Posted on 01/12/2005 9:54:00 PM PST by Publius
In all the hubbub if this election and all its accouterments, it’s easy to lose sight of what matters. Broadly speaking, the only thing that matters is the Washington State Supreme Court decision that will be made after the Chelan court decision is appealed. Within that, though, there are a lot of things that matter, based on Washington law, and a lot of things that don’t–and it can be easy to confuse the two. First off, let’s look at what the law actually says:
RCW 29A.68.020
Commencement by registered voter – Causes for.
Any registered voter may contest the right of any person declared elected to an office to be issued a certificate of election for any of the following causes:
RCW 29A.68.070
Misconduct of board – Irregularity material to result.
No irregularity or improper conduct in the proceedings of any election board or any member of the board amounts to such malconduct as to annul or set aside any election unless the irregularity or improper conduct was such as to procure the person whose right to the office may be contested, to be declared duly elected although the person did not receive the highest number of legal votes.
RCW 29A.68.080
Misconduct of board – Number of votes affected – Enough to change result.
When any election for an office exercised in and for a county is contested on account of any malconduct on the part of any election board, or any member thereof, the election shall not be annulled and set aside upon any proof thereof, unless the rejection of the vote of such precinct or precincts will change the result as to such office in the remaining vote of the county.
RCW 29A.68.090
Illegal votes – Allegation of.
When the reception of illegal votes is alleged as a cause of contest, it is sufficient to state generally that illegal votes were cast, that, if given to the person whose election is contested in the specified precinct or precincts, will, if taken from that person, reduce the number of the person’s legal votes below the number of legal votes given to some other person for the same office.
RCW 29A.68.100
Illegal votes – List required for testimony.
No testimony may be received as to any illegal votes unless the party contesting the election delivers to the opposite party, at least three days before trial, a written list of the number of illegal votes and by whom given, that the contesting party intends to prove at the trial. No testimony may be received as to any illegal votes, except as to such as are specified in the list.
RCW 29A.68.110
Illegal votes – Number of votes affected – Enough to change result.
No election may be set aside on account of illegal votes, unless it appears that an amount of illegal votes has been given to the person whose right is being contested, that, if taken from that person, would reduce the number of the person’s legal votes below the number of votes given to some other person for the same office, after deducting therefrom the illegal votes that may be shown to have been given to the other person.
Let’s go through the irregularities one at a time, and see how they stack up.
WHAT MATTERS:
50,000 ballots enhanced illegally: This matters immensely. These King County ballots were not read correctly by the vote tabulating machines, and so were taken out and “enhanced” so that the machine could read them. This is perfectly legal -- however, the election workers enhanced them to the point that it was impossible to review those ballots, which was supposed to be done. This is in violation of state law. Even if only 1% of those ballots had been determined to be invalid, that may have be enough to throw the election back to Rossi. This is an irregularity (or misconduct) that is certainly material to the result.
1,800 voterless ballots: It sure seems like this should matter, based on the RCW noted in this Sound Politics post. If the votes really are from voters who voted without signing in, as claimed by Dean Logan, it certainly should matter. If they didn’t sign in, we have no way of knowing whether they were registered voters, or voted twice, or even citizens. If it’s something more sinister, then it matters even more. It could, conceivably, be beaureaucratic incompetence, losing thousands of voter names. But I somehow doubt that -- and there’s no way to tell at this point. So obviously, this matters, even if Logan says it doesn’t. “This always happens” may be an excuse when “this” is smaller than the margin of victory, but it isn’t one now–again, it’s either an irregularity or misconduct material to the result.
348 unverified provisional ballots mixed with the real ballots: Once again, while this wouldn’t matter in a normal election, it matters here, because these disputed ballots are a great deal larger than the margin of victory. There’s no way of knowing if these ballots were signed by registered voters, unregistered voters, illegal aliens, space aliens or Mickey Mouse. This may be the strongest piece of the contest, as it has been well documented and was even anticipated before the election. This is clearly misconduct material to the result.
Felons voting: This obviously matters -- it says as much right there in part 5.a.ii of the first quoted RCW. So far, having looked at only Pierce and Snohomish counties, the BIAW has found 89 felonious votes. If there are just 40 more found in King County or elsewhere, that invalidates the election ipso facto. If those aren’t found, of course, they won’t matter at all. According to the second-to-last RCW cited abote, the names of all the voting felons will have to be produced in court, which will be all sorts of fun -- but it should be enough all by itself, let alone lumped in with everything else.
WHAT DOESN’T MATTER:
Dead voters: It makes for some catchy headlines and some amusing pictures, but there aren’t nearly enough dead voters to even come close to having an effect on this contest. I’m glad they were found, though. It provides an example of election fraud that is easy to relate to, and has no doubt helped convince most of Washington that a revote is needed. It will not, however, convince a judge.
Systemic problems: Systemic problems, problems with election law as written, as important as they are to fix, will not help with the contest -- namely, because the same systemic problems will almost certainly be in play in any revote. What needs to be shown -- and clearly has been -- is unique instances of illegal voting, or voting irregularities, that can be avoided in the next vote. Again, I’m still glad systemic problems are being brought to light, so that they can be solved. But again, it won’t matter to a judge.
Gregoire’s inauguration: This doesn’t matter a whit, according to the law. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
Polls and petitions: While these matter immensely in gauging the mood of the people, and certainly affected Rossi’s decision to go forward with the contest, they won’t actually come into play once the trial starts. This will be good to remember if the populace, understandably, starts getting tired of the mess (though I hope they’re in it for the long haul).
(Care to see something kind of spooky and completely irrelevant? If you take the total difference between Rossi’s initial margin of 261, and Gregoire’s current margin of 129, you get 390. If you subtract from that Rossi’s second margin of 42 votes, you get 348 -- which is the exact number of provisional ballots mixed in with regular ballots. Ooooh -- spooky.)
Looking at the facts right next to the law, this looks for all the world like an open-and-shut case. I can’t imagine the legal backflips and distortions that would be needed to not throw out this election. If any readers would care to give it a shot, I’m all ears. I certainly look forward to hearing the Democratic arguments in court. So far, they haven’t responded substantively to the facts, and I’m curious to hear what they say if they ever do.
So what do we do now?
A purge is coming -- a genuine political enema.
Vance Holds Spokane Press Conference to Discuss Status of Election Contest
On Thursday, Washington State Republican Party Chair Chris Vance will be in Spokane to discuss the current situation in the election contest. The initial hearing of the election contest is scheduled in the Chelan County Superior Court this Friday.
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2005
Time: 2:00 P.M.
Place: Davenport Hotel, Isabella Room
10 South Post Street, Spokane
Hope that the courts give an honest ruling in this case. And keep the political pressure on. Judges are elected in this state.
If you have a ping list for this topic, could you add me please?
I've heard the 50K number a few times, I believe from John Carlson and also soundpolitics.com but I'd have to check to be sure.
LOL..they couldn't find a single soul to sign that...hahahahahaha
Right after the courts let the California recall go ahead, I had lunch with Kastama and found him to be as smart politically as anyone I've ever met. He predicted that Davis would be recalled handily and that Schwarzeneggar would win. He laid out succinctly what was wrong with California, the corruption in the legislature, and said that Cailfornia needed a political enema, something he thought Arnold would administer.
Kastama was one regular Democrat I thought would break ranks with his party and vote to hold off on certification. I was disappointed when he folded.
I'm hoping that our Washingtonian friends stand for a pitched battle on this election fraud and theft.
Anything less would be a signal to the dark side that cheating works.
BTW, the normally excellent WSJ had a pretty wimpy ed on this important topic. (Definitely not worth reading.}
Systemic problems: Systemic problems, problems with election law as written, as important as they are to fix, will not help with the contest -- namely, because the same systemic problems will almost certainly be in play in any revote. What needs to be shown -- and clearly has been -- is unique instances of illegal voting, or voting irregularities, that can be avoided in the next vote.
The reason I question this is because of the military vote. We might agree that the 'disenfranchisement' here is something that 'does not matter' in court but....
there are reports of possible violations of meeting post office deadlines and there is the strange 'back dating' just recently observed.
If there is evidence that a deadline was in fact missed although published otherwise, then that should be material to the courts.
In short, if King County promised to meet a deadline for mailing out military ballots and reported that they had indeed met the deadline but instead had lied or otherwise obfuscated the actual mailing dates that were after the deadline, then this could amount to misconduct as well.
I'd be interested in your views on this.
I still think that, judges being human, may be extremely tempted to say that the disruption to the state from unseating a sitting governor outweighs the irregularities in this election. I hope I'm wrong.
What happens to Gregoire's appointments if she's ousted? Are her appointments considered null and void? Will the Democrats raise a stink if a Governor Rossi demands the resignations of Gregoire-installed politicos?
-PJ
The real issue of systemic problems is that you would have to have the state AG and the Washington State Patrol watch the vote counting like hawks to get an honest count out of King County.
Bump
Are her actions since the inauguration null and void? I don't know. The legislature spends its first week figuring out where the bathrooms are, and they won't have anything for Gregoire to sign until April at best. I suspect there is little mischief she and her pals in the legislature can do in that limited time.
placemarker
When staff became aware that a group of ballots were incorrectly categorized and rejected, we researched and corrected the error,
By utilizing a marker to designate voter intent?
Thanks for posting this informative blog. I'm not familiar with WA politics. Could you please tell me the political make up of the Washington State Supreme Court? Just a general left leaning or right leaning is fine.
to me, naming judges, and commissions, and regents, and the like is trying to button down more power......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.