October 13, 2006
Voter database update
I've updated the voter database with the Secretary of State's September month-end release. You might notice that some voters are credited with voting in the Sep. 19 primary. The data must have been produced in the middle of canvassing, as the number of people it shows as voting last month is only 570,981, or less than half the number of ballots counted.
If you look someone up and it doesn't show them as having voted in this year's primary, don't assume that they didn't.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 13, 2006
03:20 PM | Email This
1. Oh, great, now Darcy has an excuse!
2. Although I disagree on a lot of issues with you, this database is a valuable resource. This is precisely the type of thing that lets people who are not insiders on the left or right see what's going on and even sometimes affect the course of events.
3. Wayne, all of the insiders in this state are Democrats. They control the horizontal, they control the vertical. They are the ones who can't run elections here. I appreciate your wanting to be non-partisan in order to spread the blame but the facts are that all irregularities and mistrust in voting are at the doorstep of the Democrats. By extension, this is why 60%+ people in this state now don't trust the election process. That's a hell of a legacy for the Ds my friend.
4. Eastern Washington is mostly republican, so I don't agree with your thesis, and the database is not just a tool to deal with possible voting irregularities. I was actually speaking more generally.
Based on my observations, I don't think the King Co. elections department is as efficient as it should be, but I don't think it was as bad as often portrayed here, nor do I think the problems were the result of corruption as much as lack of organization. I suspect you would disagree. But I still like the elections database.
5. I voted in the primary; my record isn't updated yet. I suspect that doesn't happen until the end of the month when the file is recompiled?
6. Wayne, you are perfectly free to "feel" however you want about KCE. But do you have any facts to support your feelings? Why do you think it wasn't "as bad as often portrayed here"?
7. I see that Christian S Lee, circulation manager at the Olympian in Olympia, is still registered to vote at 111 Bethel St NE -- the Olympian's address. I doubt he lives there. I doubt he even lives in Olympia.
TH LEE CHRISTIAN S M 111 BETHEL ST NE OLYMPIA 2004-NOV-02 1963-FEB-28 2003-DEC-19 P A 3 22 220
8. Dean Logan is still on the voter database (last voted May 16, 2006), however his wife, Winnie last voted September 19, 2006.
Is Winnie still living here in Kitsap Co. or did she follow her husband to L.A.?
9. Could someone riddle me this -- is it legal to register at a business? Because I am aware of a lot. I even reported two people registered at a mini-storage facility to Pierce County, and they are still listed as active.
10. Alcon@9, please discuss with Wayne@4.
11. This is creepy. According to this database, my father died a month before he cast his last ballot. When I called the local elections office I was informed that according to their records, he cast his ballot in person, at a polling station. Can anyone please explain? Can I ask to see the ballot and can I negate his vote with a death certificate? Something is seriously wrong with our vote count procedure. I realize that these are very serious allegations and yet I have a death certificate that proves he could not have voted. Perhaps there is an innocent explanation that hasn't occured to me yet.
12. Elaine, my condolences on the loss of your father. There is no way to negate his vote, because the ballot was dissassociated from the voter tracking to ensure a secret ballot, especially since the ballot was cast at a polling place. What county was the ballot cast in? When was this ballot cast, in 2004, or last September? Regardless, you should obtain an official death notification form (a little yellow card) so you can alert your county registrar of your father's death, just in case they were unable to match his voter registration record with the Social Security death index.
13. Since we have an election coming up, let's review how a person can commit voter fraud.
Step 1: watch local death notices and obituaries for people who have recently died.
Step 2: steal absentee ballot from mailbox of recently deceased persons
Step 3: fill out ballot and sign it and mail it back to county.
The only security against this method of fraud is a manual verification of signatures, and in King County at least, signature verification has been an abject failure.
A slightly more brazen method is to:
Step 1: watch local death notices and obituaries for people who have recently died.
Step 2: visit area polling places in neighborhood of deceased, and claim to be deceased.
Step 3: sign registrar's book and cast ballot on behalf of the deceased.
This is the method that was probably used with Elaine's late father. With new voter id laws, the incidence rates of this second technique ought to be reduced. We'll see if the practice continues.
14. Elaine, Some other possible explanations are that a voter signed the wrong line of the poll book or that the canvassers scanned the wrong line of the poll book.
Ask the county elections office to show you the poll book. You should be able to tell from the signatures whether someone signed in claiming to be your father, or what. Either way, feel free to send me a copy of the poll book page.
15. Alcon @ #9:
You can only register your residence. You cannot register at a business address or P.O. Box or hotel or anything like that. It has to be your residence, like an apartment or house and you have to live there for a certain amount of time. Maybe somebody else here can put a finer point on it for you but these are the basics.
Wayne #4:
As long as it isn't your ox that is being gored, I'm sure KCE's problem is just about "efficiency". When my candidate losses by virtue of lost ballots, mysteriously found ballots (beyond the deadline for "finding" ballots), "voter intent", dead people and illegally registered voters, that to me is not a little "efficiency" problem. That is corruption. Corruption, by the way, that is fully documented. Just because nobody went to jail doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means that the perps knew the right people.
16. Wayne, I also forget one last thing. The "right people" in King County are Democrats.
17. I am a letter carrier in King County and the things I see make me very suspicious. Bogus addressing or non existing addresses who are listed in the database today. People that moved years ago are still listed, People that register with their initials and then reregister with the complete name.
My question is, will all the names that are listed in the database receive ballots? How do they determine how many ballots to print and send out? Do they send ballots to inactive names?
18.
Republicans are being told by all the national people to be sure to VOTE. Somehow we have come to doubt our government....
What do we tell our new 18 yr old voters? Where is our idealism? I've spent a lot of years being a basic conservative/republican voter. I don't take these comments lightly. Can I have emotions? I am grieving for America.