This is a trivia question to which I honestly don't know the answer --
Prior to Monday's ruling in Wenatchee, in which other elections did a judge rule that the number of illegal votes exceeded the prevailaing margin of victory, but where the outcome was nevertheless affirmed?I'd be especially grateful to any legal scholars, political scientists, etc. who might be able to dig up any such examples.
CLARIFICATION: this can be any election anywhere in the United States.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 09, 2005 11:35 AM | Email This“This is really a ridiculously high standard that you’re looking at now,” Michael McDonald, a visiting fellow at the Washington, D.C.’s Brookings Institution, said Tuesday. “You’re never going to overturn an election that way.”
Posted by: Chris Vance on June 9, 2005 11:43 AMNot only is it a ridiculously high standard, but it has a wormhole in it. Testimony of felons does meet the standard set by Bridges. An absurd standard with an even more absurd exception.
Posted by: Dogbert on June 9, 2005 11:54 AMI'll take that to mean, Salmon Brains, that you don't know the answer in any context.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on June 9, 2005 12:01 PMIt would be interesting to know what other states legally permit a ruling such as this--those loopholes would be of interest to the voters, wouldn't you agree?
Posted by: Bostonian on June 9, 2005 12:02 PMAnd did you realize that it was YOUR hand-picked judge that did it?
And furthermore, based on all of the scandals currently enveloping Republicans everywhere, it is now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt which party is the most crooked. Since you probably aren't following national news, I'm talking about the Downing Street Minutes, the Global Warming Report, everything involving Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, particularly buying private meetings with the president for $25,000 each, the Ohio coin dealer pension theft, the $120 million land scam payoff to Bush's buddies in Florida...
Stay tuned, they'll be lots and lots more. Republicans will be hammered in the next several elections for all the fraud that's going on. The public is finally fed up.
Posted by: Nelson on June 9, 2005 12:05 PMName one election that was overturned where there was no showing of fraud and the challenging party did ont put forward a single piece of evidence to show how illegal voters voted?
Posted by: JDB on June 9, 2005 12:07 PM"Stay tuned, they'll be lots and lots more. Republicans will be hammered in the next several elections for all the fraud that's going on. The public is finally fed up."
I think you meant to put Democrats and accidently typed Republicans. Either that or your back at your propaganda and disinformation campaign.
Posted by: Frank on June 9, 2005 12:13 PMDornan alleged 1,789 illegal and invalid votes in a race decided by a 984 vote margin. California SOS determined that 721 illegals had registered and 442 voted. Another 924 voter registrations were challenged because the Registrar of Voters could not accout for them.
As I recall Dornan petitioned Congress for an investigation, but in some kind of deal, Congress abandoned Dornan leaving Sanchez in the seat.
Posted by: Mike on June 9, 2005 12:18 PMAnyone paying attention can see which party resists all election reforms that would prevent fraud: Jim Doyle twice vetoed a photo ID requirement for voting, for example.
Anyone can see which party sponsors and encourages changes that make cheating easier, reduce accountability of election officials, and make public recourse difficult.
These are plain observations, not your kool-aid.
Posted by: Bostonian on June 9, 2005 12:18 PMYour message to the voters of WA is to accept 1678 illegal votes in a race decided by 1/10th of that. Your message is to forgive these errors and "move on."
You haven't really said why anyone should forgive these errors (to use a charitable word).
Indeed, why *should* an ordinary voter just "move on"?
How is that a logical or right thing to do? What assurance could you give that the same thing won't happen again and again and again?
Posted by: Bostonian on June 9, 2005 12:22 PMKey words in your question are "show how illegal voters voted." And all this is peachy keen with you democrats/liberals/CG lovers...
If you dont cherish your Vote JDB, I can guarentee King County Goverment wont. They dont give a rat's arse about you or your vote.....
Go ahead and sanction this entire fiasco, but remember every time you pump gas, buy a "Sin" related Item, or drive over a viaduct, your vote doesn't count, but it surely does COST you....
Posted by: Chris on June 9, 2005 12:30 PMWTH?? What has any of this got to do with the price of peanuts in Trinidad?
Posted by: Dogbert on June 9, 2005 12:33 PMHar! Answer: They WANT it to happen. How better to keep power from slipping away?
Posted by: starboardhelm on June 9, 2005 12:34 PMmoritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comments/2005/comment0607.html
Posted by: Mike on June 9, 2005 12:37 PM2 contested races may or may not still be active as a result of last November's election:
In New York, the legislative race in Westchester County is still undecided due to 550 contested ballots, though a court ruling on Wednesday, February 2, looks promising for challenger Andrea Stewart-Cousins. The incumbent, Nicholas Spano, led Stewart-Cousins by 58 votes when a 5-to-2 decision by the Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) held that 228 of the 550 contested ballots should be counted. The judges looked at the five categories of the 550 contested votes and found that in three of the categories, administrative errors by Board of Elections workers on Election Day meant that those votes should be counted. The largest number of provisional ballots the ruling allows to be counted, 163 votes, were cast by eligible voters who were in the right polling place, but the wrong election district. The court also permitted ballots filled out by 45 people who served as poll workers on Election Day and voted by absentee ballot as well as 20 affidavit ballots enclosed in envelopes that did not identify the election district where they were made. The ballots will be taken from the courthouse in Albany to the county Board of Elections in White Plains as soon as possible to be counted. The problems experienced in New York 's Westchester County are similar to problems in other states, such as North Carolina and Illinois, where difficulties in determining the standards by which to count provisional ballots have led to confusion and inconsistency.
In North Carolina, a state Supreme Court ruling has resulted in the exclusion of 11,310 provisional ballots cast by voters in the wrong precinct on November 2. The ruling leaves one statewide race, the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, still without a winner. Prior to the ruling, Democrat June Atkinson led Republican Bill Fletcher by about 8,500 votes. The North Carolina Supreme Court held that state law requires voters to cast their ballots in their home precincts-therefore, the 11,310 provisional ballots cast in the wrong precincts cannot be counted for state races. The ruling does not affect votes for federal races, as federal races are governed by the federal Help America Vote Act. The court held that their decision turned on the North Carolina law, which clearly requires voters to cast their ballots in their own precincts on Election Day.
Posted by: Mike on June 9, 2005 12:42 PM"Prior to Monday's ruling in Wenatchee, in which other elections did a judge rule that the number of illegal votes exceeded the prevailaing margin of victory, but where the outcome was nevertheless affirmed? "
In which context are you referring to?
Prior to Ruling, do you get the Clue?
For pete's sake, your initial post was condensending, and I bet my last dollar (cause when the dem's are done with me, that is all I will have left) that stefan doesn't give a hoot about your opinion of his integrity.
Since when did you libs, I mean progressives, give a damn about integrity? I submit you wouldn't recognize it if it kicked you in your regressive head.
Posted by: REBEL on June 9, 2005 12:57 PMAnswer the damn question, or shut the hell up.
My answer was the first one given by Mike: Bob Dornan v. Loretta Sanchez, the Aztlan Asshat.
Posted by: Sailor Republica on June 9, 2005 12:59 PMIf the question doesn't make sense to you it is probably that many questions don't make sense to you and you should probably give up. Isn't it time for the nurse to bring your medication. Remember, you are not supposed to eat cigarette butts, they're not good for you. Leave your helmet on too, so that if you have a siezure you don't hurt yourself.
Posted by: REBEL on June 9, 2005 01:07 PMIt will shock you.
Posted by: Apeman on June 9, 2005 01:21 PMNever. Florida wasn't about illegal votes.
correction: not about minority illegal votes... eg. their felon DB included +- 80% blacks/hispanics who were not felons. They did not include the cubans (eg. pro Bush), however.
It was about determining voter intent in the undervotes on punch card ballots.
Never got that far: undervotes (and more importantly, overvotes) were never reviewed even though media consortium determined overvotes would have but Gore over the top. I'll bet that's not in your talking points.
So Chris... whad'ya think about coingate?
"...North Carolina law, which clearly requires voters to cast their ballots in their own precincts on election day".
Instead of the SOS jumping on the bandwagon to allow felons the PRIVILEGE of voting, they should do away with provisional ballots, altogether. Allowing felon voting before their rights are restored further cheapens the voting process, and provisionals take away from the process the idea of sacrificial determination to do whatever it takes to vote.....as in the purple ink on the finger.
Posted by: Susu on June 9, 2005 01:30 PMCorrect me if I'm wrong, but in Foulkes, there was as showing of fraud.
Posted by: JDB on June 9, 2005 01:31 PMI did find it interesting that he said that Secretary of State should have refused to certify. Isn't that something that has been said here? THat that is his job to do?
The SOS's responsibility is not simply a formality, but Sam Reed appears to have treated it as such. Once he had certified, then Reed and Handy had incentives to undermine the challenge as the Handy email made very clear.
Posted by: Mike on June 9, 2005 02:01 PMIf I claim there was a murder, but I couldn't show you a body or bullet holes, just a gun, might you not think I'm trying to con you?
Posted by: JDB on June 9, 2005 02:17 PMSam Reed has no integrity. He's the Andrew Fastow of WA state politics.
As someone else pointed out, it's time for him to stop putting the R after his name.
Posted by: Bostonian on June 9, 2005 02:18 PM"If you find a dead body with bullet wounds but you cannot find out who did it, do you try to allege that no crime happened?"
Perfect analogy!
Only in this state and only if the Dead man were a republican. If they were a democrat, they would bury them in their back yard and mail in an absentee change of address form!
Posted by: GS on June 9, 2005 02:32 PMOn 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency). But, as he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers, and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this.
Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But, the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.
The room on the ninth floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Opus. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither one knew that the shotgun was loaded.
The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her, therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded. The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.
The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. There was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son, one Ronald Opus, had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window. The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
Posted by: helpful citizen on June 9, 2005 02:42 PMTo a majority of ordinary people, it's a Bad Thing to have more illegal votes than the margin of victory. That means that democracy itself has been compromised.
I believe that is what this blog is about. I don't know why this is hard to understand.
Posted by: Bostonian on June 9, 2005 02:58 PMIt's because of buffoons like this we need the WASL.
No, if you find a dead body and no one admits doing to the murder, and no one saw anyone do commit the murder, you conduct an investigation and come up with the most likely suspect and build a case. Then you put that individual on trial, and if the preponderance of the evidence shows that person to be guilty, they are convicted and sentenced by a jury of their peers.
If you have any questions on any of the above, ask Scott Peterson in San Quentin, CA. He is sitting on death row right now based on circumstantial evidence, albeit very damning circumstantial evidence, without ever confessing, without any eyewitnesses, and without any murder weapon.
Meanwhile Chris Fraudoire is sitting in the Governor's mansion right now because, despite equally damning circumstantial evidence, since no one confessed and no one saw anyone do anything, no crime occured.
Got it now, troll?
What the judge affirmed through his ruling was that total votes and the legal votes don't add up and there is no way to add them up. But, there wasn't room in the law for that issue to effect the outcome. Its actually a very interesting way to reach an outcome that doesn't completely affirm the election, although allows the current outcome to stand.
Posted by: Zeusalicious on June 9, 2005 03:04 PMBut yer wasting yer breath..er keystrokes..on JDB
Posted by: Blueknight on June 9, 2005 03:07 PMDon't worry, take another nembutal and repeat after me: "Christine Gregoire received the most legal votes. King County's 'significant errors' did not affect the outcome. There must not be room for any doubt or uncertainty over this."
I'm sure that will make you feel much better.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on June 9, 2005 03:10 PMYour unstated point (that similar cases in other states were considered under different statutes and therefore cannot be compared to the recent election contest) could have been said as such.
Such a point is sensible only in the ultra-legalistic sense. It would be akin to suggesting that two pseudo-identical cases of murder could not be compared if one was committed in a place where murder was legal and other one was not. As far as legal precedent goes, the two cases could not be compared.
However, you should remember that legal code is derived from something other than itself.
Posted by: Kristan on June 9, 2005 03:35 PM"Clearly this is ridiculous."
Posted by: Kristan on June 9, 2005 03:38 PMI think that what you meant is: "Kristan, Don't be so sure that it is that clear to a moonbat!"
Posted by: Dogbert on June 9, 2005 04:18 PMThe SOS's responsibility is not simply a formality, but Sam Reed appears to have treated it as such. Once he had certified, then Reed and Handy had incentives to undermine the challenge as the Handy email made very clear.With 20-20 hindsight, that was the first point of failure that can be attributed to a misstep by the Republicans. What good is it to elect a Repub SOS if he's going to behave like a Dem? If all the shoes had been on the other foot (i.e., if it was Rossi who had won on the last recount the way Gregoire "won," and there was evidence of fraud that exceeded the margin of victory, and if a Dem occupied the SOS office) would the Dem SOS have just rubber stamped the certification of Rossi's win --the candidate from the opposing party-- in the pro forma manner that Reed did? Or would that hypothetical Democrat SOS have been aggressively partisan, not certified the election, and have done everything possible to help the Democrat candidate win? Do these questions even need to be asked? Posted by: jaybird on June 9, 2005 04:51 PM
http://www.texasweekly.com/documents/HeflinVsVo_HarnettReport.pdf
The GOP Texas state house of representatives appointed a contest commitee (under Texas constitution, legislature decides election contests) and a GOP attorney member of the state house was appointed as discovery master to oversee gathering evidence and make preliminary factual findings and legal recommendations.
The discovery master found that over 105 people had illegally voted in the state house race. Actual depositions of the voters were required to establish who these people voted for. 44 votes were deducted from the Republican, and 61 votes from the Democrat. The Democrat still won.
The election contest was never formally decided. After the discovery master issued his report, Heflin dropped his election contest challenge -- the same day the report was issued on February 7, 2005.
Perhaps the Washington state GOP should have paid attention to how the GOP Texas legislature was deciding their election contest. If it is necessary to take hundreds of depositions of illegal voters in a state house district in Texas with 150,000 people, then taking a couple of thousand in a Governor's race in a state of six million people would also be reasonable.
Posted by: Richard Pope on June 9, 2005 05:40 PM‘If JDB FOUND A BODY FULL OF BULLET HOLES HE WOULD SAY THAT PERSON DIED FROM LEAD POISONING’
I read somewhere that a well known “liberal” attorney actually argued that in a court in defense of his client. His contention was that while his client inflicted harm, his client was not responsible for the actual death. In his argument he pointed out that when one has received damage from another they have a legal obligation to mitigate the damage. He pointed out that the victim just laid there and failed to make an attempt to remove the lead and stop the poisoning, thus committing suicide. ;)
I couldn't believe all day yesterday when they were reporting it, they never mentioned 12%... only that there was a dispute over the interest payments....
The public knows that a bank doesn't offer a rate that high so why the 12%? Embarassing to the Democrats I would think... All this dirt for the next election will be pretty entertaining.. I can only imagine the infomercials now!
Posted by: Cooked Books on June 9, 2005 08:35 PMThank you for your helpful comment.
The underlying point is that you've tried to make legal analyses on this case on both your blog and on the air. Precedence is an important element in our system of jurisprudence. Anyone who steps forward to argue points of law should have done the legwork beforehand.
OTOH, I realize that you're not an attorney. So I was also being facetious.
Posted by: Al Hedstrom on June 9, 2005 08:47 PMIf you ever actually read my commentary or listened to what I've said on the radio, you would know that I've been careful to set the context that I'm not an attorney and that I do not presume to provide legal analysis. I'm more interested in interpreting facts in a political context and that's all I claim to do. You're free to disagree with my interpretations and to refute my facts.
Do you have an answer to the question that I posed, or did you only come here to post snotty remarks?
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on June 9, 2005 08:57 PMYou are also correct when you say that legal code is derived from something other than itself. Obviously. We all know that law derives from policy choices made by the persons who enacted the law. North Carolina apparently has chosen to throw out any election in which the number of illegal votes exceeds the margin of victory. That state has decided to accept the risk of throwing out an election that reflects the wishes of a majority of the electorate in favor of -- well, it is not entirley clear to me what it is in favor of. Certainly not "certainty" about who won -- a new election may be no more certain than the first. Certainly not to discourage what has been so nicely called "distributed vote fraud" in this state. Very hard to believe that felons or others voting illegaly were universally motivated to vote only for one candidate or the other or that they are deterred by any law. I suppose it may discourage stuffing of the ballot box, but at a very high cost, in my opinion. It also may result in throwing out elections where nothing happened except a bunch of voters voted at the wrong precinct, as apparently happened in this latest debacle in North Carolina. That may be ignorance, but it isn't fraud. North Carolina also risks throwing out an election when all of the illegal votes were for the losing candidate. Okay, that's admittedly improbable, but how about where 50% of the votes were actually cast for the loser. Not so improbable. The illegal votes would not change the outcome of the election, but nonetheless, North Carolina would throw out that election. In favor of a new election, with a new campaign, a new electorate, at great cost, with no greater assurance of accuracy than the first one. It also makes for a lot of challenges.
Washington, on the other hand, made a different policy choice. We will throw out an election if the contestant can prove illegal votes changed the outcome or if the contestant can prove fraud. We accept a degree of uncertainty in the outcome of an election including illegal votes, but I suspect that level of uncertainty is no greater than, and is probably less than, the compounded uncertainty inherent in North Carolina's choice -- first, that the outcome of the original election was affected by illegal votes and second that the outcome of the second election was not. In neither case does one ever really know the winner in an election that is a statistical tie. So we resolve it in the method provided by the laws agreed upon before the election and move on. Ours is the better policy choice, in my opinion.
But reasonable minds can differ on the better policy and the better law resulting from it. So if you can convince enough people that it is better to throw out any election where one can prove the number of illegal votes exceeded the margin of victory and that is the rule going in, more power to you. I suggest to you, however, that most of the time all you will do is empower the loser or the one who can scream fraud the loudest, without gaining any certainty in the outcome.
It is not reasonble, however, to compare court results under the two competing statutory schemes. My hunch is that that was Stefan's intent, but perhaps I have underestimated him.
Posted by: Northern Coho on June 9, 2005 11:24 PMI haven't read every scribbling or heard every utterance you've made. My life consists of more than studying politics/politicians and perpetual complaining. So I accept your caveat that you've provided a non-attorney caveat to your legal discussions.
No, I don't know the answer to your question and, yes, my primary purpose yesterday and today is to post snotty remarks.
Al Hedstrom
Have Snot Will Travel
This ones' for you snot!
"The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face." Another deep thought by Jack Handy
Posted by: kim in vancouver on June 10, 2005 10:25 AMAs far as I'm concerned, the only relevant part of your post is the first paragraph.
:::"Murder" is illegal in both jurisdictions, but each has chosen to prevent it in different ways. But you are absolutely correct when you say that "clearly the two cases could not be compared." I believe that to be my point.:::
Nothing in the definition of "murder" defines it as illegal behaviour. Thus, either I wrote my analogy poorly or you refused to understand what I wrote. In my analogy, the "same" murder was committed in two places; in one locale, murder was an act permitted by law, and in the other it was prohibited.
Under your reasoning, the two cases are entirely different because of the legal code of the locations where the cases occurred.
Under Stefan's, the two cases should - from a citizen's perspective - be regarded as identical.
Incidentally, was the Holocaust permissible under German state law circa 1942?
Very profound.
Posted by: Al Hedstrom on June 10, 2005 11:46 AM