Up to 162 ballots missing

The Seattle Times ^ | 17 December 2004 | Keith Ervin

[JosefK]

Up to 162 ballots missing

By Keith Ervin Seattle Times staff reporter

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.

The five voters' last names all began with the letters A or B.

The list of 573 disqualified voters contains no one with a last name starting with A or B, and only two starting with C. Election observers had been wondering what happened to the A's and B's.

The 573 ballots are already at the center of controversy in the governor's race recount. King County officials Wednesday moved to begin verifying and counting those votes, but Republicans said yesterday they would go to court to stop the King County recount.

Logan said last night he would order workers not to separate the 573 ballots from their envelopes — a step in the counting process — pending a hearing on the suit.

Before searching last night for the A's and B's, Logan said county workers had focused only on the 573 ballots. He said "we knew as fact" those voters were improperly disenfranchised.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

[JosefK]

Consider yourselves personally pinged...

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Damn Gremlins.

STOP EATING OUR BALLOTS!!!

[paudio]

It's so interesting that there are not many threads in DU that discuss this WA issue. I think they know that this will make their non-existent problems in OH to be... well, non exist...

[Fresh Wind]

Logan said election workers will enter the warehouse cage at 9:30 a.m., with Republican and Democratic observers present.

This sounds like a job for Geraldo Rivera.

[Robert_Paulson2]

IT is interesting to watch the democrats try and steal elections. actually FASCINATING.

if it ain't close, they can't cheat.
Washington was close. they will cheat.... and I think they will count and count and count... til they win, even though they have clearly lost, TWICE already, right?

[Slings and Arrows]

I'm no longer surprised by DemonRATic vote fraud, but do they have to be so obvious about it? They can insult the nation's integrity without insulting its intelligence.

[Alas Babylon!]

Logan said election workers will enter the warehouse cage at 9:30 a.m., with Republican and Democratic observers present.

Oh, big deal. How do we know Logan didn't have some union thugs slip a mail tray of forged ballots in there yesterday? So now the Republicans can verify, "Yup, there's a tray of (forged) ballots here, right where you said they'd be."

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Geraldo Rivera:

YESSSSSS! In just a moment, I will reveal to you...

(Hushed whisper.)

...Al Capone's secret gold.

[JosefK]

What is DU?

I'm new here...

[cgbg]

I did read a long Dummy post from an observer.

They described cell phones being used by supervisors (against the rules for reasons that should be obvious), tired counters making mistakes in all ways, dropped and spilled boxes of votes.

They convinced me that manual recounts are totally unreliable both due to potential error and potential fraud.

Unfortunately machine recounts have their flaws as well.

This is one ugly mess, and then to have partisans in charge of election officials--there is nothing good that can come from it. The "lost ballot" saga is a disaster. It is obvious there is no compelling chain of custody on these ballots and one would hope some court somewhere would not allow the envelopes to be opened. In an ideal world with absolute proof of chain of custody then I would understand a court allowing such votes, though.

We probably would be better off to settle this the old fashioned way--with a duel between the two candidates. :-)

[BigCinBigD]

Ducks Unlimited. It's a privately funded wildlife org that helps maintain nature areas and works toward conservation.

[fuquadukie]

I'd tell you, but then I'd have to take another shower.

DU = Democratic Underground (www.democraticunderground.com)

Don't go there. Truly warped vile inhabitants.

Now, it's back to the shower for the 2nd time this morning.

[muawiyah]

Proving once again that the Democrats read FreeRepublic, and act on cue, these guys now officially notice they didn't have the "A"'s and "B"'s!

See my post #4 in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1303146/posts?page=4#4 where I said: "Hey, phony list ~ where's the folks whose names begin with "A" and "B"?".

I'd still like to know why these yahoos can't come up with a "Nilson"!

[paudio]

DU stands for Democratic Underground. Forum for the liberals.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

C'mon!

Everyone knows that all the Swedish people live in Sunset Park.

And Finland.

Lots of 'em in Finland, or so I've been led to believe.

[TommyDale]

Democratic Underwear.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

[cgbg]

What is DU

DU stands for Democratic Underground.

They are the "Free Republic" of the Left.

They are convinced that W stole the election by hacking into voting machines.

Unfortunately their primary evidence (detailed in the notorious "Arneback Lawsuit") is an argument that:

(1) Exit polls are infallible

(2) Kerry lead in the exit polls in Ohio

(3) The vote count showed Bush winning Ohio

(4) Therefore, Bush hacked into the machines in Ohio to win the election.

This dazzling chain of fallacies has spawned thousands of posts, radio shows (Air America), Keith Olberman rants on MSNBC, the scam of Bev of Black Box Voting, Inc. (not to be confused with Black Box Voting org.).

Now if you want to have some great belly laughs here is what you do.

Go to the blogger part of FR. Do a search for "funnies". You want to read the "DUmmie Funnies". (DUmmie, Democratic Underground, get it? :-) )

This is better than Monty Python, Woody Allen, George Carlin, (insert your favorite comedy act here).

These guys are the Archie Bunkers of the left.

They are "spill your coffee on the keyboard" hilarious.

Enjoy!