According to this year's Mail Ballot Report, there were 23 more votes counted than voters accounted for. On its face, that's certainly an improvement over the still unexplained discrepancy of 390 ballots from this year's primary, not to mention the roughly 1,000 more votes than voters that were counted a year ago. Nevertheless, the unexplained discrepancy is still interesting. The Mail Ballot Report was accompanied by a detailed "accountability spreadsheet" purporting to prove that every ballot in every batch was accounted for at every stage of the process. Oops.
Another curious observation about the Mail Ballot Report is that it accounts for only 2 ballots that were rejected for voter registration challenges. Surely more than 2 of the 58 successfully challenged voters voted by absentee. Indeed, over 100 of the challenged voters had their ballots irretrievably "processed through the system" and counted before the challenges were entered into the system. [Dean Logan speaking at Canvassing Board Meeting of 11/10]. As it happens, several of the successfully challenged voters had their ballots counted anyway.
The pollsite reconciliation was also a big improvement over last year's fiasco, with the documentation showing only a few dozen missing or unexplained extra ballots.
The Provisional Ballot Report purports to show that all ballots were accounted for, but oddly, the total number of ballots actuallly tabulated is left as TBD.
I'll withhold final judgment until the precinct canvass is issued and I can analyze the voter database files, which last year were remarkably different from what was presented to the canvassing board.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 29, 2005 11:13 PM | Email ThisThank you for keeping this issue alive. KCE would like for the attention you bring to go away so they can continue their corruption. The fact that the challenger didn't provide proof that the voter didn't live in a 4X6 inch mailbox would be priceless, if not so sad.
Despite your valiant efforts, I don't hold much hope for elections in KC.
One would think that the current situation of corruption, illegal voting, and illegal registration has been going on for some time. When the election contest is for a minor position, not much attention is paid. That doesn't mean that corruption is any less reprehensible, but it doesn't attract attention.
Fast forward to the governor's race in 2004. The political machine in KC - the modern day Cook County - expects that they can deliver the governor's mansion to madam christine. They failed, but it was close enough to invoke recounts. The first recount put Rossi ahead. So the manual recount was mandated. At that time Ron Sim's political machine was engaged. KCE "found" ballots, they "determined voter's intent." As a result, they threw the election to madam gregoire.
Now, they are entwined with the politics of corruption where the democrats find themselves at home. They cannot oppose illegal voting or registration, because those "votes" decided the governor's race.
Now, they must defend illegal votes because that's the only way that the democrats can rule the state.
If only we had county federalism in our state. Something like 36 of 39 counties voted for Senator Rossi.
But we don't. Corrupt King County rules the state.
This included the 125 absentee ballots that Dean Logan processed anyway (from your audiotape link), even though they had been challenged. The canvassing board still considered these 125 challenges as part of the 199 overall, even though they could only cancel the registration and not intercept the ballot that was already counted.
I assume the vast majority of challenged voters voted absentee -- especially when 125 of them were absentee voters that Logan counted anyway well in advance of the canvassing board hearings.
And the vast majority of absentee voter challenges were rejected, since there is no additional evidence supplied by the voter who simply returns an absentee ballot and does not otherwise appear or respond to the challenge hearing.
So the figure of TWO absentee ballots not being COUNTED due to successful challenges is probably accurate (or close to it, you know).
Most of the successful challenges were of poll voters. These folks had to complete a provisional envelope under penalty of perjury, and list (1) the address where they were registered (taken from the poll book), (2) the residential address where they currently lived, and (3) their current mailing address. To the extent poll voters were honest, their votes and registrations were cancelled accordingly.
Posted by: Richard Pope on November 30, 2005 01:46 AMLori Sotelo challenges 1855 voter registration records on 10/26/2005 -- 13 days before the election on 11/08/2005.
Dean Logan has PLENTY OF TIME to flag all the absentee ballot records, and could have ensured that no absentee ballots returned by any voters on the challenge list were processed until after the canvassing board could consider the matter at a hearing.
But Logan SCREWS UP AS USUAL, and 125 absentee ballots cast by challenged voters get counted anyway, before the canvassing board can consider their merits at a hearing.
The canvassing board considers 199 voters at the challenge hearings, including up to 125 absentee voters whose ballots were already counted anyway. (Keep in mind that Ms. Sotelo may have withdrawn some of the 125 voters who absentee ballots were prematurely process.)
This creates a STRONG BIAS in Dean Logan in favor of REJECTING as many challenges as possible.
For example, let's say that 130 (to pick a number out of a hat) of the 199 challenged voters cast absentee ballots, and the other 69 voted provisional ballots at the polls. And let's say that 110 of the challenged absentee ballots already had their ballots counted due to Dean Logan's negligence. (This assumes that Lori Sotelo withdrew 15 challenges from among the 125 prematurely processed absentee voters.)
So this leaves only 20 physical absentee ballots to rule upon, and 69 provisional ballots (maybe less than that, since some challenged voters probably were allowed to vote at the polls anyway with regular ballots!).
If Dean Logan voted to accept 90% or more of the absentee ballot challenges (like Dan Satterberg did), then he would have a major problem. 117 absentee voters (90% of 130) are rejected. But 99 of these unqualified voters (90% of 110) have already had their absentee ballots counted anyway! MAJOR SCREW-UP BY LOGAN.
On the other hand, if Logan votes to reject 90% of the absentee ballot challenges, less of a problem. Only 13 absentee voters are rejected (10% of 130). Only 11 of these rejected absentee ballots have already had their ballots counted anyway (10% of 110). Instead of 99 improperly processed illegal votes, we now have only 11! MAJOR IMPROVEMENT -- ONLY A MINOR SCREW-UP BY LOGAN.
Posted by: Richard Pope on November 30, 2005 02:08 AMChallenged POLL voters were supposed to get PROVISIONAL ballots, to await the canvassing board decision. But knowing Dean Logan, you can be sure a lot of challenged poll voters were given REGULAR ballots, signed the poll book in the regular locations, and put their ballots through the machine.
Out of my seven challenges, four of them cast absentee ballots, and had copies of their outer envelopes in the evidence binder prepared by Logan's office. Three of them were claimed to be poll voters, but only two of them had copies of the provisional ballot envelope.
The other poll voter, a short gentleman named Paul J Kemppainen who resides in cramped quarters in The UPS Store at 7829 Center Blvd SE # 225 in Snoqualmie, DID NOT HAVE any provisional ballot in his evidence binder. Logan's negligence probably allowed this vertically challenged fellow to cast a regular ballot at the polling place on election day.
I WOULD BET THAT DEAN LOGAN VOTED TO REJECT MY CHALLENGE OF MR. KEMPPAINEN, SO THAT HE DIDN'T HAVE THE ADDITIONAL DISGRACE OF ONE MORE ILLEGALLY COUNTED BALLOT FROM AN INELIGIBLE VOTER!
Posted by: Richard Pope on November 30, 2005 02:22 AMDuring the general, 7877 absentee ballots were returned by USPS as undeliverable.
Are these overlap? Why would we send out 7000+ ballots again if they were undeliverable two months earlier? Why wouldn't the system have flagged these?
If they aren't overlap, how did we get 7000+ undeliverable addresses in the last two months?
I haven't seen it in the news, but were the 46 deceased voters in the primary and 23 deceased voters in the general sent to the prosecuters office for investigation? Those aren't just rejected ballots, they represent illegal votes.
In the primary, there were 91 "no signature on file". In the general there were 167 "no signature on file". Why? If registration requires a signature, why would an absentee ballot be sent to someone that did not have a "signature on file"? If there was a signature mismatch, then that is a different category.
In the primary, there were 1649 signature miscompares. In the general there were 2491 signature miscompares. Are these just written off as rejected or are they investigated to determine which are honest errors and which could be "forged" signatures - attempts at voter fraud?
Over the last year, major issues were exposed with King County Elections. KCRE has had a year to look into some of these issues and they still seem to persist. Why? Will they be fixed by the 2006 elections? 2008? Before KC council votes to go to all mail voting?
By the way, due to Stefan and others diligence in digging out this information and making it public, we are able to focus on the largest county, but the questions and comments made here also apply to all other counties. We want clean legal voter rolls, clean legal elections, clear and consistant processes and reasonable proof that our elected and appointed officials are indeed delivering these to us.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on November 30, 2005 07:31 AMThank You!
Posted by: sgmmac on November 30, 2005 10:01 AMThrow more money at the problems, that always works....
Posted by: Chris on November 30, 2005 10:02 AMhttp://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/7247338p-7159298c.html
Auditor's offices throughout the area have spent more than a month wading through the thousands of ballots mailed to voters in the first all vote-by-mail general election held in most counties.
Gagner said that in Benton County the most time-consuming aspect of the election was dealing with hanging chads and having to duplicate ballots.
Ballots with the dangling bits of paper had to be examined for voter intent, then duplicated using a new, different colored ballot. The duplicate ballot was then run through the counting machine, while the ballot with hanging chads was saved.
Gagner estimates 10 percent of the 47,100 ballots the county received had to be duplicated.
Posted by: mel on November 30, 2005 10:34 AMMy first impression of all mail voting was "it's easier", but I think maybe it could be considered "JOB SECURITY" for all those Election Staff across the State.
Having to duplicate 10% of the ballots, and then trying to canvass them, seems like alot of extra work (and open to fraud).
Keep the polls open, let the voting public watch their ballot being counted.
Besides, how else are we ever going to get to observe those "Lil People" that live in mailboxes vote. I bet the MSM would make "news"!!! I can picture it now. THE MSM Calling out for "Volunteer as a Pick em Up". Help the "lil dwellers" vote, give them a lift to the ballot!!
Posted by: Chris on November 30, 2005 11:23 AMAnd the math...doesn't KC have ANY employees that can add and subtract?
Posted by: dl on December 1, 2005 08:06 AM