Posted on 12/16/2004 11:59:33 AM PST by Publius
Republicans announced plans Thursday morning to sue King County over 573 newly discovered ballots that could change the outcome of the closest governor's race in Washington state history.
The county's Canvassing Board voted Wednesday to prepare the 573 absentee ballots for inclusion in the hand recount, over the objections of Republicans who urged the county to investigate the ballots first.
State GOP Chairman Chris Vance said Thursday the party would seek a court order Thursday afternoon in Pierce County, aimed at slowing down the processing of the previously rejected ballots to allow them to be better tracked and verified.
Specifically, the party wants to stop the county from separating the ballots from their outer envelopes, which Vance said would make it far more difficult to determine where the ballots came from, whether they were stored correctly, and why they were not counted previously.
Democrats applauded and Republicans decried the board's decision Wednesday to move forward with assessing the 573 previously rejected ballots. King County is a Democratic stronghold and the newly discovered ballots have the potential to change the outcome of the election.
"I get to vote, I did it right, and it gets to count," said King County Councilman Larry Phillips, whose ballot was among the 573 mistakenly rejected by election workers.
Election workers will verify signatures on the ballots, and the canvassing board will meet again Monday to decide whether to count the ballots that have been verified. The three-member board postponed a decision on what to do with 22 other newly discovered ballots but will consider that Monday as well, said Bobbie Egan, county elections spokeswoman.
Republican Dino Rossi won the Nov. 2 election over Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes in the first count and by 42 after a machine recount. As of Wednesday he had gained 79 votes in the hand recount for a margin of 121.
The canvassing board voted 2-1 to move forward with recanvassing the 573 ballots. King County Election Director Dean Logan and Democratic King County Councilman Dwight Pelz voted for the recanvassing; voting no was Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for Republican King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng.
Satterberg complained that Logan was rushing, and said the board should take more time to figure out the story behind the newly discovered ballots.
"This is a matter of public integrity, public trust," Satterberg told Logan as they met before a row of TV cameras and reporters. "The appearance to the world that's watching is that you're rushing this through."
Logan said King County election workers made a mistake and he wanted to correct it. The absentee ballots were not counted originally because the voters' signatures had not been scanned into the county's computer system. Election workers should have checked the paper files, but instead the ballots were mistakenly rejected. The error was discovered only after Phillips saw his name on a list of rejected absentee ballots and notified Logan.
"The facts are pretty clear there was a discrepancy in the canvassing of these ballots," Logan said. "There is a record that shows these are validly registered voters who did nothing wrong."
State law allows counties to recanvass ballots and correct errors during a recount if there is "an apparent discrepancy or an inconsistency in the returns."
Election workers had found at least 245 of the 573 voters' signatures on paper registration records by Wednesday afternoon. They will continue checking the records and verify the ballots that belong to registered voters. Workers will then take those ballots out of their security envelopes and return them to the board for a final decision on whether they should be counted.
Vance urged the canvassing board to reject the ballots.
"At some point it just lacks credibility that they keep finding ballots," Vance said. "None of these ballots should be counted."
After the canvassing board vote, Phillips retorted, "I don't care what the chairman of the state Republican party has to say. I did my duty as a citizen and he's going to get out the way ... He has a right to have his vote counted and so do I."
State GOP attorneys are considering their options now. If the King County ballots are included in the recount, and they do end up putting Gregoire on top, lawsuits may ensue.
"It doesn't look like I'm going to do any Christmas shopping anytime soon," said Mark Braden, Rossi's chief lawyer, after leaving the canvassing board meeting.
The board delayed a decision on 22 other ballots- 20 absentee and two provisional - found in the side bins of plastic base units in which polling machines sit. All ballots should have been logged on Election Night and returned in a sealed bag to election headquarters, but these 22 apparently weren't. They've been sitting unsecured at various polling places since the election.
The hand recount is expected to finish by Dec. 22, though there's no deadline set in state law. The governor's inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 12.
Meanwhile, two members of the federal Election Assistance Commission arrived in Washington on Wednesday to observe the recount. Kay Stimson, spokeswoman for the commission, said the members wanted to learn about the historically close recount for a report on "best practices" by the states.
So, I don't think that people who mailed ballots after Election Day EVEN if it wasn't necessarily their fault (and I don't know if it was) should have their votes counted because we CAN'T count votes received after Election Day. That would violate state law, while the current recanvassing by a county and recounting votes does not.
But why say "military?" Wouldn't you agree that ANY vote, military or non-military, that fit your criteria should be counted? Dropping the military into this emotionalizes the issue, which is not one of "military" votes at all. If these were all urban Tacoma blacks, would you make the same argument?
I STILL gotta go...
Mmmm, when you get back, I'd like to hear your justification of why mistakes favoring Democrats should be corrected, whereas mistakes favoring Republicans shouldn't be corrected.
I never said it, why should I defend it?
Wrong. The court ruled (quoting PI):
"The Supreme Court's decision means local canvassing boards won't be forced to reconsider rejected ballots - but state law has always allowed them to do so of their own accord."
KC is doing so of its own accord.
(1) To address your point of whose votes counts more, I think that the vote of every military serviceman or servicewoman should be weighted 100 to a civilian's 1 vote. Don't bring racial overtures here, the military has a high percentage of blacks and minorities.
(2) The integrity should be perserved at all costs. I agree the military votes shouldn't be counted. And none of those "found" votes should be counted either. And I trust machines over partisan humans. Easier to stuff paper ballots than to hack into a machine undetected. We are merely pointing out the great hypocrisy the Democrats are exhibiting here.
An admission that these ballots were left unsecured for over a month is enough to have them thrown out. They are tainted - even if they really were legitimate ballots. They have not been kept secured -
Any judge that would not see it that way should be removed from the bench.
Is there anything people can do from other states watching all this. E-mail someone, or write a letter in protest? I realize it may be a waste of effort but Rossi has already won twice and I want to do something, anything to help him.
Because its the military ballots.
Wow. I think I have never heard anything so anti-democratic in my life. The Founders would shit if they heard you.
I knew what you were saying, I was just useing the chance to help keep the story alive. They don't talk about on the MSM news.....
Unlikely? We still don't know how many Gregoire votes are going to come gushing out of the King County manual recount. My prediction is that they will go 80-20 for her. There are nearly 2700 precincts in that county, and all you need is one extra vote found in every third precinct to flip this thing completely on its head, even if the 58-40 margin of the machine count stays intact. That's a tiny amount of cheating on a wide scale, but it can be both accomplished and concealed.
or maybe they're just legal votes for Gregoire. I know that's not what you WANT to believe, but can't you open your mind just a teeny tiny bit?
Get real. Recanvassing is defined explicitly in state law (RCW 29A.60.210) and is allowed if a county wants to do it, and the votes must be valid in all other ways (arrived by Election Day, signature matched, etc.).
Counting votes that arrived after Election Day is explicitly forbidden by state law, no matter what. So WHO is proposing to "break state law" here, the recanvassers or those who want to count military ballots that arrived after the legal deadline? Hint: it's you.
If they can fix this for her in Everett, they will have no trouble fixing this in Seattle.
Hey, I don't really have a dog in this fight. I have voted for both of the candidates at various times.
I am just an advocate of clear thinking, and I won't fool myself into believing that the law does not say what it clearly says. I support the Supreme Court decision because it followed the law, but that decision ALLOWED KC to recanvass, and they can then count the votes.
And I won't agree that counting votes not allowed by law because I have sympathy for the military. They have it rough. They're not the only people whose votes didn't arrive on time. Tough crackers to all those poor people. That's the law.
I guess you're right. I think a federal court should overrule a silly state law that prohibits counting an overseas military absentee ballot that was received AFTER election day if it was a result of mistakes made by elections officials and not the voter themselves. Same for the Tacoma folks. Other states allow additional time for absentee ballots to arrive as long as they were voted properly.
What is the makeup of the Supreme Court there?
So what you KNOW is that the late-counted votes broke a little heavier for Gregoire than the original machine-counted votes.
What you THINK is that there was some sort of collusion, base on evidence no firmer than your recollection of some isolated experiences in the area. No offense, but that doesn't sound like an awfully convincing argument of malfeasance.
You mean, the same founders who restricted the votes to property-owning males?
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