Should there be a revote?

[CARLHAYDEN]

Yes for both and No for both... I think what we do for extremely close races over here (have a recount and if the result is still in dispute declare it annulled and hold a by-election) would have worked had it all been done in the first week.
But calling for a re-vote months after the initial election because you are losing after a second recount, and having called on you're opponent to concede after an earlier count when you'd led by a smaller margin than you're opponant, is extremely hypocrital.

Interesting.

North Carolina is having a revote (Agriculture Commissioner) because of possible voting errors in one county.

Washington is unlikely to hold a revote despite what to be charitable are massive, repeated errors in one county, and which I personally (and many others familiar with the situation believe) is simple, deliberate and willfrul fraud in one county.

[CARLHAYDEN]

No/No.

There is no reason for a revote.  No one has produced any real evidence of fraud in either case.

Uh, there is an attempt to investigate vote fraud in King county, but the public documents are being withheld by King county, with the excuse that they will be made available with 'all deliberate speed,' i.e. after the date set by law for a challenge to the results has come and gone.

Even if the stonewall is sucessful in that it results in the installation of Gregoire, I would like a thorough investigation.

I wonder if the rosters will be 'lost' and never 'found' by Logan and associates?

[CARLHAYDEN]

Some more information on the shennigans in the King county vote 'counting' farce:


From Stefan Sharkasky

My promised scoop that I broke on the Dori Monson Show: I found a specific case of ballotless voters. Three precincts that share a polling place in Issaquah [2602, 3464 and "Gilman"] where the total number of voting voters noticeably exceeds the number of ballots counted. Unlike some of the similar discrepancies I found with polling place ballots, this one can't be explained by adjusting with other precincts from the same polling location.

The only possible explanations that I can imagine: (1) A number of voters were erroneously recorded as having voted when they didn't vote. (2) ballots disappeared and weren't counted. (3) ballots were mixed up in the counting center and placed with other precincts. (4) The ballot counts are bogus. I suspect we'll never know the answer.

Either way, this is just another sign that we're facing an irreparable mess and the only solution is to throw out the election and have a revote.

[CARLHAYDEN]

I'd need something really solid before calling for revoting.  So far I'm seeing a whole lot of nothing.

It's a close election, but so what, that doesn't mean fraud.

Here's another example (numerous other examples have been posted in other threads on this forum)"

Anne M. Witte passed away in February 2004. Her obituary reports that Mrs. Witte lived in Sammamish with her husband Vernon E Witte, who survives her.

The King County voter database shows that Vernon E Witte and Anne M Witte of 248th Ave SE are the only people with that last name registered in Sammamish and that they both voted absentee in November.

I'm thoroughly disgusted by this. Ironically, Mrs. Witte's obituary describes her as an active Republican. Whoever cast her ballot should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The King County Elections office also has a lot to do to explain why a person who passed away nine months before the election is still being sent an absentee ballot.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Here's some more evidence:

GOP: Hundreds of ballots suspect

By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter

Two King County election workers, both Republicans, yesterday said they believe hundreds of provisional ballots were illegally fed through vote-counting machines on Election Day.

The special ballots are given to voters who show up at the wrong precinct on Election Day or whose registration is in question, and they are supposed to be set aside until the voter's status can be determined.

Election officials acknowledge that once provisional ballots were put through voting machines, it became impossible to separate legitimate from illegitimate ballots.

Joe O'Donnell, who worked on King County's 26-member canvassing crew after the Nov. 2 vote, said he learned of 150 to 300 instances in which provisional ballots went through counting machines at polling places.

O'Donnell said at a GOP news conference in Bellevue that he learned about most of those instances by calling polling-place inspectors to ask about discrepancies between poll books and the number of ballots counted.

"The most common response when I specifically, personally called these inspectors was, 'Oh, those ballots did go through the Accu-Vote by accident.' To me it seemed like an innocent mistake, but in a close election it makes all the difference," O'Donnell said.

The other Republican, Jim Clingan, who inspected a three-precinct polling place in the lobby of a downtown Seattle apartment building, said it appeared at the end of Election Day that 30 provisional ballots had gone through the counting machine there.

Clingan said he and four election judges had trouble keeping track of voters in The Josephinum on Second Avenue because many nonvoters walked through the lobby on their way to their rooms or an adjacent restaurant.

O'Donnell and Clingan were temporary county employees who had worked on past elections.

The provisional-ballot problems are the latest in King County's troubled vote count in the closest statewide race in Washington's history.

After Democrat Christine Gregoire won a second recount over Republican Dino Rossi by 129 votes, Republicans have been sifting through voting records trying to find evidence of irregularities and fraud to justify a new election.

GOP state Chairman Chris Vance said the party also is investigating reports that ballots were received in the names of dead people and felons and that some people voted more than once.

"Given this new revelation — that King County is admitting that hundreds, maybe many, many hundreds, of ballots were cast improperly in this election and were cast into the sea of ballots where we can't get them back — Christine Gregoire should join with Dino Rossi in asking the Legislature to call a new election," he said.

King County Elections Director Dean Logan, who cut short a business trip to Washington, D.C., to deal with the GOP accusations, said the provisional-ballot problem has been exaggerated. "It's absolutely true that we know there were places where provisional ballots were put through Accu-Votes. " Logan said.

Until workers figure out why 3,539 more votes were counted than the number of people listed as voting, Logan said, it won't be known how many provisional votes were improperly counted.

O'Donnell, one of the Republican election workers, did not say he personally witnessed provisional ballots put through voting machines, but he said 20 to 30 provisional-ballot envelopes came back empty because voters had mistakenly put their ballots through the machines. Inspectors at other polling places said they had torn up and discarded the ballot envelopes, O'Donnell said.

Jim Rigby, a Republican observer at the King County Administration Building, said Tuesday that he'd seen a voter walk into the building and put a ballot in the counting machine.

Election officials are attempting to figure out why records show more than 60 more votes cast than the number of poll voters at the administration building.

Logan criticized O'Donnell for speaking at the Republican news conference: "It's disappointing to me that someone who works in the [Records and Elections] Division would choose to address that issue in a partisan fashion."

---

What Logan meant is that when he steals an elections, he really dislikes it when someone blows the whistle on him.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Answer a simple question:

Where votes counted in King county that should NOT have been legally counted?

Does the number of votes equal or exceed the 'victory' margin of Gregoire?

[CARLHAYDEN]

The King county administration has already publicly admitted that votes were counted which were NOT verified.

The total number appears to well exceed 'victory' margin of Gregoire.

So, when both sides admit that votes which were counted which should NOT have been counted, what's the problem?

Yes, further specific evidence will be presented in court.

I suspect that the courts will not overturn the election even if they find that the number of votes counted which should not have been counted exceed the Gregoire victory margin.

However, state and federal charges may lie against against King county officials.

[CARLHAYDEN]

The King county administration has already publicly admitted that votes were counted which were NOT verified.

The total number appears to well exceed 'victory' margin of Gregoire.

So, when both sides admit that votes which were counted which should NOT have been counted, what's the problem?

Yes, further specific evidence will be presented in court.

I suspect that the courts will not overturn the election even if they find that the number of votes counted which should not have been counted exceed the Gregoire victory margin.

However, state and federal charges may lie against against King county officials.

Because something is "NOT verified" does not make it invalid.  They should have a list of the voters who went to the polls.  It is entirely possible that those votes were completely valid.

JJ

Perhaps you have NOT been followng the extensive details in my posts.

First, MORE votes were tallied in King county than persons shown to have voted, either by the precinct registers and/or the requests for absentee ballots.  Logan specifically admits to this.  He brags that there are at least 1,500 votes counted that he can never attribute to persons shown to have voted! 

Second, a number of specific absentee ballots have been shown to be fraudulent.  In one, the woman who supposedly voted had been dead for nine months at the time.  In another specific example, the same person voted twice, having listed the same mailing location on both requests (with one of the reistrations showing the 'residence' being the exact location of Dan Logan's department).

[CARLHAYDEN]

Here's another update in the King county vote fiasco.

Dead voted in governor's race
King County investigating 'ghost voter' cases

By PHUONG CAT LE AND MICHELLE NICOLOSI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS

At least eight people who died well before the November general election were credited with voting in King County, raising new questions about the integrity of the vote total in the narrow governor's race, a Seattle Post-Intelligencer review has found.
 
The evidence of votes from dead people is the latest example of flaws in an election already rocked by misplaced votes and allegations that there were thousands more votes counted than actual voters.

County officials say they are investigating the cases pointed out by the P-I. "These are not indications of fraud," said Bill Huennekens, King County's elections supervisor. "Fraud is a concerted effort to change an election."

The P-I review found eight people who died weeks before absentee ballots were mailed out, between Oct. 13 and 15, but were credited with voting in King County. Among them was an 81-year-old Seattle woman who died in August but is recorded as having voted at the polls.

The state is required by law to send monthly lists of the deceased to county auditors so they can purge those names from their voter rolls. But those lists are sent only every few months. That means thousands of deceased voters may have been sent absentee ballots.

"If we don't receive a notice that they're dead, then we have no way of taking them off the rolls," said Dean Logan, the county's elections director. Relatives of the deceased can and do cancel some registrations, he said.

Doris McFarland said she voted for her husband, Earl, who died Oct. 7.

"I called up the elections board and said, 'Can I do it because he wanted me to vote?' " the Duvall woman said. "The person ... said, 'Well, who would know?' I said, 'I don't want to do anything that is wrong.' "

Huennekens disputed that election workers would say such a thing.

McFarland said she signed her husband's name and mailed in his ballot, along with her own. She said she had power of attorney for her 92-year-old husband, who was blind.

"If I did something that wasn't right, you can just throw that ballot out," McFarland said last night.

Huennekens said one of the P-I's eight cases involved an administrative error that showed a deceased person as voting and would be corrected. In four cases, the signatures on the ballot matched. Huennekens said officials needed further information or could not track down enough information on the other cases.

Election officials said that if cases merit potential fraud, they would forward them on for prosecution.

King County keeps a voter list as a record of who voted in elections and to establish requirements for levies and bonds, Logan said.

The preliminary voter list shows that Mary Coffey mailed in a ballot. But the 51-year-old Seattle woman died about two weeks before absentee ballots were mailed.

"She couldn't have (voted). She died on Sept. 29," said her husband, Michael Coffey. He added that he voted by mail, but destroyed his wife's ballot when it arrived in the mail.

"I don't see how she could have voted. It doesn't make sense. There has to be some kind of error that happened."

Election officials were still looking into what happened in her case.

"Our system of allowing people to vote absentee and never checking anything is designed for voter convenience at the expense of security," said Chris Vance, chairman of the state Republican Party.

He said the GOP has found cases of dead people casting ballots, and it plans to challenge the race results.

Votes from the 2004 election have been heavily scrutinized . With Democrat Christine Gregoire set to take office on Wednesday, Republicans are searching for ways to contest the election and force a revote.

Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, said, "We're very satisfied with the results of this election. It's the most closely examined election in our state's history."

James M. Courneya of Auburn died three months before the election. But the King County voter list shows that he voted absentee.

"He couldn't have. He died Aug. 7," said his wife, Anna Courneya, who resides at the same address as her late husband. She said her husband didn't receive a ballot but she did. She voted absentee but the King County voters list doesn't register her vote, only his.

Huennekens said Anna Courneya voted using her husband's ballot, and because she didn't cast a separate one, that ballot was valid.

The state Health Department sends out lists of the deceased "every two to three months," not every month as the law states, said Jennifer Tebaldi, who helps oversee the department's vital statistics operation.

"We have an informal understanding with the counties that we send it when there's a bulk of information to send."

County auditors received lists of the deceased from the state three times last year -- on Jan. 28, May 5 and Nov. 1, a day before the election. Most of the names they received in May were of people who died in 2003, because of a lag of four to six months in collecting and sending data.

Secretary of State Sam Reed said a statewide voter database, expected in 2006, would improve the process.

He said he hasn't seen the problem of dead people voting occur in Washington. Voter fraud is a serious crime that may be punished with up to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine, he said.

"We do not expect people to sit down and vote a ballot just because it happens to arrive in their homes," Reed said. "Double-checks are in place."

Rosalie B. Simpson, 81, died of a massive heart attack Aug. 4, but voter rolls show she voted at the polls.

If a voter dies after having voted, it's still perfectly legal, Logan said.

Owen Skau of Federal Way made his choices before he died last October, said his wife, Maya.

"He filled it out," she said. "He always voted. ... He filled out his vote before he fell and had a heart attack. But he had it filled out. I went ahead and mailed it in."

[CARLHAYDEN]

First, should there be a revote?

Based on the information provided to date, the answer is yes.

Second, with respect to Sam Reed, he used to be Logan's boss, and was very friendly to him, but is begining to distance himself from Logan as more and more information becomes public.

[CARLHAYDEN]

First, due to the King county NOT following the law, the unverified ballots are not only unverified, but unverifiable.

Second, more specific lists of illegal votes are on their way.

Oh, and BTW, from the official King county website:

The county has stressed that it is still reconciling this list with its vote total in the governor's race. This list shows 895,660 votes counted, and there were 899,199 votes certified by the county in the governor's race. County officials are researching the difference of 3,539 as they work to reconcile computer records with poll books and other election records

[CARLHAYDEN]

You have shown that there are two invalid ballots; okay, show another 127 and I'll consider it.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Here's another specific example:

Here is another weird example

Julianne B. is listed in the Jan 7 file as living in Auburn and having first registered to vote in King County in 1962. She does not appear in any of the three prior voter files that I have. Property records show that she used to live at the Auburn address listed in her brand new registration record, but that she and her husband sold the place in 2000 and bought a home in Pierce County the same year. Julianne B. is shown to have cast an absentee ballot in King County this year.

[CARLHAYDEN]

First, due to the King county NOT following the law, the unverified ballots are not only unverified, but unverifiable.

Second, more specific lists of illegal votes are on their way.

Oh, and BTW, from the official King county website:

The county has stressed that it is still reconciling this list with its vote total in the governor's race. This list shows 895,660 votes counted, and there were 899,199 votes certified by the county in the governor's race. County officials are researching the difference of 3,539 as they work to reconcile computer records with poll books and other election records

The voters are potentially verifiable.  Let's see what happens after the reconcilliation.

On a second point, a revote is not permitted under the state constitution, from everything that I've heard.

With respect to the first point, the King county officials have admitted that many of the ballots are unverfiable!

With respect to the second point, while the constitution does NOT specifically provide for a revote, where sufficent irregularities are found, the Supreme Court has the right to order a revote.

[CARLHAYDEN]

First, the King county administration has admitted that ballots were counted which cannot be attributed to a source.

Second, the Supreme Court could order a revote under either state constitution of federal constitution provisions.

Re state constitution, see Article I, Section 1, and Article VI, sections 1 (residency) and section 3 (felons).

[CARLHAYDEN]

First, the King county administration has admitted that ballots were counted which cannot be attributed to a source.

Second, the Supreme Court could order a revote under either state constitution of federal constitution provisions.

CARLHAYDEN, here is what you said about 16 hours ago:

The county has stressed that it is still reconciling this list with its vote total in the governor's race. This list shows 895,660 votes counted, and there were 899,199 votes certified by the county in the governor's race. County officials are researching the difference of 3,539 as they work to reconcile computer records with poll books and other election records

They are by you own admission researching the difference.  Before anybody even suggests a problem, let's see if that reconcilliation takes place.

Second, there are no federal constitutional provisions for a re-vote.  In two cases, the Federal courts have invalidated an election based on fraud (Phila, State Senate and Miami, Mayor); they did not order a revote.  What are you using for your claim that they can.

First of all JJ, while the King county administration has stated that they are still researching the votes, they have also admitted that they expect that they will not be able to account for about 1,500 votes.

Second, read you own point two, and then contrast it with my previous post.  The contest is going to the Washington Supreme Court, where the plaintiffs can alledge violations of both federal and state law.  The difference between the cases you cited and the case in point is not only that it will be decided in a state court, but that legislative history since those cases has given the court a background for butressing a federal constitutional claim.

[CARLHAYDEN]

JJ, first let me state that I have access to information which I am presently honor bound not to divulge which will be crucial in this matter.  I hope I will be able to release this soon.

Second, you seem to misunderstand my previous statement vis a vis state authority for a revote.  I specifically listed provisions in the state constitution which can be used to invalidate the election.  While I did acknowledge that there is no article/section of the constitution entitled 'revote,' the court will have an interesting problem if it is shown that illegal votes were counted, which due to the counting method cannot be seperated from the count, which are in excess of the 'margin of victory.'  Will they simply acknowledge the fact and then say, 'the results stand'?  Given the provision of Article I, Section 1, I suspect they will invalidate the election and order a new election based on that provision.

Third, with respect to the federal constituional/statutory basis for challenge, again I am unable at this time to release that information, but I did give you a few hints.  I suspect that the state constitutional challenge will be sufficent and there is question as to whether to invoke the federal challenge (there are several clauses which apply here, among them 'equal protection').

[CARLHAYDEN]

While I waiting for permission to release the information to which I alluded, I thought you might be interested in the following opinion:

“Where appropriate, [the court’s powers] include the power to order a new election where no other remedy would adequately correct distortions in election results caused by fraud or neglect.” Foulkes v. Hays, 85 Wn.2d 629, 633 (1975).

[CARLHAYDEN]

Well, the problem is that King county comingled non-eligible votes with eligible votes such that the non-eligible votes cannot be simply removed from the votes.

If King county HAD followed the process set forth by the state then it would be possible to simply remove the non-eligible votes, have a revised count, and declare a winner.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Okay, you have demonstrated that a revote could be ordered in this case (and I'm assuming that this is a Washington case):

"Where appropriate, these necessary and proper powers would include the power to order a new election where no other remedy would adequately correct distortions in election results caused by fraud or neglect."

I'm not convinced that you are at the stage of "no other remedy."  I'm very skeptical of this.

A coule of brief excerpts from the Wall Street Journal:

In Washington state, the errors by election officials have been compared to the antics of Inspector Clouseau, only clumsier. At least 1,200 more votes were counted in Seattle's King County than the number of individual voters who can be accounted for.

More than 300 military personnel who were sent their absentee ballots too late to return them have signed affidavits saying they intended to vote for Mr. Rossi.

Some 1 out of 20 ballots in King County that officials felt were marked unclearly were "enhanced" with Wite-Out or pens so that some had their original markings obliterated.

Most disturbing is the revelation last week by King County officials that at least 348 unverified provisional ballots were fed directly into vote-counting machines. "Did it happen? Yes

[CARLHAYDEN]

Okay, you have demonstrated that a revote could be ordered in this case (and I'm assuming that this is a Washington case):

"Where appropriate, these necessary and proper powers would include the power to order a new election where no other remedy would adequately correct distortions in election results caused by fraud or neglect."

I'm not convinced that you are at the stage of "no other remedy."  I'm very skeptical of this.

A coule of brief excerpts from the Wall Street Journal:

In Washington state, the errors by election officials have been compared to the antics of Inspector Clouseau, only clumsier. At least 1,200 more votes were counted in Seattle's King County than the number of individual voters who can be accounted for.

More than 300 military personnel who were sent their absentee ballots too late to return them have signed affidavits saying they intended to vote for Mr. Rossi.

Not really an issue.  People who voted too late don't get their votes counted.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

What it all the "enhanced" show votes for Rossi?  You also might be able to verify the original votes.  It is possible to remove wite-out.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Can you determine if the voters that cast them were or were not legitimate votes.  If they were legal voters, this isn't an issue.  I'm not impressed.  You are still not showing either grounds for a revote or evidence that Rossi won.

With respect to the first point, federal law requires that military ballots be mailed out in a timely fashion.

All the other states were in compliance.  Washington was NOT.   

Second, altering ballots in prohibited by law!  Geez, I thought you knew that!

Third, since it impossible to prove who the persons where who supposedly cast the ballots, it is impossible to either verify whether they were eligible voters, much less how their vote was cast.  Elections officials have a positive duty under law to follow established procedures which are (in part) designed to prevent ineligible voters from casting ballots.  This is pretty elementary.

[CARLHAYDEN]

More information (from Sound Politics):

It's all slipping away from the King County elections department, and you read about it here first, thanks to ace Sound Politics data-miner Stefan Sharkansky. The latest crushing revelation of institutional incompetence is the admission, reported to newspaper readers here in today's Seattle Times, that the department's Friday Jan. 7 estimate of 1,217 more gubernatorial votes than voters in King County was about 600 shy of the revised figure. Even then, county Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens can only guess that the number of unnacounted for votes is "somewhere around 1,800."

Democrat Christine Gregoire's victory margin was 129 votes, and King County, of course, was where she "won" the election.

The "around 1,800" does not include the estimated 348 provisional ballots fed directly into the voting machines without inspection for legitimacy. That in itself is grounds for a new election.

What's really revealing to me in today's Times story is this (paraphrased by the paper) statement from Huennekens' boss, county Election Director Dean Logan:

...Logan, said Friday many of the unexplained ballots probably were cast by registered voters who failed to sign in when they went to polling places.
Or many of those (now 2,148 and counting) ballots were cast by people who were not legitimately registered, and we can't really know if they were now, can we? It seems we are at a real fork in the road here, Mr. Logan; Ms. Gregoire; and State Supreme Court justices.

We can keep making lame excuses for the failure of safeguards to ensure the legitimacy of this election, excuses for failures of the type that in the private sector would result in termination of those responsible.

Or we can have a new vote for Governor, with some basic, court-ordered (?) safeguards in place to prevent the sloppiness and unaccountability that plagued the Nov. 2 vote. In so doing, we start down the road to credibile, 21st Century elections in Washington State.

[CARLHAYDEN]

If this were true, then Dan Logan and his associates should be fired for incompetence.

However, the did NOT follow state procedures which would have prevented the problem.

Hmm.

I have posted previous a few specific examples of votes which were counted which should NOT have been counted.

I have been assured that a much larger list will be made public in a few days.

Also, if the number of votes in King county in excess of the persons who can be shown actually voted approximates the number of ballots 'found' after the initial count, this seems to me to be 'very interesting.'

[CARLHAYDEN]

And if everyone else agrees that votes well in excess of the 'margin of victory' for Gregoire cannot be acounted for to legally eligible voters, then what?