Friday's e-mail from King County attorney Don Porter about the allegedly uncounted absentee ballots effectively admits that somebody on Dean Logan's staff must have committed fraud.
Check out the Mail Ballot Report that was presented to the canvassing board prior to the first certification in November. Note how it claims that every absentee ballot is accounted for. No mention of any missing uncounted absentee ballots. How could 93 ballots be overlooked? Note this key paragraph from Porter's e-mail
Approximately 35 more untabulated ballots have been found inside absentee envelopes, for a total of approximately 73. I say "approximately" because they are still going through batches. But I do not expect that figure to change because at this time they are going through batches for which the batch slips indicate a discrepancy of "1" or "0".In other words, the batch slips showed that there were discrepancies in the ballot count, and if they were going through the "1"s and "0"s last, then presumably there were some batches that had larger discrepancies. Nowhere does the Mail Ballot Report make any mention of discrepancies, let alone 93 missing ballots.
Whoever created the Mail Ballot Report must have deliberately doctored the numbers in order to conceal the fact that there were discrepancies on the batch slips, indicating missing or extra ballots. A criminal investigation is in order. In the meantime, the county needs to release the Absentee Ballot Audit Trail that would provide partial answers.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 04, 2005 04:04 PM | Email This Great work my friend.Listen I have long
been of the belief whoever has been feeding
Dino Rossi's campaign and you this information.
knows very well that this is a sinking ship.
They don't want to go down with it.This
has been a big time coverup and they want
no part of it.I personally think there is even
more to come.
Nobody cares anymore. It's over. Finis. Rossi lost.
Good luck in 2008.
Posted by: Nelson on April 4, 2005 04:35 PMSo when your car is stolen, I guess the police can just tell you "nobody cares, it's gone, you lost, go buy a new car" and you'd be happy with that? This election wasn't won or lost, it was stolen. If we over look that, we simply invite more of the same next time.
Posted by: Jason on April 4, 2005 04:42 PM"Total number accepted as valid and counted"
Now, I suppose we must admit that this description of those absentee ballots may have been almost literally true. The ballots that made it to the end of the process and had their votes tabulated may have met both conditions -- "accepted as valid" (give or take 800 or 900) and "counted."
Where is the report of the number supposedly accepted as "valid"?
Without knowing how many had been accepted as valid, you wouldn't know if all the valid absentee ballots had been counted -- or whether more than that number had been counted.
The audit trail required by law requires just that kind of information, to be sure you have counted every legitimate ballot -- only once -- and that you have removed rejected ballots before tabulating the votes on them.
The "Mail Ballot Report" was apparently an attempt to make it appear that all was well.
Posted by: Micajah on April 4, 2005 04:45 PMWhat were you doing on Election Day?
Posted by: ScottM on April 4, 2005 04:47 PMMake a public records request for the Excel file that generated the Mail Ballot Report (i.e. the one that you have posted at:
http://www.soundpolitics.com/MailBallotReport.pdf.
Look in the lower left-hand corner of the document that King County furnished. It says:
efx/abscanvrpt.xls
Yep, that is the file extension for a Microsoft Excel file. If you get the actual file from which this report was generated, then you can see where they got their numbers from.
Just look in each of the cells on the file. Some of them will have actual numbers entered. Others will simply have formulas.
Find out which of the numbers on the Mail Ballot Report come from actual numbers, and find out which numbers come from the formula.
This will reveal what numbers are being totally fudged in order to make the spreadsheet balance.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 4, 2005 06:47 PMNelson who?
Posted by: Amused by liberals on April 4, 2005 07:15 PMThis is NEWS my man....Get Busy !!! Put a fire under Goldy and his crew! I cant wait to see Gold'y Spin on this one...
Posted by: Chris on April 4, 2005 08:12 PMAnd is it too early to start a pool on who they'll pick as the scapegoat?
Posted by: Al on April 4, 2005 08:57 PMNelson is obviously terrified of something. You can tell because he starts his posts with that unconvincing "YAWN."
I always imagine him as the sleazy Martin Short character Nathan Thurm, trying desperately (and unsuccesfully) to act casual as his tissue of lies disintegrates around him.
I'm wondering if he thinks a criminal investigation might result in his fingerprints being found in some interesting places. Just wondering, is all.
Posted by: ScottM on April 4, 2005 08:58 PMWe, the citizens who wanted our elections to be clean from the outset, DEMAND clean elections and honest elections workers. Honestly, if I were able I'd go and get them to hire me because there's no way you could pay me to cheat over there.
Posted by: Michele on April 4, 2005 11:11 PMWhere the heck is Nick Handy in all of this mess? We know about Logan, Reed, Heunekken, Sims, Phillips, Patterson, and a host of other infamous names.....But I have heard nothing from or about Nick Handy - the State Elections Director....
Anyone know what his take is in all of this? This would be his area......
I'm sure the Feds will want to talk with him soon....
Posted by: Deborah on April 4, 2005 11:53 PMWhen you pick away at carbunkl zits, you do indeed open up a lot of headless lucy.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on April 5, 2005 03:30 PM