you would want to isolate ALL provisionals until voters are credited at polls and absentees...then look at all provisionals. Think about it because once ballots are accepted, thrown into the hopper and counted, you can't go back and fish 'em out, can you.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on March 24, 2005 04:28 PM"So, while they were only required to delay counting the votes on provisional ballots in a limited situation, they may not have done so."
That's true, but it isn't shown by the King County announcement.
Posted by: ScottM on March 24, 2005 05:13 PMPlease notice the singular and plural terms in the law cited (WAC 434-240-250). In the phrase “The special ballot shall be securely retained until all absentee ballots have been received and credited”, “special ballot” is singular whereas “absentee ballots” is plural.
The term “absentee ballots” is plural and can have two technical meanings. It either refers to all the absentee ballots received by a specific voter or all the absentee ballots of everyone given such a ballot.
Clearly, the legislature did not intend voters to cast multiple, legal votes. Thus, the only plausible interpretation is the legislature meant special ballots shall be processed after all – each and every – absentee ballots have been credited. Only then can the special ballot given to a voter be processed.
At the polling places, it doesn't matter if the voter requesting a ballot has cast a zillion others.
So long as there is a note in the poll book saying that he already got an absentee ballot, and so long as the poll worker then issues him a provisional ballot, the county ought to be able to avoid accepting and counting the votes on both the absentee and the provisional ballots.
If the voter goes to every polling place and casts a provisional ballot, the county should still be able to screen them out -- if the guy uses the same name each time. (If he's using a list of registered voters and pretending to be someone else, the only thing that is likely to stop him is a good worker who notices while verifying the provisional ballot that the signatures don't match.)
Since provisional ballots are (supposed to be) processed in much the same way as absentee ballots, someone who casts more than one provisional ballot by going to more than one polling place (and using only one name) ought to be screened out in most cases the same way the second or third absentee ballot ought to be screened out.
If the person verifying the first provisional credits the voter with having cast a ballot, and if that credit is posted to the computerized voter registration record the way it is supposed to be, then the next person verifying a provisional ballot from that same voter ought to get a warning message (at least) from the computer -- informing him that a ballot has already been received and accepted from that voter.
Of course, if King County wasn't using a computer system that could do this -- or wasn't using it in a way that could do this -- then you could end up with no practical way to keep the worker on the other side of the room or in a different building or on a different day from accepting the illegal second or third ballot.
As Stefan has noted, it appears that 91 voters might have cast both absentee and provisional ballots -- and may have had both ballots accepted and counted.
If someone casts a regular ballot at his own polling place, then goes to another place to cast a provisional ballot, the system seems more vulnerable. Since King County and some others seem to think it's just too hard to scan the poll book bar codes next to each signature carefully and upload that data into their database before they process provisional ballots, they would actually need to go look at the poll book to see if the guy cast a regular ballot. (Since King County appears to have come up really short in scanning those poll books, I wonder if they even use their computer system to tell them about the regular ballot cast at the polling place before they accept and count the provisional ballots.)
To me, it all comes back to the need for a centralized database that is kept as close to "real time" as possible -- so that each of the many people verifying absentee and provisional ballots can be told by the computer whether there has already been a ballot cast and accepted from any particular voter. There could be a few that slip through when a voter's two ballots are being processed in separate batches at the same time -- and no one waits for a computer match and warning message before separating the ballots from their outer, signed envelopes. But there would be very few that would slip through even without that wait.
(It would help to know the exact steps followed by King County in an effort to screen out that second or third absentee or provisional ballot from any voter.)
There was an example posted here of an individual who went to the polls, requested a PB, told the poll worker that he had forgotten his ID, and was nevertheless given a ballot, which was apparently then accepted and counted.
I know it's been said before, but what good does it do to have rules, if the rules aren't followed?
Posted by: ewaggin on March 24, 2005 07:35 PMMicajah has worked hard on the numbers provided by stefan, and always has provided an accurate anaylisis, and alot of deep thought....I appreciate Micajah's work, as much as I do Stefan's
Posted by: chris on March 24, 2005 08:05 PMKing County delights in the overwhelming spin. KC depends on the average citizen not having the time or patience to sort this mess out! In the past - King County has been able to pull the same nonsense with questionable election procedures - Cause citizen outrage - and quickly calm it with a spiraling smokescreen of *detail* followed by the resignation or termination of a sacrifcial lamb in the election office....(Thus - temporarily calming the outrage but never solving the problems....)
No one has ever audited them as deeply as Stefan is....No one has ever crunched the numbers as completely as Micajah....
I am in awe!
King County must be trembling....
Posted by: Deborah on March 24, 2005 09:26 PMSimple and effective.
Now, there are those who will say what about absentee voters? Too bad. If you want to cast an absentee ballot, you will have to be registered with a print just like everyone else. I'm sure we can set up voter services programs in every American embassy in the world so that voters can stop by and vote. For those voters who want to cast an absentee ballot inside the United States, they are going to have to go to their precinct and get verified.
Then and only then will we find ourselves in the position where we can say that elections are no longer subject to this sort of nonsense that erodes the public's confidence in government.
Posted by: Clint Lovell on March 27, 2005 01:27 PM