Posted on 02/09/2005 12:20:45 PM PST by Publius
I attended this morning's press conference with King County Executive Ron Sims and Elections Director Dean Logan.
It was an attempt at whitewash and it backfired. Big time. Another nail in the coffin not only of this disastrous election but also for King Sims career. The purpose of the conference was to release Logan's "2004 Election Report to Ron Sims". Hard copies were handed out. I don't see a copy on the web yet, although it should be posted soon. The prepared text of Sims' remarks haven't been posted yet either, but they should be. Here are some highlights.
It is fair game to be partisan about many issues. But elections are a sacred trust that we must all hold dear. I am deeply disappointed that so many have sought to take political advantage of human error and turn it into cries of fraud and corruption ... Notably missing from much of the debate were facts [emphasis in the original]
And that is why shortly after the final certification of the 2004 general election I asked Dean Logan to conduct a comprehensive review of what really happened in the gubernatorial race and report back to me with the facts and any recommendations for improvements.
I received the full report from Dean yesterday. The report is an honest, factual and candid examination of last fall's elections.
When Sims stated that
We had an accuracy rate that any bank would envy
A few people in the crowd erupted into laughter. Sims then gave an impromptu lecture implying that the people who laughed at his laughable statement did not have a proper upbringing.
A few moments later he said:
The facts are clear. We had an election that was 99.98% accurate. Even our critics can't find more errors than that.
Sims did acknowledge that
Some mistakes were made and we all regret that.
But with every mistake we accepted responsibility
Unfortnately, neither Sims nor Logan acknowledged the actual mistakes, how many there were or how they actually "accepted reponsibility".
Dean Logan summarized his report, which has to be seen to be believed. The report's only explanation for the 1,800 net discrepancy between ballots and voters is:
The most common reasons people who voted may not appear on the list of registered voters is:
As discussed many times before, the 1,800 net discrepancy is net of the federal write-in and ACP voters.
During the Q&A, most of the reporters asked insistent questions about the 1,800 discrepancy and simply weren't buying Sims and Logans answers and insistence to the effect that no fraud can occur because accountability is built-in at the front end and the poll workers are too dedicated to their jobs to permit invalid votes from being submitted.
Ron Sims revealed what I believe to be his true character.
I raised my hand to ask a question and at first he pointedly tried to ignore me by saying twice: "I want to take a question from the press."
God forbid any citizen would question the County Executive.
"I am from the press", I insisted and asked him to explain the claim in his prepared statement that the election was "99.98% accurate". "What numbers did you use to come up with that?" I asked.
When he looked confused, I said "What are the numerator and the denominator?".
He shook his head dismissively and said "he's asking me about numerators and denominators".
Dean Logan jumped in to explain that there were about 900,000 ballots counted with a variance of 1,800.
"But that's not 99.98%", I explained, "it's 99.8%"
Sims looked annoyed that I pointed out that his facts were nonsense. When I tried to explain that this is not an accuracy rate that any bank would be proud of [it corresponds to a $2,000 error in every $1 million], he cut me off to let somebody else ask a question.
Fortunately, there were more questions about the 1,800 discrepancy from reporters who simply weren't buying Sims' bullshit.
Among the other bullshit that was handed out to the audience was a packet of newspaper columns sympathetic to Sims, Logan and his vision of sloppy elections, written by various fools and sycophants such as Corky Mattingly, Mark Trahant, Floyd McKay and Joni Balter.
Sims and Logan ran out of the room as soon as possible after the formal press conference ended, leaving a number of TV and radio reporters free to interview both me and a gentleman named James C. Hess from Shoreline. I've never met Mr. Hess, but I believe he's posted a number of comments on Sound Politics. Hess was not impressed with the Sims/Logan dog and pony show and did a very good job of explaining the issues to the cameras. Check the local radio and TV news today for reports.
Sims did have one line in his prepared remarks that I agree with:
The greatest threat to democracy is bad information.
I'm convinced from sensing the temperature of the professional journalists in the room that this was an unmitigated disaster for Ron Sims and that there were few who swallowed his bad information today.
Rossi v. Gregoire: How Elections Are Stolen
various FR links & stories | 01-13-05 | the heavy equipment guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1319819/posts
sounds like Sims 'BS' degree is in need of vetting
Ping.
So a Dem is still gonna be Gov there then?
"The facts are clear. We had an election that was 99.98% accurate. "
Unfortunately, the election was decided by less than the .02% error that his number implies. The outcome, therefore, remains undecided.
That depends on the outcome of the trial of the election in the court in Wenatchee and how the Washington State Supreme Court handles the outcome on appeal.
In a post Rathergate world, you just cannot get away with this stuff.
They are going down - hard.
I am amazed--disgusted--angry at how most of the press-bots of the modern era accept spoon-feed talking points and "News Releases" from ANYONE as gospel. Real journalism means getting out and talking to people from several viewpoints including often those you greatly disagree with, digging through dusty speeches (now easy on the Web) and questions that are neither antagonistic nor softball: questions that focus on the facts and insist on answers. Dan Rather, Barbara Walters and Chris Matthews (and many others) are NOT journalists, they are gossipmongers.
Okay, now EVERY blogger is a member of the press...
COOL! Where are MY credentials!?!?!?
We had motions of points of law last week with some rulings from the bench. The case now goes forward into discovery, and the next court date -- the actual trial -- probably won't start until March or April.
Prior to World War II we had an active partisan press in this country. Every city had at least one Democratic paper and one Republican paper. There was no difference between news coverage and editorial stance. All news was slanted, but when you opened up the newspaper you knew what you were getting. And journalists took their jobs seriously.
After World War II, with media consolidation, the press took up a bland, elitist, corporatist liberalism, quite different from the radical liberalism one would find among Howard Dean's followers. This is why committed leftists look at our Mainstream Media and immediately pronounce it "conservative". They really mean "corporatist", but they can't pronounce the word or understand the concept.
Fortunately, the Mainsteam Media is dying.
Small confession:
I USED to be a political journalist and probably could right now have a full-time job doing that.
Want to know why I am not? Because I have a 'crusader complex' and right about now, I would so, so sledge that Sims I'd be called a racist. By whom? By those whom you pithily called, "more concerned with "making a difference"".
Thank you for making my point better than I ever could.
"to take political advantage of human error and turn it into cries of fraud and corruption"
I think having 3700 more ballots than voters is a little more than "human error".
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