WA Gov. Race: Try, Try Again

National Review ^ | 14 February 2005

[Graewoulf]

Why not have a new election and use the method that is being used in the Iraq elections? They have an unbeatable anti-fraud method, as they dip the right index finger in ink of each person that votes.

[GretchenM]

It's interesting, to say the least, that Gregoire's margin of victory (cough) is 129 votes, and 129 felons voted in King and Pierce Counties.

[I'mAllRightJack]

BTTT

[RWCon]

Seattle is the capitol of unionism in the US.

[Hostage]

129 votes was from Sunday Seattle Times covering three counties King, Pierce and Snohomish (or Thurston?).

Today a press release has the Republicans claiming to have found 300 verified felons voting, and the matching is not yet complete.

The dems in that Sunday piece suggested that each and every felon would have to take the stand and state how they voted.

I find it preposterous that a felon, having committed a voting crime would be ordered to testify who they voted for. How would anyone believe anything they say? There may also be 5th Amendment issues, but the court could grant immunity in exchange for testimony.

Of the 300 illegal felon votes, how many votes for Gregoire would be needed to keep the election for Gregoire (assuming felon votes were the only specific instances admitted as proof by the court and that these votes were set aside)?

a = number of felons for Gregoire
b = number of felons for Rossi

a + b = 300

X= total votes for Gregoire
Y= total votes for Rossi

X = Y +129

Delete the felon votes

(X-a)-(Y-b) >= 1 for Gregoire to keep a one vote lead,

some algebra yields:

b >= 86,

that is Gregoire side needs to show 86 or greater felons voted for Rossi.

The court is likely to place the burden on the Rossi side to show that deleted felon votes would wipe out Gregoire's 129 vote lead.

(X-a)-(Y-b) < 1 for Gregoire to lose by 1 vote or greater,

and the algebra shows that the Rossi side needs to show 215 or greater of the felon votes went for Gregoire, and again 5th amendments could render this more difficult.

So the election trial boils down to whether the case is accepted on the basis of enough errors or whether votes need to be counted from the witness stand.

For the 348 unverified provisional ballots, the same thing can be done. The provisional voters are known from the envelopes and they can be subpoenaed to court. Their privacy can be maintained by the court sealing their testimony. Their testimony would likely have to be voluntary. If enough volunteers testified under secrecy, a material impact of these votes could possibly be ascertained.

Lastly there are the military votes. If King County failed to meet a deadline for mailing out military absentee ballots, then it is possible for the court to ascertain the military vote.

What this leads to is rerunning omitted or erroneous parts of the governor's election in court. This can be done and by judging the mood of the electorate, donated funds to continue the election in court will not be a problem.

But the Rossi camp must stand up and rise to the challenge. It would be good not only for Washington State but also for the USA because many believe Hillary in 2008 will use all the same tactics and then some, that the democrats in King County used.

The Washington State election case should lead to national election reform if done right. Enough people are that fed up with it.

[rockrr]

I never got the impression that the court was all that good at math ;'}

[Hostage]

I think they will have to quantify enough of it to disallow the state supreme court from declaring that the evidence and proof are not specific enough.

It would be a good exercise to quantify how much discovery at a level of specific detail would be 'enough'.

Now is not the time to rest on an assumption that only errors in general will be sufficient. The democrats on the state supreme court will play hardball.

Hard work on accounting can deny the supreme dems the opportunity to declare the proof is too vague to uphold a decision by a lower court to set aside the election.

Hopefully Sharkansky and colleagues are crunching the numbers and feeding how many depositions of felons and unverified provisional ballot voters would be sufficient to deny an overturning of a lower court ruling based on vagueness.

I can see it coming.

[Seattle Conservative]

Yep. And the unions were supporting her big time during the election and going all out now (or so I heard). She needs/wants to stay in as Gov because she owes them BIG TIME and they're going to want to collect.

[rockrr]

I agree. And I believe the WSGOP and the Rossi campaign agree as well. That is borne out in their latest update that shows:

Confirmed Illegal Votes Discovered

Felons – King County
424

Felons – Other Counties
65

Deceased
44

Duplicates In-State
20

Duplicates Out-of-State
6

Illegal Provisional Ballots
437

Total
996

…and counting

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[They'reGone2000]

We're getting national attention now.

Let's hope for lots more.