Posted on 01/04/2005 12:37:46 AM PST by nickcarraway
GOP calls on counties to explain a discrepancy of nearly 8,500
Thousands of "mystery voters" in the counties of King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and Kitsap appear to be Republican Dino Rossi's best prospect for challenging the legitimacy of the closest and most contentious gubernatorial election in the state's history.
The state Republican Party yesterday called on county election officials to explain what the GOP says is a nearly 8,500-vote discrepancy between county vote tallies and the number of people credited with actually voting in the election.
"People ask me what would fraud look like? It would look like this," said state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance.
County auditors and election officials say Republicans have based their conclusions on there being many more votes than voters on preliminary lists, and they say much of the deviation would be accounted for as voter lists are updated.
But they do not dispute that the numbers don't add up.
And most agree they never will.
"At the end of this, it's never going to match one to one given the volume," said Dean Logan, elections director of King County, which counted about 900,000 votes.
The current number is "larger than I'm comfortable with," Logan said. But based on historical data, he expects the reconciled lists to include 1,000 to 1,500 more votes than voters accounted for even after the lists are reconciled.
Logan said those unaccounted-for votes would likely be from military voters who cast federal write-in ballots and the 76 people in King County who participate in the Address Confidentiality Program.
"I think this is sort of the issue du jour," Logan said. "There has been no evidence of any voter fraud. The differences on the lists are not, in and of themselves, indication that there was."
Vance said that's outrageous.
"You simply can't have more votes counted than you have voters," Vance said. "The counties have to come up with a plausible explanation for this and if they don't this election is invalid on its face."
And Secretary of State Sam Reed again said that this issue could be used to contest the election.
Throughout the process, both parties have scrutinized even the smallest inconsistencies.
Democrat Christine Gregoire became governor-elect when a hand recount of nearly 2.9 million votes put her ahead of Rossi by 129 votes. Rossi had come out 261 votes ahead after the first machine count and 42 votes ahead after the mandatory mechanical recount.
Last week Republicans demanded that King County explain how its tally of votes counted exceeded the number of people listed as voting by 3,539. This week they found similar disparities in other populous counties.
Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said he thinks that 553 of the 1,005 vote-to-voter discrepancy there will be accounted for when the list of inactive voters -- those who have not participated in recent elections -- is reconciled with those who did in fact turn out in November.
But he has no plans to try to account for 452 extra poll, absentee and provisional votes.
"It would be a huge task," Kimsey said. "You are looking through 121,679 absentee ballots, affidavit envelopes and through poll books where 50,598 voters cast their ballots.
"The controls that are in place in the election process ensure that only registered voters are going to receive a ballot. While I understand the concern that comes from seeing two different numbers, the controls are at the front end."
Republicans contend that serious questions arise when results are certified before the voter lists are reconciled with the number of votes counted.
The counties say they don't because law does not require it.
Reed said that in each election, counties have a statutory requirement to record the names of all voters who cast ballots. He said that reconciling that list with the list of votes cast is an important quality-control measure.
Significant discrepancies could be of grave concern, he said.
"This is an issue that could potentially be used to contest the election," Reed said. "You'd have to make the point to the judge that it actually made a difference."
Carolyn Diepenbrock, Snohomish County elections manager, said the deviation in her lists is 388, not the more than 1,700 as the Republican's contend.
"We believe that the majority of those 388 are poll voters who signed in the poll book but actually voted a provisional ballot," Diepenbrock said.
She said the county would likely be able to update records as early as tomorrow.
King County officials said they would release completed lists Friday.
Pat McCarthy, Pierce County auditor, said she couldn't say how much the two lists deviated but she knows it's by less than the 1,640 Republicans contend.
She said that if the number were that big "it would have been a problem."
Rossi's spokeswoman Mary Lane said there's no excuse for certifying the election before these lists are reconciled. Otherwise, "we can't be certain that the number they certified is valid," Lane said.
"If someone wanted to commit voter fraud, this is one of the ways they could do it. When you have a number this huge, in an election this close, we need to have the answers and the counties need to provide those answers -- and the onus is on them right now."
One high-profile Republican, former Gov. Dan Evans, joined the chorus calling for a new election with an online essay published Friday.
"Democracy may be messy, but its principles are why it still serves us best," Evans wrote for the Web site www.revotewa.com. "If we screw up the implementation, let's go back to the principles. The voters' will is paramount."
He proposed a special election next month. Yesterday, Evans said his appetite for a revote depends heavily on how King County answers questions about the 3,500-vote difference between voter rolls and certified ballots.
"If they can explain that and there are no other significant errors, in spite of the fact of a close election, it's time to say 'OK, we'll accept it,' " Evans said.
I signed the revote petition yesterday, but I doubt if it will do any good considering the DNC controls the legislature and the media. It is amazing FRAUD and we really need help in the state to clean the rats out and finally have some fair assessment of what has happened. Lots of PDX folks have come our way. So far, our state is totally controlled by the DNC and they have their hands in everyone's pocket. Taxes never stay the same or go down in Clark County, always up.
You have the 'Do Something' disease. What exactly would you like Vance to do? Challenge the election? He might well do that, but that's up to Rossi. Other then that, there isn't anything he CAN do.
To anyone:
Does Washington have a Recall provision like California?
Do your job, Kimsey--or someone else will.
What makes you think, if Rossi wimped out now when we in this state really needs him, that we'd want him to represent us in the US Senate? Dino isn't abandoning us nor are we him. The stance you're qouting was started by DU trolls.
My stance is not for him to drop out of the race, more power too him. My only position as a not Washingtoner is I'd rather have another Senate seat in the U.S. Congress.
And Dornan never did get a fair hearing on the matter, nor was anything done to bounce that snake Sanchez out of the seat she stole from him. Sanchez didn't even live in Dornan's district. She rented a place there but never occupied it. Dornan's people had proof that the utilities were never even turned on.
It appears that third world countries aren't the only ones that need independent oversight of the elections process.
I've been watching it from Virginia. Never in your life would you believe such transparent cheating. It has been
amazing how "in your face" the Dems are with fraud up there.
GO ROSSI !!
The 1,000 to 1,500 unaccounted for ballots expected in King Co. after the voter list is updated is alone enough to turn the election back to Rossi--if these unaccounted for ballots are assumed to be invalid and break in the same proportion for Gregoire and Rossi as the rest of King Co. did.
According to one of the other pieces, the King County officials have explained that their anomolies stem from their practice of counting provisional ballots in the precinct where cast, rather than in the precinct where the voter was registered.
If this is indeed the case, given that there's still no list of who all voted, what checks can possibly exist to prevent provisional-ballot stuffing?
Allowing provisional ballots to be cast in anything other than the correct precinct is a bad idea except in possible cases where a voter showed up at the polling location given by a mis-printed registration card (and even there it's iffy). Even in those cases, however, counting such ballots in anything other than the voter's registered precinct is a recipe for disaster.
Perhaps someone should bring an 'equal protection' challenge on the basis that the rules in Democrat counties allow cheating while people in Republican counties aren't awarded the same opportunities.
Actually, if provisionals were forwarded to a voter's registered precinct for counting, they could be rejected if the voter already voted [the voter should be given notice when this happened, so that if someone else filled in a fraudulent provisional on his behalf it can be brought to light]. Given that they're not, though, I don't see how double-voting can be prevented.
Restricting out-of-precinct provisional ballots to cases where voters received mis-printed registration cards, however, would likely make this largely a non-issue.
...or even any enforcement of existing laws, which are supposed to prevent ballot tampering?
A provisional ballot is voted at the polls, and the voter usually votes one because his name is not in the book.
If the name is in the book there is no reason for a provisional ballot. Fraud for sure!
Perhaps someone should bring an 'equal protection' challenge on the basis that the rules in Democrat counties allow cheating while people in Republican counties aren't awarded the same opportunities.
$$$$$$
This is the money quote!!
Being back from holiday vacation in a remote rural area where I listened to roosters crowing and the only meaningful news was a deer becoming a casualty via a moving vehicle, I'm glad to get an update. Been wondering who the next governor of WA will be. Guess I can keep wondering.
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