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.
Yes, and in this case the last day to certify is December 23.
Now that, I can agree with. The calling of the rejected provisional voters and only talking to them if they voted for Gregoire is particularly shady. But not illegal.
King County's recent change of standards for tallying overvotes, on the other hand, does provide a good basis for legal challenge on equal protection grounds.
There's an additional point here, though. Regardless of innocence or guilt, it is bad practice to include ballots that turn up later--after observers had the chance to confirm the process--with a broken chain of custody.
As far as I know, the 500-something rejected absentees have been in an adequate chain of custody the whole time. The 22 recently found ballots are a different matter. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be counted or that they're fraudulent, but the standard of proof for eligibility should be much higher. Supposedly they were in the pockets of some voting machines; if those voting machines were in proper custody and if they can convincingly show how they were missed they should be let in. Both of those are pretty big ifs.
Not that it matters; Snohomish's disappointing returns mean that if the current trend continues Gregoire will win outright without even needing the absentees. There's still a shred of hope, though. I'm clinging to the fact that King County already performed a manual recount of sorts, by reviewing the ballots that the machines couldn't tabulate during the mandatory machine recount. There may be fewer possibilities for Gregoire than she hopes.
There, that's better
Incorrect. Massive vote fraud in Ohio. Columbus had 845,000 registered voters, and only 815,000 adults. It' just that the fraud of abouot 200,000 votes ni Ohio wasn't enough. One reason: the lines were so long that some voters could only vote 2 or three times.
As of 5:00 PM tonight, Rossi has gained 32 votes statewide in the hand recount. 36 counties have completed their 2nd recount. Rossi’s lead now stands at 74 votes.
Rossi loses 44 in Snohomish. Only Spokane, Pierce and King left to count.
Republicans to file suit in Pierce County asking for a temporary restraining order that will stop King County from processing or counting the 573 newly found disputed ballots.
From the WSRP News Room:
Chaos in King County: Elections Dept changes its own rules to benefit Gregoire
Seattle, WA – Today the King County Elections Department continued its march toward chaos as it announced it is changing its own rules on ballot-counting midway through the recount process. This new about-face has Republicans questioning what motivated King County to take this unprecedented step.
This morning the King County Elections Department announced to ballot counters that it is changing the rules it had previously set on counting votes. King County’s established guidelines had said that if there were marks in the bubbles for both Rossi and Gregoire, the vote would be considered an “over vote” and would not be counted because the voter had voted for both candidates. Now, however, the Elections Department is going to send these ballots to the Democrat-dominated canvassing board for review.
State GOP chairman Chris Vance blasted King County’s decision, and questioned why the rules are being changed now.
“Why is King County all of a sudden changing its own rules?” asked Vance. “We’ve just found out that so far Dino Rossi has gained about 15 votes in the King County recount. At the same time, Democrats are changing the rules in a way that benefits Christine Gregoire. Is that a coincidence?
“After the canvassing board meeting last night, when the two Democrats on the board overruled the King County Prosecutor’s recommendation to investigate newfound ballots to make sure they are legal, it is clear that the actions of this canvassing board must be questioned.
“By changing its rules midway through the process, King County is only adding to the chaos surrounding this election.”
Vance outlined a history of suspect incidents in King County:
Why did King County change the rules?
Because the Democrats asked them to.
Seattle, WA – It’s becoming more clear why King County decided to change its own rules this morning for counting “overvotes” on ballots where the bubbles for both Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire are marked: Because the Democratic Party asked it to.
Today the King County Elections Department announced it is changing its own rules on overvote – instead of not counting them, it is now sending the ballots to the Democrat-dominated canvassing board for further review.
Earlier this week the state Republican Party, sensing that the Elections Department might be considering changing its overvote rules midway through the process, sent a letter to department head Dean Logan urging him to stick with the guidelines he’d already established.
Yesterday the Seattle Times reported that the Democratic Party’s recount director, David McDonald, “asked that all potential overvotes be passed on to the canvassing board.”
State GOP chairman Chris Vance wondered why King County Elections is ignoring Republican requests and granting the Democrats virtually everything they want.
“The King County Elections Department is starting to look less fair and more partisan every day,” said Vance. “I’m very interested to hear King County’s explanation for why it thinks changing the rules in Christine Gregoire’s favor is an OK thing to do.”
Here's how I figure it. Subtract the current margin of victory from the number of uncounted ballots, and split the remainder. That gives you how many the current winner needs to stay ahead.
So for Dino to win, he needs to beat (573-121)/2, which is 226, or about 40% of 573.
Wow, that's surprising news! I simply had not expected that. No wonder they've had to come up with more the last several days, it must have dawned on them that the manual recount itself was not going to produce the desired result.
<< Yeah. Go read my blog and my other posts, then come back and tell me I'm a DNC troll. >>
Did all of that yesterday.
I've come back -- again.
You're a dnc troll.
Merry Christmas, Troll.
Demo-rat logic...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - --
At the close of the polls (7 weeks ago), part of the election day process is to take the machines apart one by one, and members of BOTH parties verify that there are no ballots at all stuffed anywhere in or around the machines - including in the side pockets, underneath them inside them. Every nook and cranny is checked and verified.
7 weeks ago, those ballots were not there. Period.
AMAZING logic...
So, the latest is that they had a write-in ballot they were examining, which indicated a vote for "Christine Rossi", and instead of tossing it they gave it to Gregoire.
I am not kidding.
Oh - and they "found" 162 more ballots.
Only if the "new" ballots were not canvassed correctly, due to mistakes by Elections Officials. Which means, based on that loophole, any and all "new found" ballots will be counted because "the county" made a mistake...
Yawn.
From Seattle Times:
"King County election officials will enter a locked "cage" in a warehouse this morning to look for a plastic mail tray they believe contains up to 162 misplaced absentee ballots.
Elections Director Dean Logan said the ballots, like 573 other ballots that were improperly rejected, were set aside because workers couldn't find voter signatures that corresponded to them.
But unlike the other ballots, these apparently were left behind and forgotten. The original 573 votes were mistakenly identified as having mismatched signatures and then disqualified.
If the ballots are found, it means King County could count up to 735 ballots that have not been counted in the two previous tallies. That could give a significant advantage to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire in a county where she holds a strong lead over Republican Dino Rossi.
Logan said election workers will enter the warehouse cage at 9:30 a.m., with Republican and Democratic observers present.
"We need to get those [ballots] and they need to be included in being done," Logan said. The decision will be up to the county canvassing board, of which Logan is a member.
He called an emergency meeting with his staff last night after The Seattle Times asked election workers to check computer files on five absentee voters who were not on the original list of 573 rejected ballots.
Records indicated there was no signature on file for those voters — part of the group of 162 whose ballots will be searched for today — and their votes had not been counted.
Logan said at the time that he thought the computer records were in error and that a search for the ballot envelopes would show the votes had been counted. But when election officials looked for the envelopes last night, Logan said, "They were not where they were expected to be." He said he is "fairly certain" they were left behind in the locked cage. "
Gosh, you're right. You caught me, Sherlock. I guess I can't put one over on you.
I may as well come clean. During the campaign, I composed about fifty well-written posts supporting President Bush, attacking John Kerry, accusing the media of liberal bias, and blasting liberals... all so that in the event the Washington gubernatorial race was within a handful of votes I could credibly argue that Republicans shouldn't whine about fraud unless they have evidence. But you saw right through my fiendish plan. What a brilliant mind you have.
The only difference between you and the typical DUer is ideology. When it comes to intellect, analytical ability, and rationality, you're right on their level.
I see the state stuck with hundreds of court cases starting in January. The cost for the state to wrap up this mess...will be in the tens of millions.
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