KING 5: "More elections department employees facing discipline"
As the King County Supervisor of Absentee Ballots, Nicole Way found herself in the spotlight when things went wrong. When Republicans tried to get the governor's election thrown out, Way testified that she was the one raising red flags long before the last general election.UPDATE: The P-I's article on the subject is now up.
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But now, Elections Manager Dean Logan has sent Nicole Way a letter saying he intends to terminate her employment.
The GOP sought to score points with her testimony that [Way] and Fell submitted a report to the county canvassing board, which certifies elections, that arrived at the total number of absentee ballots sent in simply by adding those counted to those rejected as invalid, rather than deriving the total independently.Hmm. That last part seems to contradict Way's testimony under questioning by Judge Bridges.The investigation said that the simple addition method had been used by Way in past elections as well.
UPDATE 2: The Times article is also up.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 29, 2005 09:58 PM | Email ThisRon Sims likes bank analogies so here is one I'll use to explain this! Firing Nicole Way is equivalent to giving all the jail time to the driver of a bank heist and letting the crooks who were inside holding up the bank go free!
Posted by: Joe on August 29, 2005 10:25 PMRemember being "terminated" in King County usually means you get moved to a job with three times the pay, twice the prestige, and a quarter of the responsibility.
Heck, worst case senario, Sam Reed will appoint Nicole to run the entire states absentee balloting.
Posted by: T.J. on August 29, 2005 10:53 PMNicole Way has been on administrative leave since April. APRIL, friends!
The ONLY reason to wait until now to resolve a disciplinary action that could have been wrapped up a long time ago is one reason: they wanted to use any action they took to help Ron Sims' election chances.
This entire thing is coming to a head now after months of delay because Logan is helping Sims to spin it as "holding someone accountable."
If they make a big production number out of firing someone, Ron just might pull the wool over the eyes of the public and squeak out a victory in November.
Of course, the only person being held "accountable" is a low-level supervisor who made the same errors and exhibited the same negligence as her supervisor (Fell), her supervisor's supervisor (Huennekens), and her supervisor's supervisor's supervisor (Logan).
In just one of many examples, they all had the information that the Mail Ballot Report was falsified, they were in on the decision, and yet it is one individual who bears the brunt of the "accountability", while the "Boys Club" gets off scot free. (It's not a coincidence that Logan, Fell, and Huennekens have similar interests, and have developed a friendship out of the office, and Fell and Huennekens are escaping the chopping block...Huennekens is still making 80K a year working for King County! That's our tax money, folks!)
Way's malfeasance may have been egregious enough to warrant termination, but she didn't do anything that her immediate supervisors didn't also do. They ignored her pleas for assistance with numbers that weren't adding up early on due to errors in the new software, they allowed and even fostered an atmosphere where the technical staff openly mocked the election staff in absentees when they asked for assistance, and they allowed a knowingly falsified report to be used in certification.
It's disgusting that this termination is so lopsided, unfair, and is being used by Ron Sims to solve his political problems.
Posted by: Sensible Reform on August 30, 2005 12:14 AMNicole Way actually came out of the election contest looking like the *darling* of Judge Bridges court room! The Judge coddled her during her testimony and appeared genuinely sympathetic to her attempts to get her superiors to listen to the problems of trying to balance the absentee ballot counts! She came out of that trial looking like a victim of that so-called *culture* in the elections department!
How do Sims and Logan think they are going to pull this off without raising those few remaining eyebrows in the county? This will hang them both!
It may finally hang them all!
This should be fun.
Posted by: JCM on August 30, 2005 05:23 AMMany of us who read this blog and post on it thought the Chelan County court case would be fun too, but it wasn't. The Democrat Party not only owns King County, it also own the MSM, governors office, legislature and most importantly, the courts. Don't get me wrong. Stefan is doing the right thing by pecking away at their fortresses, but those fortresses aren't going to fall easily. Most of Seattle lemmings would pull the Democrat lever as they were going under the waves, and I don't think it's going to change anytime soon. Many older "new deal" types think they're campaigning for FDR in "Hooverville".
We, the people, need to take this state back one legitimate voter, one legislative seat, one judgeship at a time. It won't be easy because the Dems own the MSM. But I won't quit trying to inform and convince the ignorant, the deaf or the foolish. And I know most of you won't either. Thanks, Stefan, and thanks to those who post regularly and work for the cause of taking our state back!
Posted by: Saltherring on August 30, 2005 06:05 AMAs much as I am convinced the court is full of judges who invent the law as they go along- some actually follow it. This one isn't about overturning a governor's election- it's about whistleblowing- another thing the victim loving KC crowd should love.
It does prove Logan is as dumb and crooked as we believe him to be.
Posted by: Andy on August 30, 2005 06:28 AMWhile the outcome may not be preferred by those of us looking for honest and open election process. If things go as they should in a just world, and the Sims Imperial Dynasty crumbles. Or watching while the MSM, KC and fellow travelers coverup, and maintain control over KCE to elect the chosen. If the Dynasty falls we will have made progress, the coverup, and increasing problems at KCE will further push all those not in far left into voting against the machine. Eventually enough folks with reform minded elections will win and reform will come to KCE.
Either way it will be fun. I guess I am an optimist, and eventually the stench at KCE will gag all but the most rabid moonbats.
Posted by: JCM on August 30, 2005 08:00 AMYou are right to be skeptical of any studies that have any connection to King County that could include covering the real culprits, finding a scapegoat, etc.
The report found: "...errors included overlooking 96 absentee ballots until it was too late to count them, failing to find voter signatures on file to verify absentee ballots for tabulation and improperly reporting the total number of absentee ballots sent in by voters. The April incident involved omitting ballots from election packages sent to out-of-state voters."
However: "The investigation ... found no evidence of fraud or intentional misconduct, but did disclose neglect of elections procedures, resistance to changes in the agency, communication breakdowns and poor management."
Substitute a few words, and this sounds like the findings of Judge Learned, and the admissions of King County in 2001, in my "successful" Public Disclosure Act lawsuit against Ron Sims. Not to dwell on my case, but I obviously know its details well, and the comparisons are striking.
In my case, there were admissions and findings of incompetence, delay, disorganization, lack of training, "gross negligence", etc., - BUT, no reason to believe the documents had intentionally been withheld for FOUR YEARS! King County openly stated in court that it was all due to "incompetence" - just "simple bureaucratic incompetence, your honor", KC's lawyer said in open court in June, 2001 and repeated thereafter at the August, 2001 trial. KC claimed they just didn't understand what I, and later my first lawyer, meant in more than a dozen letters over a year of correspondence. They said they'd start a training program as a result of my lawsuit to ensure they would properly respond to PDA requests in the future.
Does any of this sound familiar? Has Stefan received the proper response to his PDA requests now, four years after they started the training following my case?
We citizens/taxpayers pay for these people with masters degrees from good schools, making $100K or more, who supposedly couldn't understand letters like mine asking for "economic studies", "the purchase orders ordering the studies", "the invoices and cancelled checks", etc. So, we are asked to believe that it's possible to get a Masters degree from Seattle University or U.W. and be that dense. Or that Ron Sims is such a poor manager that he has such poor chiefs of staff etc. working for him that they have such incompetents working in his office. And this gets them out of a finding that they witheld the documents intentionally? Sadly, the answer is yes.
It's happened. It continues to happen. Where is the outrage? Where are enough other citizens who will speak out about this?
On May 26, 2005, "Jeff B." commented at this blog: "...reality does not go away. Way knew she was doing something different, and she knew the implications of what she was doing. This is why we have a justice system." Do we realy have a "justice system" that is fully functioning?
(Footnote: my lawsuit was over documents withheld for 4 years. When finally produced, they included economic impact studies I believe were obviously "rigged" to justify demolishing the Kingdome and encouraging voters to approve the public financing of Paul Allen's football stadium. There was clear evidence Allen specified one of the consultants to be used, provided what look like "instructions" for a "made as instructed" study, and paid most of its $250,000 cost.)
Posted by: Armen Yousoufian on August 30, 2005 09:39 AMThe tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."
However, in LIBERAL America, and especially in government agencies, and especially in government agencies in King County, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
And of course my favorite...........
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Isn't is just amazing that King County has employed each and every one of thsoe "strategies"?!!
If not, we deserve the "mets" to the other organs and the "...but he looked so healthy..." comment at the coffin. The whole mess is sickening. The apathy is worse.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on August 30, 2005 10:44 AMWhen those reports to the public were prepared and authorized for release, it would be hard to imagine how everyone up to and including Logan avoided recognizing that there was a problem.
Posted by: Micajah on August 30, 2005 10:52 AM1. Wild enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Search for the guilty
4. Punishnment of the innocent
5. Promotion of the nonparticipants.
Looks like KC elections did it slightly out of order, but what stage are they in now?
wake up, people--
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on August 30, 2005 11:23 AMWay deserves to go as much as Huennekens. If Sims and Logan go, then finally, given those who had a hand in such a terrible election, with all of the improperly handled ballots, etc. there would be some justice.
Posted by: Jeff B. on August 30, 2005 01:30 PMMy comments above say the same basic thing. Every single person at KCREALs who new anything about how the elections were handled in the past, would have known that something was different about the 2004 election. All of those people are guily and should be fired.
Posted by: Jeff B. on August 30, 2005 01:35 PM