An interesting item in this morning's Seattle Times article about the fall-out from the discovery of the 93 uncounted absentee ballots
Sims' chief of staff, Kurt Triplett, said Assistant County Executive Sheryl Whitney was promptly told of the discovery of the first ballots March 24. Whitney, Logan and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Don Porter discussed what to do.A longtime observer of King County government e-mails:"The decision of all three was that they complete the investigation of absentee-ballot files before they raised it with anyone. Their intent was when the check through all absentee ballots and provisional ballots was completed, they would inform everyone," Triplett said.
Keep in mind that on the 25th there was a scheduling hearing by phone among the parties to set deposition dates and determine discovery time needs. This information absolutely should have been disclosed to those attorneys on all sides before that hearing the next day.Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 05, 2005 06:27 AM | Email ThisThis ackowledgement of Sheryl's involvement may be the first slip-up I have seen by the King County Cabal, but it goes to show that these decisions are made at the top levels (Sheryl IS essentially Ron Sims, as he can't be everywhere at once. She outranks everyone but Ron in the whole county).
Nothing happens in the election office of any significance that does not have the fingerprints of Sims or his very closest advisors.
Can't ask Sims to look into this, as his fingerprints are all over it.
Mr. Porter is with the KC prosecutors’ office, so I guess we can't look to them for an independent investigation.
Rob McKenna could do it, but he would have to be asked by the Governor, and look who (temporarily) has that job!
Guess this calls for the feds to come take a look!
However, their corruption is exponentially eclipsed by their utter stupidity. Hell, if you're going to be a crook, at least try to cover all your bases.
I don't think, though, the feds are required here. The good people of WA should be more than adequate to clean up this mess. I mean that seriously.
Posted by: dkpcowboy on April 5, 2005 07:25 AM"Democratic council members were upset that Logan hadn't informed them that SOME UNCOUNTED ABSENTEE BALLOTS WERE FOUND IN BOXES OF EMPTY BALLOT ENVELOPES March 24."
Has this discovery been described that way before? Did they find "ballots" or absentee envelopes? Has anyone yet disclosed the exact condition of those "ballots"? Were they still sealed?
More to the point of the article. The Dems all act like they're upset that Logan didn't disclose this discovery. Would it not be more appropriate to be upset that these new ballots put the lie to their original absentee ballot certification, which indicated all ballots were accounted for?
Posted by: JeanneB on April 5, 2005 07:26 AMCheryls got splainin to do.
Nothing happened n King County that doesn't happen in every county to a greater or lesser extent.
The call for a federal investigation, calls for Logan to resign, are nothing more than GOP panic that the public has moved on. Get over it, your guy lost. He didn't lose by much, but he did lose.
Posted by: docbenton on April 5, 2005 09:09 AMLook at the following “Mail Ballot Report” – a reconciliation report of the total number of absentee ballots received, the total number counted, and the total number rejected by each category – which was prepared by King County Elections – I believe for the initial certification on November 17, 2004:
http://www.soundpolitics.com/MailBallotReport.pdf
The biggest lie on this document is that the numbers in all of the categories match up. However, we now find 93 additional ballots that are not included in item # 3 – the 564,222 ballots listed as being accepted as valid and counted.
If Dean Logan had really done any sort of honest reconciliation, he would have noticed that somewhere around 93 absentee ballots were missing from the count, since the numbers would not have balanced. I certainly would not expect him to come out with exactly 93 or any other exact number.
In fact, I would not expect a reconciliation report involved an (alleged) return of 568,333 absentee ballots to balance at all. But I would expect Dean Logan to be honest, and prepare a report in which each category was counted as accurately as reasonably possible, and in which he honestly admits that the numbers don’t balance – and in which the resulting apparent discrepancy number is honestly admitted as well.
Also, I believe the “Mail Ballot Report” was prepared for the November 17, 2004 initial certification. It shows 564,222 absentee ballots being counted.
However, for the machine recount on November 24, 2004, another 198 absentee ballots were counted, for a total of 564,420. If the numbers in the other categories were honest, and the report balances, where did these 198 extra ballots come from?
In the manual recount on December 23, 2004, another 28 absentee ballots were counted, for a total of 564,448 (this does not include the Larry Phillips “no signature on file ballots"). Again, if the numbers on the report balance exactly, how are the additional 28 ballots explained?
As for the “Larry Phillips” ballots, King County Elections did validate 566 of the absentee ballots previously rejected for signature mismatch, and added them to the total count on December 23, 2004. This would have been subtracted from the 1,561 in “Not Voter’s Signature", resulting in a similar increase in the “Total number accepted as valid and counted".
Basically, Dean Logan has prepared a series of reconciliation reports which show exact balancing of ballot categories, when it is obvious these numbers do not balance. Had Logan prepared honest reports, we would have seen that these numbers were off, and there would be been inquiries into the source of the problem. Even better, Logan would have done his own employees do this investigation immediately, rather waiting until months later when the problems became obvious to outsiders.
All in all, Dean Logan has shown total incompetency and dishonesty in handling this matter. Having such a large number of errors is bad enough. But Logan refuses to admit or address mistakes until he absolutely has to. He needs to go.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 5, 2005 10:12 AMYou mean, there really was a reason he was being so evasive?
Come now, everyone trusts good old Ronny.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on April 5, 2005 10:55 AMI believe you are correct in concluding that the ballot reports prepared by Logan's gang were not accurate statements of the situation -- and they almost certainly knew this.
If they had wanted to keep track of absentee ballots, avoid errors as much as practicable, and report the true situation to the canvassing board (and public), I think they would have had to prepare records which showed these numbers:
Number of absentee ballots received,
Number of absentee ballots found to be valid, and
Number of absentee ballots sent through vote tabulation machines.
Note that the second and third numbers ought to be equal, if they counted the votes only on valid ballots (only once) and on no rejected ballots.
Without that second number, you cannot determine from the report whether the correct number of ballots went through the vote tabulation process.
In addition to those three numbers, you would need to show the disposition of those which had not been found to be valid. This would require a category for rejected ballots and subcategories for the most common reasons they were rejected.
Now, if you had a discrepancy between the number of voters credited with voting and the number of absentee ballots sent through the vote tabulation stage -- and if you didn't like the foreseeable consequences of reporting that fact -- you might decide to eliminate one part of your report. (Unless, of course, you were honest and trustworthy -- in which case you would candidly and accurately report the actual situation.)
A dishonest person would eliminate from the reports the number of absentee ballots found to be valid.
Such a person probably would realize that he couldn't get by with total elimination of the number, so he would combine it with "and counted" to make it appear to the casual observer that the votes on all valid absentee ballots had been counted only once -- and that the votes on no other ballots had been counted.
Then, when it is noticed that the list of voters credited with voting by absentee ballot is short by quite a few hundred, he would claim that the post-certification process of updating voter registration records to show the date of the last election in which each individual voted isn't supposed to be part of the audit process.
It's true: That post-certification updating isn't part of the audit process used to determine if the election returns can be ascertained with reasonable certainty -- and therefore can be certified as true, complete and accurate.
It's also beside the point.
The list of voters who participated in the election by absentee ballot is prepared from the database that contains the record of each voter credited with voting -- which crediting was done simultaneously with the validation of each accepted ballot.
The number of absentee ballots found to be valid (and equal number of voters credited with voting -- since the two are done simultaneously) is a part of the audit needed prior to certifying the returns.
That number must be compared with the number of ballots sent through the vote tabulation process to ascertain the accuracy of the vote count. If too many ballots went through, then the excess resulted from one of two things -- counting some valid ballots more than once, or counting votes on invalid, rejected ballots.
I doubt that the number of absentee ballots found to be valid was omitted by accident from the reports prepared by Logan's gang.
I suspect that they knew before November 17 that they had counted the votes on far more ballots than had been found to be valid.
The irony is that the missing 93 ballots weren't of any real concern to them, since they had counted the votes on hundreds more absentee ballots than they should have. The missing 93 might have been noticed as the batches of ballots were processed, but once they got to their total count they could see that they had far too many ballots in the vote count -- not 93 too few.
Posted by: Micajah on April 5, 2005 11:35 AMI thought that those numbers were supposed to be added up for each box of opened accepted outer absentee envelopes. So they should be able to simply add up all of those numbers.
Then subtract the number of inner envelopes rejected due to multiple ballots, wrong ballots, or no ballots inside the inner envelope.
The remainder should equal the number of absentee ballots actually counted.
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 5, 2005 11:52 AMIt reassures me to check in on you guys and confirm that you are still wasting your time, energy, and resources. It amuses me to poke holes in your logic, although I will admit that it is hardly sporting.
Posted by: docbenton on April 5, 2005 12:37 PMWhat hapless client did you bill for the time it took to try your malice on people here, and at what rate?
$200 or so an hour for .25?
Is this the best you can do for $50.00 of someone else’s money without their permission? Why not hire a kid to steal their hubcaps while you're at it, you can double your money?
Shark is simply reporting the facts. Unlike you, he is not ripping people off behind their backs just to feed petty spite.
Why don't you do your job and mind the business of those who placed their trust in you instead of pretending to be some big-shot high powered intellect who takes cheap pot-shots? You have no integrity, so the answers to these questions are moot.
Nevertheless, thanks for another example of what your side is made of.
I don't know if they double-checked the numbers for each batch/bundle/precinct/whatever as they searched through the envelopes and found those 93 ballots or not.
I suspect that the numbers on any physical records associated with each group of envelopes wouldn't give any precise number of accepted ballots. Porter's email to counsel said they had previously noted discrepancies of one or more ballots in some (many?) groups.
I believe the best evidence of the number of absentee ballots accepted as valid is the voter registration record (computer database) in which was made an entry for each individual whose ballot was accepted -- to credit each individual with voting in the election.
That crediting process was done simultaneously with confirmation of the signatures on each ballot, and that database was later used to produce a list of voters who had been credited with voting.
That subsequent list didn't contain enough names to account for the absentee ballots included in the vote tabulation.
If rejected ballots weren't removed from the groups of ballots, then the ballots would have gone on to the vote tabulation stage -- and the outer envelopes that had contained them would have been stored with the envelopes that had contained accepted ballots.
Counting those empty envelopes now ought to produce a number that equals the number of ballots that went through the vote tabulation process, but it wouldn't be an accurate reflection of the number of ballots accepted as valid.
Posted by: Micajah on April 5, 2005 03:51 PMDid you notice that Sims went further than Logan's statement about "cultural problems" in the elections division?
While it seems clear that the discrepancies resulted from the neglect (at least) of lower level supervisors and workers, Sims and Logan haven't seemed willing to acknowledge the apparent need to clean house.
It doesn't let Logan off the hook, in my opinion, but it's a start.
Here's what King 5 News reported:
When asked if people other than Dean Logan need to leave the elections office, he responded, "Without a question."
...
"We have people who are deliberately ignoring standard operating procedures, who don't seem to want to be conscientious or professional in their conduct," said Sims.
"Why are you convinced that it's not Dean Logan?" KING 5 asked Sims.
"Because Dean has made so many changes in that agency and most of the people in the agency have welcomed those changes. There are some who are very resistant," he said.
Posted by: Micajah on April 5, 2005 09:51 PM