Nicole Brodeur interviews Julie Anne Kempf, the former Superintendent of Elections in King County (the position now held by Bill Huennekens), who was terminated after the 2002 election ""Lamb" wasn't just crying wolf"
In her own defense, Kempf said then that the county's whole election framework was troubled. She spoke of the aged, "clanking along" computer system and a chronic lack of resources — everything from the freezing of a key system-analyst position, to the assistant who quit in exhaustion to the death of the manager of absentee ballots.Indeed, several King County government insiders whom I trust tell me that Kempf was unfairly scapegoated for trying to defend the integrity of the elections office against Ron Sims questionable directives. It would be interesting to learn more about what those "red flags" might be. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 28, 2005 11:21 AM | Email This"I've been raising red flags for years," Kempf said then, but officials didn't listen.
I remember she said the ballots went out late back then because of anthrax on the east coast, or something wierd like that. It turned out not to be true at all. Did she or did she not say that? It'a hard to know what to believe from these people, but I believe her when she says there've been problems from the get-go.
Posted by: Michele on April 28, 2005 11:28 AMIn Dean Logan's deposition there were some questions about the Election Oversight Committee report, but nobody asked the right question from my perspective. Mr. Logan, what was you estimated number of provisional ballots? How many were there and weren't you warned many months in advance of the election that this was a problem area you needed to focus management talent on to address?
Oh well, I am sure that Logan kept Ron Sims happy, so what......
Posted by: Bob on April 28, 2005 11:44 AMThe King County canvassing board didn't do the job required by law -- determine whether the results presented by Logan's gang were a "full, true, and correct representation of the votes cast" before (almost but not quite) certifying the county's election returns. Their own non-certification demonstrates their ignorance of their legal duty.
The legislature shouldn't have relied on that non-certification as an adequate basis for the issuance of a certificate of election to the Pretender.
Unfortunately, neither Logan nor the canvassing board understood their legal responsibility, and the legislature never bothered to check to see if the (almost but not quite) certification by the canvassing board was worthy of belief.
So, while the court contest is supposed to be the last resort, it turns out to be the only place to turn for what may be a bona fide effort to determine whether the returns submitted by King County truly stated the number of legitimate votes cast for each candidate.
Posted by: Micajah on April 28, 2005 11:46 AMFrom the attached article relating to the problems that force Kempf to leave.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=134634189&zsection_id=268448406&slug=election14m&date=20030214
My favorite quote:
"Sims and Roegner said they were confident they would be able to meet all of Reed's recommendations before 2004, a presidential and gubernatorial election year. The county expects a record number of absentee ballots that year. "
And it will never, ever happen again. Sims occupying an elected office that is.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 28, 2005 12:08 PMSo, are you willing to exonerate the present wrong-doing simply because it's a continuation of past wrong-doing?
If others violated the law, then it's okay for me to do the same?
Makes no sense to me. And, I suspect, it will not hold sway when Logan's judgment day arrives.
Posted by: Seattle Republican on April 28, 2005 12:11 PMIt tends to incriminate Logan, as these problems were well known when he arrived, but he didn't take action to correct them.
Posted by: ewaggin on April 28, 2005 12:17 PMYour logic (or lack of) completely escapes me. Logan was hired to clean up the mess. If anything he is in even bigger pile of doooooo.
Maggie
Posted by: maggie on April 28, 2005 12:20 PMOr is this going to be the normal GOP "we need change, but we don't want to pay for it" arguement?
Posted by: JDB on April 28, 2005 01:07 PMAs for Kempf, if she did raise concerns regarding the reliability & security of elections in KC, then that just provides more evidence that Sims was invested in ensuring the ongoing existence of a fraud-prone elections office.
It is funny that there is so much accountability required of public corporations yet a public official like Sims can ignore state law and state regulations with no consequence. If he were CEO of a public corporation, he would be doing the perp-walk even as we speak.
Posted by: iconoclast on April 28, 2005 01:07 PMIf these have been problems all along, it would tend to exonerate Logan.
Posted by headless lucy at April 28, 2005 11:39 AM
If you had any sense you'd back socialized medicine so you could get a glass belly button installed.
Posted by headless lucy at April 27, 2005 01:49 PM
I'm bigger than the Beatles.
Posted by headless lucy at April 27, 2005 01:58 PM
I still maintain it's not about fair elections with you. It's about winning any way you can at whose cost you couln't care less.
Posted by headless lucy at April 27, 2005 10:48 AM
Do you think the word "truth" in the name of the club has anything to do with the troubles the club has. Show me a club called something like: "The Absolute Truth Darwinian Evolution Club". Of course you can't because no school would allow such a club, just like they won't allow the: "Truth Bible Club". And that's the truth.
Posted by headless lucy at April 28, 2005 11:50 AM
Its like an old 'Saturday Night Live' skit. Looking for the next installment Headlice...
She ended the interview by saying there is STILL absolutely no possibility of any collusion or illegality on the part of the elections officials.
YEP- she lies!
Posted by: Baynative on April 28, 2005 01:15 PMIn the glossaries of many corporate execs , they've come to translate ROI as no longer being "Return on Investment" but now referring to "Risk of Incarceration". And well they should.
Posted by: MikeF on April 28, 2005 01:24 PM"Fast-forward to last week, when the new heinie in the elections hot-seat, Dean Logan, was questioned under oath about the November governor's election, in which Republican Dino Rossi lost to Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129 votes after both a machine and hand recount."
The statement "in which Republican Dino Rossi lost to Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129 votes after both a machine and hand recount" is inaccurate.
It should of read "in which Republican Dino Rossi won two out of the three recounts and the Democrat controlled King county elections officials did everything they could to make sure Christine Gregoire won the hand recount"
If the election is a statistical dead heat, let's use statistics to select the Gov. 2 out of 3 sorry Chris you lose.
Posted by: Chasspin on April 28, 2005 01:56 PMYour automatic assumption that the problem at KC Elections is lack of funds is charming and predictable. And absent any real evidence.
Many of the problems enumerated by Stefan (and others) were not due to failing computer systems or hiring the mentally handicapped (oops, those with cognitive differences). As with all organizations with severe problems, the failures at KC Elections fall entirely on management's shoulders.
Pay workers more (aka hire better workers)? How about providing clear guidelines on election management instead of lectures on PC terminology? How about following state law instead of ignoring it? How about spending time auditing and verifying the certification instead of papering over obvious mistakes? How about allowing observers to observe instead of cordoning them off yards away from the elections workers? Finally, how about firing elections workers who cannot/will not adhere to legal directives?
KC needs to address these and other management problems first before dipping into the taxpayer's pocket.
She does one thing that you don't often hear from KCEs people...she infers that integrity might actually matter to her...and if that is true, it would go a long way to verifying her being on the outs with Sims/party leadership.
What could possibly be more threatening to these clowns than someone in a position of make trouble for them that won't play ball?
Posted by: scott158 on April 28, 2005 02:30 PMThere's another aspect of the left and money.
a) libs call for money...the 'big lie', chanted as a mantra, trying to create a "reality" to divert from bad policy and incompetence
b) the constant cry for money will be met with resistence from those that are targeted and tired of it.
c) no new taxes, the libs say "well, what can we do, we don't have enough money"
d) when they do get new money, its not for the stated purpose, but to ratchet up the size of government, thus solidifying their power base, thus presenting an even greater potential for inflicting damage on the taxpayers, and
e) they have plausible deniability from all the union/teacher/bureaucrat types that suckle at the pig trough.
Money is a smoke screen. ALL of the problems discovered so far center on incompetence or malfeasance. Not money.
Sometimes I think that sentencing the miscreants to hard time would miss the point. It might do them more good to have to...under the threat of tax-and-spend legislators and anti-business judges to be required to work enough hours to meet a company payroll as a manager.
Wouldn't that be an interesting requirement for being on the legislative budget committees...to have to have met a payroll in the first four of the last five quarters...much like qualifying for unemployment????
Posted by: scott158 on April 28, 2005 02:42 PM"Fired elections boss is political insider who rose quickly "
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=134612145&zsection_id=268448406&slug=kempf09m&date=20030109
Posted by: randy on April 28, 2005 03:02 PMBest laugh of the day. I'll remember that.
Posted by: StephenR from Houston on April 28, 2005 03:04 PM'bout the same thing, I s'pose.
Posted by: scott158 on April 28, 2005 04:05 PMBy the way, when did you get over your multiple personalities?
Posted by: Mark Beyer on April 28, 2005 07:11 PMNuff Said.
Posted by: VaCSProf on April 28, 2005 08:17 PM