Posted on 12/16/2004 11:59:33 AM PST by Publius
Republicans announced plans Thursday morning to sue King County over 573 newly discovered ballots that could change the outcome of the closest governor's race in Washington state history.
The county's Canvassing Board voted Wednesday to prepare the 573 absentee ballots for inclusion in the hand recount, over the objections of Republicans who urged the county to investigate the ballots first.
State GOP Chairman Chris Vance said Thursday the party would seek a court order Thursday afternoon in Pierce County, aimed at slowing down the processing of the previously rejected ballots to allow them to be better tracked and verified.
Specifically, the party wants to stop the county from separating the ballots from their outer envelopes, which Vance said would make it far more difficult to determine where the ballots came from, whether they were stored correctly, and why they were not counted previously.
Democrats applauded and Republicans decried the board's decision Wednesday to move forward with assessing the 573 previously rejected ballots. King County is a Democratic stronghold and the newly discovered ballots have the potential to change the outcome of the election.
"I get to vote, I did it right, and it gets to count," said King County Councilman Larry Phillips, whose ballot was among the 573 mistakenly rejected by election workers.
Election workers will verify signatures on the ballots, and the canvassing board will meet again Monday to decide whether to count the ballots that have been verified. The three-member board postponed a decision on what to do with 22 other newly discovered ballots but will consider that Monday as well, said Bobbie Egan, county elections spokeswoman.
Republican Dino Rossi won the Nov. 2 election over Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes in the first count and by 42 after a machine recount. As of Wednesday he had gained 79 votes in the hand recount for a margin of 121.
The canvassing board voted 2-1 to move forward with recanvassing the 573 ballots. King County Election Director Dean Logan and Democratic King County Councilman Dwight Pelz voted for the recanvassing; voting no was Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for Republican King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng.
Satterberg complained that Logan was rushing, and said the board should take more time to figure out the story behind the newly discovered ballots.
"This is a matter of public integrity, public trust," Satterberg told Logan as they met before a row of TV cameras and reporters. "The appearance to the world that's watching is that you're rushing this through."
Logan said King County election workers made a mistake and he wanted to correct it. The absentee ballots were not counted originally because the voters' signatures had not been scanned into the county's computer system. Election workers should have checked the paper files, but instead the ballots were mistakenly rejected. The error was discovered only after Phillips saw his name on a list of rejected absentee ballots and notified Logan.
"The facts are pretty clear there was a discrepancy in the canvassing of these ballots," Logan said. "There is a record that shows these are validly registered voters who did nothing wrong."
State law allows counties to recanvass ballots and correct errors during a recount if there is "an apparent discrepancy or an inconsistency in the returns."
Election workers had found at least 245 of the 573 voters' signatures on paper registration records by Wednesday afternoon. They will continue checking the records and verify the ballots that belong to registered voters. Workers will then take those ballots out of their security envelopes and return them to the board for a final decision on whether they should be counted.
Vance urged the canvassing board to reject the ballots.
"At some point it just lacks credibility that they keep finding ballots," Vance said. "None of these ballots should be counted."
After the canvassing board vote, Phillips retorted, "I don't care what the chairman of the state Republican party has to say. I did my duty as a citizen and he's going to get out the way ... He has a right to have his vote counted and so do I."
State GOP attorneys are considering their options now. If the King County ballots are included in the recount, and they do end up putting Gregoire on top, lawsuits may ensue.
"It doesn't look like I'm going to do any Christmas shopping anytime soon," said Mark Braden, Rossi's chief lawyer, after leaving the canvassing board meeting.
The board delayed a decision on 22 other ballots- 20 absentee and two provisional - found in the side bins of plastic base units in which polling machines sit. All ballots should have been logged on Election Night and returned in a sealed bag to election headquarters, but these 22 apparently weren't. They've been sitting unsecured at various polling places since the election.
The hand recount is expected to finish by Dec. 22, though there's no deadline set in state law. The governor's inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 12.
Meanwhile, two members of the federal Election Assistance Commission arrived in Washington on Wednesday to observe the recount. Kay Stimson, spokeswoman for the commission, said the members wanted to learn about the historically close recount for a report on "best practices" by the states.
You log on and post to DU just to get material for your Blog.
You hype your blog in your tagline
Please forgive us if we think you are just here to get material and hits to your blog.
No, I admitted I was at DU a lot.
What is your user id ?
I have none, having been banned four times. The most recent time was for a post (since deleted) in this thread, in which the DUers took offense to this post on my blog. Go read it, then come back here and abjectly apologize for calling me a shill. I'll forgive you; you seem to have an uncontrollable tendency to prematurely accuse people of offenses.
The answer to the first part of your question -- "how many recounts is enough" -- is "as many as are provided by law". In this state, one or two: a candidate-initiated (and paid-for) hand recount, and a possible mandatory machine recount if the margin is within a certain narrow range. The answer to the second part of your question -- "why should election rules be changed" -- is "they shouldn't be". And they haven't been. RCW 29A.60.210 provides:
Whenever the canvassing board finds that there is an apparent discrepancy or an inconsistency in the returns of a primary or election, the board may recanvass the ballots or voting devices in any precincts of the county.
...and always has. If ballots have been erroneously disqualified, the law permits and has always permitted the canvassing boards to allow them.
I've posted on DU exactly three times. Not one of them was to get material for my blog. The first was before I'd even started my blog. The second was to correct a poster who said that the turkey with which President Bush was photographed in Iraq on Thanksgiving 2003 was plastic. And the third was in response to that thread where I was attacked and wanted to fight back.
You hype your blog in your tagline
Yes, I do.
Please forgive us if we think you are just here to get material and hits to your blog.
Of course I forgive you. You err, but forgiveness is divine.
Posted three times but banned four times?
what bull**it, that they find unsecured ballots sitting in a bin that weren't returned on election night. Total unbelievable cr**.
Yes, I was banned once before I even had a chance to post. For my second post, I knew I'd be banned (for daring to post something non-negative about the President), so I chose the name "GoneIn60Seconds". My third banning, I picked "GoneIn59Seconds" but was banned before I had the chance to post... which was literally within one minute. The mods much watch the registrations very closely.
For my fourth banning (and third post) I learned my lesson and typed my response in Notepad before I registered. I was still banned within a minute, but managed to post before the banning, and the post actually survived for a couple of hours before it was deleted.
It would seem that a lawsuit that the special scrutiny that the King county ballots get would violate the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment. Unless ALL ballots in the WHOLE state are treated with the same scrutiny, then you cannot give the ballots of one or two counties special consideration because you believe that doing so will swing the race your way.
We went over this in 2000 in Florida and the Supreme Court has already shown this to be true.
My post above on this http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1302888/posts?page=209#209
Maybe we should have a contest for the fastest ban from DU.
"How many recounts are there going to be?"
"State law allows for only two recounts and the candidates must live with the result. State law does not, however, bar additional vote counts if one candidate or party contests the election and a judge orders another count."
Kinda goes against what we've been hearing about absolutely only two recounts.
It looks like yesterday's supreme court ruling had zero impact.
They haven't descended yet.
That little squirrel picture people post here has a better set than the party.
Yes, in theory a judge could order another count. Also in theory, a judge could order the candidates to wear propellor beanies and sing "Oh, Susannah" while hopping on one foot. Both orders, however, would be completely extralegal.
Your use of [sic] is patronizing, condescending and incorrect. The preposition "on" is the proper one in this context.
I was just wondering where they got this info., if it is not a real possibility.
If the candidates were before a Judge on charges -" wearing propeller beanies and singing "Oh, Susannah" while hopping on one foot" might not be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
He left off the second sentence in his post. Note the part that says "before the last day to certify the primary or election."
I do believe that the Democrats are not acting as honestly as the Republicans in the election; however, I agree with the standard of proof and I know you're not a shill for the Dems.
There's an additional point here, though. Regardless of innocence or guilt, it is bad practice to include ballots that turn up later--after observers had the chance to confirm the process--with a broken chain of custody.
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