I'm not the only one whose public records requests are being stonewalled by Dean Logan. Bob Edelman of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has for weeks been asking for documentation on the mailing of military ballots during October 2004, which belive it or not, has never been satisfactorily produced. This "mail log" produced by King County and this letter from Bob Edelman to Dean Logan tell the story.
UPDATE: Edelman sent me some more of the (inconclusive) documents provided by King County in response to his request.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 27, 2005 10:24 AM | Email ThisOn the 12th, 5,478 more were added. How many military ballots were there total? Were all of these 10,069 military?
If KC was forced into court to prove that they had mailed all military ballots on time - would this be their best evidence?
Also remember, weren't there 2,500 - 3,000 duplicate ballots mailed as well? Which batches were these in?
Do all of our state and local governments have such poor accounting and audit trail practices?
Enron. Aurthur Anderson. Etc. The government is big on protecting us from "big business" - who's protecting us from "big government"?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 27, 2005 10:59 AMRegistered Military (RM), Registered Service (RS), and overseas civilian, are hand stuffed by election staff, as there is usually just one or two per precinct and automating a one-envelope process is pointless, and sent in special postage-paid envelopes provided by the government for the purposes of facilitating voting for citizens working abroad.
So why would Logan and Huennekens say that the ballots did not go through PSI, when they were taken to (ta-da!) PSI and not the Post Office?
Bob Edelman's on the right track. The date the ballots actually went out to the USPS, not the day they went to an envelope stuffing contractor in Kent, is the date of mailing.
Posted by: Good Grief on July 27, 2005 11:10 AMAre there any other scenarios possible here?
Posted by: pseudotsuga on July 27, 2005 11:14 AMPer GOOD GRIEF's description of RM and RS - By the 8th, KC had sent out 3,967 ballots to Military and Overseas. Is that all the military ballots - less than 4,000?
Unless PSI delivered the last 2,000 or so to the post office late on the 8th, it looks as if some definately did not get mailed per the Federal deadline.
Apparently the Feds were interested enough to threaten legal action against Washington State if military ballots were not mailed timely. KC elections officials have testified in court regarding their willingness to falsify legal documentation, but are unwilling or unable to produce adequate documentation to prove they complied with Federal deadlines as promised they would/did. It is interesting how little attention this issue is getting.
Too bad the MSM isn't interested, yet another reason why they no longer interest me as a source of news or current events. In lock step are the KC Prosescutor (implicated in covering up "found" ballots) wasting tax dollars investigating Ms. K, and the Federal Atty General who is desperately tring to look busy with an out of district investigation of the Mayor of Spokane.
Why isn't the Federal Attorney General on the bandwagon on this one, WHAT IS HIS PROBLEM?
We were probably interupted by another scandal, possibly more ballots discovered, but I can't remember which!
Good luck Mr. Edelman, and don't hold your breath!
On the OSOS spreadsheet listing military and overseas ballots, the total number listed as mailed is "15,289".
On the King County Mail Ballot Log, 4,591 ballots are shown as "mailed" (which in some cases means being taken to PSI for addditional processing before mailing) by the 9th of October.
This is confirmed by Nicole Way's e-mail to all and sundry players.
So, KCREALS own documentation, what little there is of it, shows that in the best possible scenario, only 30.02% of the King County military and overseas ballots were mailed timely.
Posted by: Good Grief on July 27, 2005 01:18 PMWhitman's entire military ballot population is seniors and the just-graduated at WSU in ROTC, a population that changes and is given their first duty assignment annually.
So, it's certainly possible that 220 ballots were sent out and none were returned, as the individuals are no longer at the duty assignment at which they registered to have their ballot sent.
Posted by: Good Grief on July 27, 2005 01:35 PMI wonder how many of the unreturned ballots were overseas vs. domestic.
It is disconcerting to see how many line items (8 of 25) that were answered as NOT TRACKED.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 27, 2005 02:01 PMCommercial says - 40 million checks processed per day. 1 error in a million is unacceptable. That would have been 3.6 errors in our last election (state wide).
Ron - the bank just defined what would make them proud - you lose.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 27, 2005 08:50 PMHaving been exposed to more of our gov't than just the DOD, I can tell you that the DOJ and the DOS are basically a bunch of career watching A-holes. Our local federal official is way more interested in his paycheck than in your little pathetic voting mishaps. Basically, since you can't fire himj or vot him out, f you. That may seem harsh, but any of you having dealt with the DOS overseas know what I'm saying.
Posted by: Aaron on July 29, 2005 02:23 AM