Election scrutiny reveals provisional-vote flaws

The Seattle Times ^ | 1-05-05 | Keith Ervin

[Seattle Conservative]

An unknown number of provisional voters, some of whom may not even have been registered to vote, improperly put their ballots directly into vote-counting machines at polling places, King County's elections superintendent said yesterday.

Once those ballots went into the machines, there was no way to separate them from legitimate ballots.

Officials may never know exactly how many provisional ballots were improperly fed into voting machines, but a current review of polling-place records will give some indication of how widespread the problem was, county Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens said.

Improperly cast provisional votes could play a role in a possible Republican challenge of Democrat Christine Gregoire's 129-vote victory over Republican Dino Rossi, whose campaign is preparing to ask that the election be set aside.

Miscast provisional votes could be one reason the number of ballots counted in King County outnumbered the list of voters who voted by 3,539.

"What part of it was it?" Huennekens said. "I don't know. Did it happen? Yes. Unfortunately, that's part of the process in King County, where we have over 2,600 precincts and over 540 polling locations and nearly 4,000 workers. It's a very human process, and in some cases that did happen."

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance, who plans to discuss the provisional-ballot issue at a news conference today, said it constituted a serious lapse in election security.

It's not the first election King County has had difficulty getting the numbers of voters and ballots to match. In the 2003 off-year general election, the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of voters by 606, even after reconciliation was completed.

In 2002 and 2000, the problem was reversed. Voters credited with voting exceeded the number of ballots by 2,809 in 2002 and by 7,770 in 2000.

[Seattle Conservative]

Chris Vance is calling this the smoking gun. This, plus numerous other items, including the handwriting analysis issue John Fund brought up (John Carlson mentioned this on KVI last night and contacted John Fund to get the contact name of the person doing the handwriting analysis - his show was trying to reach them to confirm, but haven't heard any more so far). Of course, the Dems in the state legislature are saying the election stands. Maybe with all this 'evidence' a judge will overturn the election - -perhaps a pipe dream.

[mvpel]

"What part of it was it?" Huennekens said. "I don't know. Did it happen? Yes. Unfortunately, that's part of the process in King County, where we have over 2,600 precincts and over 540 polling locations and nearly 4,000 workers. It's a very human process, and in some cases that did happen."

This casts a poor light on the training that each of those 4,000 workers received.

They keep throwing out these big numbers as if that makes any difference to the ONE incompotent or conniving person in ONE polling location in ONE precinct allowing provisional ballots to be inserted into the counting machine.

If they can't find people who are intelligent and serious enough to make all the numbers match up exactly, they're not looking hard enough.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I said after the first count, which had Rossi winning by 42, that the State had to immediately start a run-off election or the "elected" governor would never have credibility.

Now I'm sitting in Belltown (downtown Seattle) regretting all the laughing I did at Florida in 2000.

[rawhide]

How come the Republicans have not rolled over yet on this? They always do, I guess with the holidays, I need to wait a few more days? The Republicans have no fight in them. This is what pisses me off more than anything else about them The let the dimocrats walk all over them. This is true at the national level, too.

[ecurbh]

Already posted:

Election scrutiny reveals provisional-vote flaws

[rawhide]

Does anyone know if this same thing happened in other counties as well? or should I asked, in Republican friendly counties? Anyone know?

[IMRight]

Well... she won King county by almost 20%.

It would take far less than 3500 invalid ballots to call the election in to question. Anything over six or seven hundred "votes" would statistically put it back in Rossi's hands.

And that presumes that Republicans are just as likely to cast inelligible ballots as Democrats. An unlikely assumption.

[antivenom]

I am an election worker in Houston Texas...and all I can tell you is this...the majority of the people working in the Democrat precincts ate slack jawed moth breathers...and most working in the Republican precincts are blue haired old ladies.

It is mind boggling that I can NOT convince "friends" in their 30s and 40s to GET OFF THEIR ASSES and make a difference.

I am sorry but the blue hairs and the clack jaws are SETTING America up for a SYSTEMIC voting failure. These people DO NOT understand election laws, they DO NOT understand how to set up computers...they DO NOT understand the concept behind a provisional vote...I had to explain to a person working along side of ME the correct way and the ONLY way I won the fight was to call downtown and have the BLUE HAUR edumacated...even THO she went to "classes".

It is a Travesty that middle aged Americans ARE NOT stepping up to the plate to take care of these matters.

I would hope that EVERY able bodied middle aged FREEPER would get off their asses and QUIT the complaining and GET DOING!

End my rant on an issue that has become dear to me!

LOL have a good day!

[Seattle Conservative]

Sorry - I did a search by a couple of the words in the title and didn't come up w anything.

[dennisw]

bttttttt

[demlosers]

Yes. Unfortunately, that's part of the process in King County, where we have over 2,600 precincts and over 540 polling locations and nearly 4,000 workers. It's a very human process, and in some cases that did happen."

Translation: Haha - uncountable opportunities for us to cheat.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

If they can't find people who are intelligent and serious enough to make all the numbers match up exactly, they're not looking hard enough.

They can find them. They just don't want to. They want folks who will gerryrig the system just as it was.

[ecurbh]

No worries... I think this is important enough to merit a double-posting. ;~)

[rawhide]

'It is mind boggling that I can NOT convince "friends" in their 30s and 40s to GET OFF THEIR ASSES and make a difference.'

Why, because most people these ages are working. I say let us move the election day to Sundays or declare Election Day a national holiday. Then you would have a lot of people able to help.

[Mo1]

An unknown number of provisional voters, some of whom may not even have been registered to vote, improperly put their ballots directly into vote-counting machines at polling places, King County's elections superintendent said yesterday.

Looks like someone got caught with their hand in the cookie jar

If this wasn't so serious ... I would be LMBO

[antivenom]

Most companies have "vacation" days available to employees...MOST have sick days and MANY including my company give days to employees to attend Jury duty...and I have found if an employee makes a plea to their employer and state that working on election day is as important if not more so than jury duty...most allow them the day to work the election.

MOST people are just lazy and excuse makers...I know this to be true.

Then the same ones bitch and complain about how flawed the election is...

After the 2000 fiasco in Floriduh...I have worked every election since because I know IF I won't/don't do it...a slack jawed mouth breather will and so will the frail and easily intimidated blue hair little old ladies.

Tragic when a person can't GIVE/SACRIFICE/DONATE a day of vacation to "do they right thing for the USA"...funny we expect our military to "do it"...

[rawhide]

As I said, if election day were a national/state holiday, then many of the younger people would volunteer. You cannot demand that the younger people to give up a vacation day to work an election.
And then there is the training time required to be a precinct worker, a lot of young people would not do it.
I think substituting working in a precinct would not substitute for jury duty, because employers are required to let you off if called to serve.
Now if the government would require employers to let their workers off if they were serving in a precinct, then others might volunteer.
The solution would be to make the election process as foolproof as possible, to prevent fraud similar to what has occurred in Washington state. Unfortunately, the election supervisors with Dimocratic leaning see it as their duty to lie and cheat their way to victory, the voters be damned. Do you want to know something funny, the Dims are being brainwashed into believing the Republicans do this all the time. I talked with a Democratic activist about this. This gives them the excuse they need to do what they do.

[antivenom]

LOL yes they think the Blue hairs are "part of the VRWC"! LOL!

As for training people...hell all they have to do is CLERK 2 times and BINGO they know about 75%.

It is still a damn shame that the NEXT generation WHO should be stepping up to the plate aren't...BUT I will continue fighting the good fight and hope some day you do too!

Have a great New Year...looks like a good one about to begin in about 2 weeks!