I am going to tax you through the roof.
Posted on 04/05/2005 6:37:27 PM PDT by Murtyo
SEATTLE - There's a new flap over vote counting in King County.
Three county election workers were suspended Tuesday evening after another mail ballot snafu -- this one involving the upcoming April 26 hospital levy election.
Last week, the three workers were transferred from the mail processing headquarters to the elections office downtown after they failed to completely process 93 absentee votes in the Nov. 2 election.
The 93 ballots had been signature-checked, but the ballots were left inside secrecy envelopes and never processed. King County Executive Ron Sims called that incident "extremely upsetting" and two Republican members of the King County Council had called for the resignation of elections superintendent Dean Logan.
Sims stood by Logan saying the problem may have stemmed from workers who refused to adapt to changes that Logan had ordered in the department.
But the suspensions came Tuesday after a second development. This one involved complaints from eight county voters that they had received information about an upcoming mail-only hospital levy election on April 26. But there was no ballot inside the envelopes.
The three workers were put on paid administrative leave while the two incidents are being investigated. They have not been identified.
This is a post from SoundPolitics-our local Puget Sound watchdog group:
Date set for Washington governor's election trial
The legal challenge to the Washington governor's election will go to trial on May 23.
Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges set the trial date Tuesday during a hearing in Wenatchee. He said the trial should take no more than two weeks.
The Seattle Times has this hilarious bit: the judge denied
a request by the state Democratic Party to wait six months before starting the trial
Meanwhile, former Attorney General Gregoire says:
"I really feel it's time to put it behind us and move on,"
So do we all! And it'll be a lot easier to put Her Illegitimacy behind us once her behind is moved on out of the governor's mansion.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at 03:32 PM | Comments (36) | Email This
This is a post from SoundPolitics-our local Puget Sound watchdog group:
Date set for Washington governor's election trial
The legal challenge to the Washington governor's election will go to trial on May 23.
Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges set the trial date Tuesday during a hearing in Wenatchee. He said the trial should take no more than two weeks.
The Seattle Times has this hilarious bit: the judge denied
a request by the state Democratic Party to wait six months before starting the trial
Meanwhile, former Attorney General Gregoire says:
"I really feel it's time to put it behind us and move on,"
So do we all! And it'll be a lot easier to put Her Illegitimacy behind us once her behind is moved on out of the governor's mansion.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at 03:32 PM | Comments (36) | Email This
Thanks for posting this.
On January 11, 2005 I wrote to King County Executive Ron Sims requesting his resignation.
I sent direct letters to the Elections directors requesting their resignation as well.
Freedom requires vigilance.
In Seattle this is considered a promotion. This is what happens when you hire quantity and not quality. But then again, this is Seattle where quality isn't a deciding factor in most anything.
Washington State. Third world country.
I am going to tax you through the roof.
The best telling of what happened comes from Forrest McDonald’s magnificent States’ Rights and the Union which should be required reading for FReepers who want to expound on this idea. I quote, with some labor in typing, directly from McDonald.
BEGIN QUOTE
Article 4, Section 3 states that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State.” Section 4 provides that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government” and that the United States shall protect each state “on the Application of the Legislature, or the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
These provisions have been applied on several occasions, but each time the circumstances did not precisely invoke the article. The two Pennsylvania insurrections in the 1790's, the Whiskey Rebellion and Fries’ Rebellion, were risings against federal, not state, authority; the one was suppressed by militia forces under national command, the other by a force organized by a federal marshal. The 1808 confrontation in Pennsylvania that led to United States v. Peters was between the state militia and a posse raised by a federal marshal; at issue was a federal court ruling. More recently, in 1836, Democrats in Maryland had marched on Annapolis and forced the Whig-controlled legislature to reapportion representation in the state by threatening to destroy the government. At nearly the same time, Democrats in the territories of Arkansas and Michigan had established constitutions without congressional authorization. In 1838, Democrats in Pennsylvania won control of the legislature, whereupon a Whig/Anti-Masonic coalition refused to turn over the reins of power; the Democrats expelled them by amassing a force to occupy the capital. In none of these events was federal intervention requested or provided, though future president Tyler called the Pennsylvania situation “the precursor of that revolution which is sooner or later to occur.”
The episode that brought the Article 4 provisions into play was the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island, which erupted in 1842 after a long gestation. During the revolution...every state except Connecticut and Rhode Island had adopted a constitution, those two choosing instead to continue to be governed by their colonial charters. Though Connecticut did adopt a constitution in 1818, Rhode Island remained under its charter. The charter empowered the legislature to set the qualification for voters, which had long been established as ownership of real estate valued at $133 or payment of $7 annual rent in tenancy. Modest as these requirements were, they disenfranchised most adult males. The enormous increase in population in the tiny state meant that there was simply not enough land to go around. Moreover, since no one but freeholders could vote on calling a convention to adopt a constitution, advocates of reform were powerless to change things.
Thus in an ardently democratic age, Rhode Island remained undemocratic. No more than four out of ten adult white males could vote, bring a suit in court, or serve on a jury. Freemen in Providence, a city of nearly 22,000 people, constituted just 6% of its population. Legislative apportionment was also skewed. The larger and growing towns had one representative for 2,590 people, those in state rural towns one for 1,074 inhabitants. Overall, one-third of the voting population, concentrated in the rural southern part of the western shore, governed the two-thirds who lived elsewhere.
Thomas Dorr, heir of a Providence mercantile family and a National Republican –- but nonetheless a dedicated, democratic ideologue –- emerged as the leader of a reform movement in the early 1830's. Considerable numbers of workingmen formed the backbone of the movement, which demanded that the general assembly call a constitutional convention. In response, the assembly authorized one to meet in 1834, but it retained the franchise requirements and the apportionment of seats by towns in the election of delegates. The result, as anticipated, was a temporary defusing of the issue, since few voters participated and the convention dissolved itself for want of a quorum. Workingmen abandoned the movement thereafter, and Dorr, becoming a Democrat, thrashed about in an effort to form an anti-charter coalition. In the meantime, a number of New York Democrats petitioned Congress to invoke the Republican-Guarantee Clause of the Constitution and intervene in Rhode Island “to free the unfortunate Sons of Successors of Roger Williams.”
Then, in 1840, the First Reform Society of New York City goaded reformers to take radical steps. The society published and circulated an “Address to the Citizens of Rhode Island who are denied the Right of Suffrage,” urging the inhabitants to go outside the framework of the ctarter, elect a popular convention to draft a constitution, and submit that document for ratification by all American citizens resident in that state. If the voters approved, the charter would automatically be defunct. If the existing government acquiesced in the popular will, no trouble would ensue. If it did not, Congress would have no choice but to back the constitution under the Republican-Guarantee Clause.
Within two years, reformers led by Dorr had followed the New Yorkers’ advice. They had drawn up and ratified a constitution and held elections under it, but things did not work the way the outsiders had predicted. The general assembly, instead of accepting the legitimacy of the proposed arrangement, enacted a treason statute, began making wholesale arrests of people voted into office under the constitution, and proclaimed martial law to defend against what the assembly declared to be a violent insurrection. Dorr, who had been elected governor by reformers, did indeed attempt to seize power by force of arms. In addition to suppressing the Dorrites, the general assembly called a convention of its own, which drafted an official constitution providing essentially for universal manhood suffrage.
In the meantime, confused appeals fo the outside world were raised. Dorrites sought armed help from New York and from elsewhere in New England, as well as intervention by the federal government, citing the Republican-Guarantee Clause. The Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court invoked another provision of the Constitution, declaring for the benefit of prospective interveners that to recognize the Dorrites would be to violate Article 4, Section 2, the prohibition against forming new states within the jurisdiction of existing states. The loudest call for help came from a three-man mission sent by Gov. Samuel King to ask for President Tyler’s aid in suppressing a domestic insurrection.
Tyler was impaled on a dilemma. On the one horn, as a southerner, he accepted the premise that local laws must be strictly enforced, with the help of the Union, if necessary; one of the Rhode Island emissaries, Elisha Potter, recorded in a memorandum that Tyler said that enforcement was necessary “to prevent negroes revolutionizing the south.” On the other, as a states‘ righter who had opposed Jackson during the nullification controversy and who believed that force should be employed only when every other means of coping had been exhausted, he was loath to act. For the moment he hedged, telling the mission to inform Gov. King that Congress had recognized the charter government as “republican” by seating its elected senators and representatives, and that until a full-fledged insurrection appeared, he could not intervene. Then he sent his own emissary, Secretary of War John Spencer, to evaluate the situation, after which he ordered the rebels to disperse within 24 hours, lest he request the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut to mobilize militias and join the United States Army in defending Providence against them. The Dorrites attempted to seize the local armory, and when that failed, they scattered. Dorr himself was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment, though he was released a year later.
The legally sanctioned constitution went into force in 1843, and the episode was over. Its significance was not immediately evident, and opinions as to whether justice had triumphed were many and diverse. Even so, given that military force had been employed to suppress the voice of the people, that president Tyler had mobilized the power of the United States in support of suppression, and that in 1849 the Supreme Court decision in Luther v. Borden would confirm the handling of the Dorr Rebellion, one could support that the idea of popular sovereignty –- in the sense of the Declaration of Independence’ dictum that the people retain a right to alter or abolish their governments, irrespective of legal forms and norms -– had been challenged and rejected.
END QUOTE
Thanks to Tyler’s precedent in the Dorr Rebellion, had a Ukrainian situation unfolded in Olympia, President Bush would have had no choice but to uphold Gregoire as the governor legitimately elected under the laws of the state of Washington. Your idea is not a good one.
"Sims stood by Logan saying the problem may have stemmed from workers who refused to adapt to changes that Logan had ordered in the department."
Ron Yes-I-Have-My-Head-In-A-Hole-In-The-Ground-And-Do-Not-See-The-Freight-Train-Coming Sims. But he will probably get reelected because the lib/comm/soc who have taken over Seattle and King County have not had a brush with reality since they learned the word in elementary school.
I'm hoping this is a classic case of giving the rascals enough rope to hang themselves with.
Once the euphoria of the stolen election has passed, the dems here are likely to wake up with a headbanging hangover. The problem is, the majority of the people in the metro Seattle area don't care that state is being governed by a bunch of political power lushes that pawned anything resembling integrity in order to gain office.
Even some of our liberal Republicans state Senators are signing on to a gas tax increase, and I think it is because they believe that the Dems have shown that you can do ANYTHING in this state and get a pass.
At some point, this has to bottom out, and probably with dire consequences for the state economy as sensible business people up and leave.
Having a court indicate officialy that the election was bogus would be a minute start, but the only long term solution to what goes on in King county is to split it up.
I post because it is important not to let what happened in Washington state go down the American memory hole. The soft dictatorship of faux democracy is contagious. Many people accept the symbols of democracy without the reality. If an election was held and if an apparent judicial process is underway, then all is well.
What happened in Washington state is contagious and could easily spread to other states and the national elections. People forget so easily, but the democrats always remember the lessons of what worked. It is important that the rest of us be vigilant to what happened here and not let it be replicated because acceptance is the easiest course.
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