An unidentified worker
with "Go Dems" on his gloves
processes ballots at the King County
counting headquarters.
Posted on 12/21/2004, 4:45:41 AM by Publius
The truth about the King County 723
"It's unfortunate that it occurred," King County Elections Director Dean Logan said of the mistake. "I guess one solace is that we're able to correct it in time for those votes to be counted in this historically close race.
"As much as I regret the error, I will feel much better knowing those votes will be counted now rather than finding out a month from now the error had been made."
--Seattle Times, Dec. 13, 2004
Now we know the truth about the 723 questionable ballots in King County.
In past elections the County knew certain citizens were registered to vote without a signature on file and they still counted those ballots, which is illegal. According to details found in a King County staff report prepared by Bill Huennekens, a chronological history of the ballots follows the discovery of the error up to our current situation.
May
King County decided to make an effort “to locate the voter’s original registration card, or the image of their signature” in order for a ballot to count.
August
“In August 1, 146 letters were mailed to voters who did not have a signature in our system.”
“In August, 101 of these voters [from the batch of 573 ballots] were sent letters asking them for an updated signature because we did not have a signature on file in our system and they did not return a signature on the letter.”
September
King County conducted the primary election and did not count votes without a signature on file.
October
Voters without signatures on file were again “sent a letter asking for an updated signature.”
November
As ballots were returned to the County, each “was reviewed again and researched.”
At the time of certification for the General Election, the ballots in question “were accounted for in the mail ballot report as signature mis-comparisons.” Therefore, the Canvassing Board voted not to count these and other ballots with signature problems.
No one raised this issue during the first count, or the machine recount.
December
King County Council Chair Larry Phillips learns his name is on the list of ballots not counted. Suddenly, King County’s position changes 180 degrees and Logan and Huennekens begin their current frantic efforts to make these previously rejected ballots count.
The record is clear: King County has known about this signature problem since at least May, and they made no effort to count these ballots until Council Chair Larry Phillips began applying pressure.
The law is clear –- decisions made by canvassing boards at certification are final. The Secretary of State included the following on their web page during this recount:
"The recount does not allow a review of decisions by the county canvassing boards of what constitutes a vote. Thus, the same ballots counted in the original count will simply be re-tabulated."
We have received numerous accounts of Rossi voters, including members of the military serving in Iraq, whose votes weren’t counted due to errors made by county auditors. The question must be asked, “If we can’t change the rules for brave men and women serving their country overseas, why should we change them for the Chairman of the King County Council?”
Seattle, WA –- In a poll conducted this weekend by Elway Research for the Republican Governors Association (RGA), Washington State voters by large margins said they would support a re-vote in the governor’s race if there are irresolvable disputes resulting from this second recount.
When asked how the new governor should be determined if there are still unresolved disputes after this second recount, 52% said the voters should decide in a special run-off election between Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire; 26% said by the courts; and just 12% said it should be decided by the legislature.
“Voters clearly want to remain in control of choosing their next Governor,” said Stuart Elway, whose firm, Elway Research, conducted the poll. “If the second recount goes for Rossi, voters will be satisfied, but if not, they want to settle it themselves, not the courts or the legislature,” he said.
A majority of voters said Rossi would be justified in seeking a revote if King County were to change some of their counting rules part way through this third count and Gregoire ends up winning. Fifty-one percent said Rossi would be justified in asking for a new election, while 33% said Gregoire would be the legitimate winner. That margin held even when voters were asked the same question, but with Gregoire hypothetically winning the hand recount by more than 100 votes.
At the same time, by a more than 2-1 margin, voters said that if Dino Rossi gets the most votes in the hand recount, he will be the legitimate winner and that there will not be too many unresolved issues. A plurality of Democrat voters agree as well (48%-40%).
Elway said Gregoire voters are slightly more likely to favor a re-vote than Rossi voters (52-46), as are Independents (54%) and Democrats (52%), versus Republicans (43%).
Rossi continues to have very high favorable-unfavorable ratings (64-25) compared to Gregoire’s (51-43).
The Elway poll of 405 registered voters was conducted Dec. 16-18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus five percent.
Rally this Tuesday!
KVI has announced it will hold a Clean and Fair Elections rally tomorrow (Tuesday) at 4 PM at Secretary of State Sam Reed's office in Olympia. The rally will be on the steps of the capitol and will highlight voter discontent with the alarming inconsistencies in the gubernatorial race. Protest signs will be provided by KVI and BIAW, and attendees are welcome to bring their own signs as well. Kirby Wilbur will be emceeing the rally, and other speakers will include Bob Williams and others.
Time: 4 PM
Date: December 21, 2004
Place: Capitol steps, Olympia
Please attend this important rally, and encourage friends, family and colleagues to attend as well.
Ping.
Amazing how the need to "Count every vote and make sure every vote counts" took on new urgency when the possibility of stealing an election became apparent. /Hypocrisy
Check the Washington State Freepmail list. I just posted the latest news. We finished counting this afternoon, and only a skeleton crew will come in tomorrow to mop up the dregs. Two days ago they instigated a new rule that may cost Dino more votes. It's on our state news.
KING PING..
We the people..
Do they just have carte blanche to change the counting rules in the middle of the count?
Thanks. Very worried about this. It looks like King is trying every trick in the book, and they don't need much.
bump for later read
Ahhhhhhhhh! How..? Why...? What the...? Who isn't...? I don't know what to say...???
Oh, yeah. That's definitely the guy I'd want to trust my vote to....sure.....
I'm so glad you posted that picture. I'd heard about it, but this is the first time I've seen it.
That's true. After hearing about the procedure changes and mistakes made in the hand count, I had hoped that GOP lawyers would make a case that the result was hopelessly corrupted.
If we're going to "lose" this way, we can at least blow a big hole in their ship.
I would be fuming if I was a Washington state resident and I saw that picture and caption. Talk about, 'in your face'.
Yeah, for sure. But we were already fuming about the vote for "Christine Rossi" that the canvassing board, in it's wisdom, decided was an obvious vote for Gregoire.
This is a farce.
We ARE fuming. Even "smoking guns" are being ignored. Its a wonderful state controlled by disgusting people.
It doesn't matter who wins now they will be tainted. Rossi can only win if the Supreme Court follows the law.
I'm starting not to care which Big Stupid Government Party wins. After listening to Bush lie to us today about how he plans to "continue" fiscal restraint he hasn't cared about for four years - it's all getting a little old. The crap they blather is just so much windy nonsense, because they can't even seem to screw together the courage to make the easy changes, much less face up to the hard ones.
Politicians are power-hungry, money-hungry parasites, no matter whether they're Republicrats or Demopublicans.
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