February 23, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Dvadtsat Dva
Part 22! Just for you!
It has been a while since I have put one of these up, so I figured that it is about time to do it again.
So far, nothing much has happened. Two rather uneventful stops in court have yielded, well, nothing much.
The Dems keep motioning that the case be thrown out and the judge keeps denying their motion. The Repubs keep stacking up potential evidence for the actual court date and the judge keeps reminding them that each piece had better be corroborated or he will throw it out.
Yawn.
The newst news bit is that the Repubs announced yesterday that they have found 1108 felons who voted across the state, with 884 in King County alone. Some of their earlier �felons who voted� lists have turned out to have been less than true, in one case, listing a rather non-felonious college professor who is listed quite plainly in the phone book.
So, we�ll see. I seriously doubt that they will be able to get any of the voting felons into court to offer up a mea culpa, and I know that they won�t be able to get 130 of them to admit that they voted for Gregoire.
But, as I understand it, that is not the standard. They should only need to come up with 260 verifiable felons who voted to show that without those votes, the election�s outcome is truly unknown.
Like I said, we�ll see. And I�ll let you know how that turns out.
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In other Washington State political news, Christine Gregoire has broken her first campaign promise!
Throughout the election, she had promised to make Washington State "a leader" in Stem Cell Research by using taxpayer funds to build a facility for the genetic scientists. She used the topic to beat Dino Rossi over the head with, saying that his religious views forbade him from even thinking about being that �forward looking�.
She now says that she doesn�t have the money for it.
Big Surprise There, Christine!
The state has been in the red for over half a decade now, thanks to our former Governor Gary �PhotoOp� Locke�s mismanagement. She was the #1 Legal Eagle in Washington state for over a decade.
I guess law school didn�t require any math skills.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 07, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Dvadtsat Odin
My apologies for being late with this, but nothing time sensitive really happened.
First up, in a loss for the Dems:
Judge refuses to dismiss lawsuit over governor's electionJudge John Bridges today refused several Democratic attempts to dismiss the governor's election lawsuit, saying allegations made in the case, if proven at trial, would be sufficient to overturn the election of Gov. Christine Gregoire.
Bridges also rejected Democratic arguments that any challenge of illegal votes by felons and others should have been made by Republicans before the election because they amount to problems with voter registration.
"This case should go forward, at least at this point," the Chelan County Superior Court judge said.
�SEVERAL� requests to dismiss the case from the Dems.
This can be visualized by picturing in your head a seven year old child stamping his feet and saying �I don�t want to go to the dentists!� over and over again.
And in a small loss for the Repubs:
But he ruled that Republicans must show any illegal votes were cast in favor of Gregoire, and not Republican candidate Dino Rossi.There would have to be enough illegal Gregoire votes to erase her 129-vote victory margin.
Bridges said that if Republicans did prove their case, he would not order a new election for governor as they want him to do. Rossi has said that was the only remedy he would accept.
Democrats had argued the judge didn't have that power, and Bridges agreed. He said state law and the state constitution do not give him the power to order a new vote, which he called "special relief."
It also gives the Repubs the ammunition. If they do prove their case, that there was fraud and that Rossi should have won, this will be ammunition to bring up often for the next three and a half years (or until Senator Maria Cantwell come up for re-election in 2006).
####################
In other lame news, the Gregoire camp waited until just after Judge Bridges ruled to release that Gregoire has received a credible death threat for a looney in the town of Wapato.
Very smooth. It took the lead in the overnight and morning news cycles. Very smooth indeed.
As Michele Maklin reported, Gregoire then went on to blame right wing talk radio for the guy getting up the steam to make the threat.
Sadly for Gregoire, Wapato is located quite close to Bum-Fuck-Egypt and is much too far away from any of the talk radio stations that she could be describing.
From Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer blog,
KVI and KTTH do not generally reach Yakima County except in certain atmospheric conditions that are only occasional. KIRO and KOMO do reach the area for most of the day, KIRO in particular. KVI has a very small 5000 watt signal, KIRO has 50,000 watts. As a result Yakima has its own local talk station that is almost entirely nationally syndicated programming.
KVI and KTTH are conservative stations; KIRO is liberal. KOMO is mostly news. It seems unlikely that Martelli spent much time listening to conservative Washington State talk radio hosts.
Ha! Greoire, The blogosphere fact checked your ass and has found that you are talking out of it.
As Usual.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:49 AM | Comments (1)
January 20, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Dvadtsat
Part 20: The Big Court Battle
Today, the Republicans get their day in court to present their evidence to try and prove that a re-vote is necessary to determine who should really be the Governor of Washington.
In Part 19 and Part 19.1 I covered the Repubs evidence.
Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges will be presiding today.
The local news losers have been quick to point out in their top of the hour news that Judge Bridges threw out a Mayoral race in the city of Wenatchee in 2000, when it was learned that the winner had not lived in the city for the time prescribed by law.
They have not been giving the story about hium throwing a recall effort against a Chelan County Public Utility District commissioner.
This story actually plays it pretty fairly.
Now, if you have never heard of Wenatchee, don't feel too bad. Although, if you read the label on your apple, you'd be better educated.
I thought I was all set for the 'Big Washington Race Being Decided By Rednecks' news stories, but this one still pissed me off.
Small town judge to decide fate of governor's election
As condescending as the AP can be via the San Francisco Chronical.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Devyatnadtsat n Dva
Just an addition to yesterday's post, here are the specifics on the Repubs case that is set for tomorrow.
In a filing in Chelan County Superior Court, the GOP said preliminary comparisons of a statewide voter file obtained Saturday from the Secretary of State's Office and other databases showed:
*437 provisional ballots were counted without first being verified.
*37 felons who have not had the right to vote restored voted in the election.
*9 dead people were credited with voting.
*20 people in Washington who also voted in another state.
*10 people voted twice
That totals 513 out-of-bounds votes. Nearly four times more than the 129 vote spread. Let's all hope for the best.
In more Ohio News, it seems that not only did John F'ing Kerry spit in the face of Martin Luther King Jr on his special day, he also seems to have told a fib.
Voting Machines Busiest in the Suburbs
Hit the link and check out the map found at DANEgerous.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Devyatnadtsat n Odin
Part 19.1
Just to keep you all on the up and up, here is a link to an article that talks about this Thursday's upcoming court case I spoke about yesterday.
Putting aside the other two motions they filed for, this appears to be the Dems main thrust,
The state Democratic Party is asking a Chelan County judge to limit Republicans� ability to collect certain information.
That is quite an odd request, don't you think? What exactly do they want to hide from the (R)s?
Whatever it is, i'd like to see it.
In other election news, Michelle Malkin has an update about the goings on in Wisconsin, where they had a Guiness Book of World Records number of unverifiable Same-Day Voter Registrations.
Rep. Stone today received a call from the Election Commission. They actually had 73,000 same day votes cast. 10,000 voter registration cards could not be sent because they have no addresses or incomplete or inadequate information. Using the same one third return rate that means in Milwaukee alone more than 25,000 illegal votes were cast. You can expect that the cities of Racine, Kenosha and Madison to have similar results.
By the way George Bush lost Wisconsin by 12,000 votes.
She also links to Dirty Harry of Stranded on Blue Islands Blog who says,
"Milwaukee's population is around 600,000. Of voting age: 430,000. According to election officials 83,000 people same-day-registered to vote. That's 20% of eligible voters. I can't find statistics to compare that number to prior elections but it sounds high. (If someone has the numbers, please forward.)
"In 2000 Al Gore won Milwaukee by 22 points. Kerry won by 35! That contradicts a lot of trends -- even Wisconsin ones."
Like the Dems always say 'Count ANY Vote!'
Posted by Nukevet at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Devyatnadtsat
Sorry for the late update, but things have happened to make this story a bit of a slug, both personally and news wise.
The Repub court case that was supposed to take place on last Friday the 14th was postponed. You may remember that I wrote about the Dems joining the Secretary of States side in the case with the Repubs approval. That is turning out to have been a HUGE MISTAKE on the part of the (R)s.
The Dems immediately filed a number of motions; one to slow down the 'discovery' portion of the case, one to ask that the presiding judge be removed and one questioning Chelan County's jurisdiction.
These have served to push the hearing back to this Thursday the 20th (aka Bush's Inaugural) where these issues will be decided.
REMEMBER, the Repubs only have 10 days after the inauguration (this Saturday) to challenge the validity of the election and legally get it thrown out. After that, it would take the making of new law for anything like that to happen.
Fat chance of the Washington State Supreme Court doing anything like that.
Once again, it appears that the Repubs in Washington stepped on their own peckers in a feeble attempt to get things set right. Now, they had better start praying for heavenly intervention on this baby or they can kiss their hopes of getting Gregoire ousted goodbye.
If they CAN actually prove malfeasance, fraud or incompetence, but a judge refuses to order a new Gubernatorial contest or the decision date comes down after the 22nd, they don't have many friends in the media around these parts to help them win in the court of public opinion to request a new election. And with the whining and the shodding playing of the media they have been doing for the last few weeks, I can guarantee you that, while they may have swung some (D)s to their side, they pissed away some damn good (R) support.
So, here you go. This is Gregoire's Inaugural speech. I know I promised to fisk it since it IS just a long list of sound bites, but she included items about her mom and a number of family friends (some of whom are dead) who are probably decent people . I just didn't have the heart to sling some of my usual abuses at total strangers and non-public figures on my birthday weekend. Sorry.
If anything interesting pops up between now and Thurday, I'll let you know.
Otherwise, just think of this election as one that the Dems stole in the face of Republican ineptitude.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:55 AM | Comments (1)
January 12, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Vosemnadtsat
As a convenience, I have catalogued all the posts on this topic to their own category, appropriately titled "Count ANY Vote". Just scroll down a bit and look on the right hand margin for the list of categories.
And here we go....
As you may have heard, some of the Rossi supporters had a rally in support of a "Re-Vote" on the lawn in front of the capitol building yesterday.
1800 or so Rossi supporters showed up.
(Found @ The Right Society. More pics there.)
Flanked by around 200 anti-Rossi folks.
(Found @ Sound Politics. More pics there.)
(I don't think the guy in the pic would know fascism if it clubbed him over the head and hauled him off to be interviewed by the SS)
Ms. SondraK was there too and has her own pics of the event (here and here)
Other than one Dem stepping out of the Animal Farm pen, Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, it was a straight partisian adventure in politics.
Some local left aren't happy with Senator Sheldon right now. I hope their plan to 'Shun Sheldon' works against them and he hops the fence in the next couple years.
In other election news, the Repubs case of strange voting happenings will be heard this Friday in Chelan County, arguably the most conservative county in the state. Here's hoping they get somewhere.
They have to get this right because Gregoire gets inaugurated today. They have ten days after today to get this heard in front of a judge who could throw out the election. Yesterday, the Dems added their names to the Secretary of State Sam Reed's countersuit in Chelan County, so if a judge does order this, you can guarantee it is going to the state Supreme Court.
Contrary to what has been floating around, there is precedent for tossing out the election results and ordering a re-vote.
I was listening to local talk radio, KIRO 710, on either Tony Ventrella's or Mike Webb's show and heard the Washington State Elections Director, Nick Handy, talk about a case of a re-vote being ordered in an Adams County local election in either 1975 or 1977. Hopefully, that will get taken into account by the justices.
UPDATE: Found a link for the Adams County story. It only took fraud allegations there.
Also yesterday, King County Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens had to admit that his office had screwed up the vote-to-voter reconciliation numbers YET AGAIN when they reported supposedly corrected number to the media.
The number still stands at around 1800 more votes than voters. But don't worry, give King County enough time and they'll find those folks (in the local cemetary and/or the homeless shelters, probably).
And of course, the Dems are playing this all off like the past 9 weeks haven't happened.
Gregoire on CNN:
"Well, under Washington law, we're at the end. The manual recount was all that our law provides. It doesn't provide for a new election and, in fact, I have no indication whatsoever that our election officials in this state did anything wrong to the contrary. They were the best of professionalism and did their jobs well, so, I'm confident they did their job and the count is over and I will be inaugurated tomorrow."
"In the end, after the manual recount under Washington law, the race is over, it's been certified and now it's time for us to move on as a state and address the very many and difficult issues that are facing our citizens"
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown:
'It's time to move forward. Jobless people are struggling to pay their mortgages, students are trying to find spots in the state's colleges, and children are losing health coverage. Those problems can't wait.'
**************************
In Part Semnadtsat I told you about how the Dems are already thinking about new taxes to push onto the already overtaxed citizens of Washington. It turns out that that is not all they're looking to do.
It seems as though they think that since they now have both houses of the Legislature and the Governor's desk (and, effectively the Supreme Court) that they should pay off some of those hard left wing special interest groups.
And some of the local left seem to agree.
Maybe, just maybe, they'll correct their rectal-cranial impaction problems and see what happened the last time they bowed to enviro-wackos and anti-business looneys.
But I doubt it.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Semnadtsat
Alternate Title: The Never Ending Story
Today is the day that the Washington State Republicans are rumored to be filing their lawsuit contesting the certification of Democrat Christine Gregoire as Governor.
The Republican court challenge to Christine Gregoire's election as governor, expected to be filed today, will center on mishandled provisional ballots in King County and lingering questions about why the county shows more votes counted than people voting on Nov. 2.
The lawsuit also will likely include allegations of votes by dead people and felons, and multiple votes by the same voter. But those issues, while garnering much attention among Rossi supporters in recent days, will be secondary.
And we'll see how this goes. If there are any developments or decisions handed down today, I should be able to get them to you this afternoon after I wake up for work.
In other legal developments, two citizens beat the Repubs to the punch, filing seperate, and somewhat odd suits yesterday with the state Supreme Court.
Daniel P. Stevens of Fall City sent the court a one-page notice saying he was contesting the election because the margin of victory is within the election's margin of error, "to the point that error must be assumed as a certainty."
Arthur Coday Jr. of Shoreline filed an 11-page brief arguing that the hand recount was fatally flawed for several reasons and asking the high court to inaugurate Rossi as governor.
While the article doesn't come out and say it, Mr Coday's suit alleges that the state should not take money from political parties to do recounts, due to its nature of coming from special interest groups.
Neither of these men are aligned, in any way that can be seen, with the Republican Party of either King County (where they both live) or with the State of Washington.
Mr. Stevens filed the $250 necessary for filing the lawsuit and gave press interviews yesterday evening. Mr. Corday did neither of those things and since the state hasn't received his money, his suit is not yet official.
State GOP Chairman, Chris Vance, said that the two filings prove there's grass-roots support for a new governor's election.
Hopefully, neither of these two suits will get in the way of the official Republican suit.
From Sound Politics comes the revalation that two registered sex offenders voted in King County.
Remember, most sex offenders are felons and are not allowed to vote unless their voting rights have been reinstated. While Sharkansky does not release the offender's names, he can find no evidence that said rights have, in fact, been reinstated.
You may also remember from last week that there were approximately 8500 more votes than registered voters. Well, just over 3500 of the were in King County alone.
Last week, when this allegation was brought to light, King County Election Director Dean Logan said that a full, updated list is expected to be complete by the end of next week.
Today is that end of that week and the 3500 vote gap is still present.
Soooo, Logan now says that all election numbers are historically mismatching and that there is nothing odd about this discrepancy.
Sadly for Mr. logan, with a 129 vote difference, playing government style horeshoes and handgrenades with vote tallys is not acceptable.
Hopefully, the state Supreme Court will follow this line of logic as well.
And now is the time we need good, solid and NEW governance.
Gregoire has not even been sworn in and the Dems are already talking NEW TAXES.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Shestnadtsat n Dva
Yesterday, in Part 16.1, I told you about David Neiwert's tale of events on the Washington State Gubernatoria Election and said I would bring it here for a fisking.
I have done just that.
Since I have not yet mastered Textile, his words will be in italics while mine will be in bold.
I have included the links relevant to Mr. Neiwert's post. Those I have not included can be found in his post, the link to which is below the fold.
Replaying Florida in Washington By David Neiwert
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
I don't know how many of you have been following the mini-drama regarding the governor's race up here in Washington state, but it's worth noting if only because of certain national implications contained therein. I have been tracking it while busily not posting here the past few weeks.
Christine Gregoire was not my first choice for the governorship, but then, Democrats failed to nominate anyone who was. Gregoire emerged as the winner in a mediocre field, and so it didn't surprise me when she ran a tepid, uninspiring campaign. In fact, it was awful. As it also happened, a good friend of mine worked for Gregoire's office for several years, and over the years he had provided me with a less than flattering view of her judgment and competence.
A link to where you posted these thoughts and feelings would be nice Mr. Neiwert. I would hate you to think I'm going to take you at your word on this.
The only problem was that her opposition, Dino Rossi, was a real potential nightmare. A wholly owned subsidiary of the Building Industry Association of Washington, Rossi was big battering ram aimed right at the state's environmental protection laws.
Proof?
He also was something of a stealth candidate for the religious right, which he masked with an affable public image.
I'm sure that anyone with an R after their name is a 'stealth candidate for the religious right' to you, Mr. Neiwert. How about some of that proof I asked about earlier?
There are also some latent issues regarding Rossi's personal ethics.
Three strikes and you're out, bubba. Three accusations made without one shred of evidence. You do know that this is the 'internet', right? There are these neat things called 'links' available. But I guess that your out of state sycophants, oops, I mean 'readers' won't know the difference.
So I held my nose and voted for Gregoire. (My friend did not; he simply left the governor's race blank.) But I wasn't surprised when the initial returns showed Gregoire losing by 261 votes -- in a year when Patty Murray and John Kerry won handily at the polls statewide. In other words, a lot of people voted for Kerry, Murray ... and Rossi.
Since there were some 2.9 million votes cast, the narrow margin triggered an automatic machine recount, which further trimmed Rossi's margin to a mere 42 votes.
Don't forget to say that the first recount's final figure was helped tremendously by a very helpful King County Superior Court judge who said it was OK to 'enhance' ballots that the machines kicked out as undervotes in the first count.
At that point, Gregoire's last chance lay in filing for a manual recount, requiring a $730,000 up-front deposit on the part of Democrats. For awhile, no one was sure whether Democrats were even going to come up with the money for it.
Yeah, right! Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew that a national party that had outspent the Republicans for the Presidential race was going to cough up the cash. It was the last chance for the party to show that they could still win something other than a Senate race against a moron (I speak of the Obama/Keyes contest).
At this point, Republicans went into their classic bullying mode, a la Florida 2000: Rossi won the first two counts. Why take it to court? Radio talk-show host John Carlson, the GOP's 2000 gubernatorial nominee, advised Gregoire to "concede already," based on his experience. There was, however, ahem, a minor difference of several hundred thousand votes in Carlson's case.
Carlson is a Hannity wannabe and we both know it, Neiwert. You might as well say it.
Indeed, with a difference of 42, it would have been be foolish not to file for a manual recount. It was, after all, the third and final step allowed by Washington law when it came to counting votes in this state's election. But the GOP went all-out to make it seem Gregoire was being outrageously partisan if she did file.
Well then, if they went all out, surely you could provide a link to some of their 'all outedness'.
Oh wait, you didn't. Does that mean you can't and are just talking out your ass?
Must be.
Predictably, when Gregoire finally decided to seek a manual recount, the Republicans were all aflutter, largely because Democrats simultaneously sued to have some disallowed ballots reconsidered:
"I have faith in you, the voters of Washington," Rossi said. "Unfortunately, Christine Gregoire has faith in lawyers."
Other Republican leaders were furious.
"It's outrageous," said state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance. "The Democrats are flat out trying to steal this election by changing the rules."
Very good, Mr. Neiwert. You were able to read throguh a single article in the Seattle PI and accurately transcribe two quotes from it. That is a first for you so far today!
Let's be clear: At every step of the process, the Democrats followed the letter of Washington law.
Bullshit! Because at this point in the game, the Dems "Count Every Vote" rallying cry turned into 'Count ANY Vote'.
The two quotes you put above are not about the actual manual recount, as you would have your sycphants who decide not to follow the link assume, they are about getting an entirely new batch of provisional ballots that had not been included in either of the first two counts put on the table to be counted.
You cannot have a 'recount' of ballots that had not been previously counted. And do not forget that it was the Dems who went to court to have these ballots counted.
That is what the quotes above pertained to and that is where the Dems deviated from the letter of Washington Law. Hence my 'bullshit' charge. It was not the letter of the law until the courts made it so.
The state's election statutes are very clear that there are three potential counts of the vote: If, after the general-election tally, a race remains within 1 percent of the total vote, a machine recount occurs automatically. If, after that count, one of the candidates requests it, a manual recount of all ballots occurs. The candidate, however, has to put up a deposit for the costs of the recount, which is reimbursed if the challenge is successful.
Those are the rules. And the most important one is this: Whoever comes out ahead in the final, manual tally is the winner. Period.
And, indeed, Gregoire promised to accept the outcome of the manual recount, even if Rossi won by only a single vote. Rossi, however, refused to match her pledge. That, of course, was the giveaway to what followed.
The GOP's outrageous tactics -- essentially trying to game the system by short-circuiting the legitimate outcome of the established process through a public-relations campaign waged largely over the right-wing talk airwaves -- made it absolutely essential to get behind Gregoire's recount.
I guess you'll be listing those "right-wing talk airwaves" as your pitiful excuse as to why you have absolutely NO PROOF of the vast majority of your allegations, right?
The principles at stake, particularly regarding respect for the process and the final count, as well as of the right of citizens to have their legally cast votes be counted,
Unless they're military absentee ballots, right? I don't quite remember the Dems fighting for those to get counted. Hell, they didn't even make mention of them.
were the same ones that had been disregarded so easily four years before in Florida.
Florida? Hmm, you might not want to bring this up again, but I'm sure you will.
Had the legal process in Florida been allowed to proceed without interference from the federal courts, it's clear it would have produced the only equitable solution: a manual statewide recount of all legal votes. And as we now know, that in turn would have produced a different outcome than what the nation got namely, an illegitimate president appointed to his seat by a partisan judiciary, a violation of the vote-counting foundations of democracy itself, as well as of the separation-of-powers doctrine that makes the Constitution function.
Oh, then I'm sure that you should be able to provide some kind of proof of this then, o ye of high moral standards for Democracy!
What? You mean I am just supposed to trust you on this after every single major newspaper of good repute on the east coast did their own exhaustive research and count into this and came up with GWB as the winner?
Phsaw!
The GOP prevailed in Florida by short-circuiting the legal vote-counting process through a combination of mendacity and bullying, all of it designed to stop legally cast ballots from being counted.
Just out of protocal, I'll ask again, Got Any Proof?
Didn't think so.
The tendency to obtain and maintain power by undermining the tenets of democracy itself, as we've noted previously, have only continued unabated since.
I've read through your link, Mr. Neiwert, and other than partisan allegations of Republican hankey pankey in a bunch of states, the majority of which were won by Kerry, I don't see a whole lot on the topic of 'subversion of democracy'.
Washington Republicans pretty early on resurrected the phony memes of the Florida debacle, particularly those that favored maintaining the original vote outcome giving Rossi the slender victory. This included the outrageous claim that machine recounts are "more accurate" than hand recounts, which turns all established precedents regarding vote counts on its head.
And of course, you have proof that the counting of ballots by partisans are more accurate than the counting of ballots by a machine that is, by admissions from people on both sides of this issue, compeletly impartial.
Oh, you don't. Why do I even bother asking?
The anti-democratic nature of the party, though, really came to the surface when election officials in King County -- home to more than a third of the state's entire votes -- announced the discovery of several hundred ballots that had been improperly disallowed in the first count.
Correction, first TWO counts. But the Dems made up for it by getting a judge to allow ballots that had been 'enhanced'.
Now, this is the kind of clear mistake that manual recounts are intended to correct, and ordinarily it would be considered uncontroversial for them to be included in the recounts. Indeed, similar mistakes were uncovered in other counties and the votes, logically, counted.
First, it was not a "mistake", it was pure incompetence by the King County Election Board that had been notified in April that their signature files were not up to date.
Second, the only reason these votes were even brought up the third time is because the Dems thought they might need them. They had ignored them in the first TWO counts was because they had incorrectly figured that their 2-1 majority in the KCEB would see them through.
But alas, they still lost by 42 the second time around.
The Dems knew about these votes the entire time. It was not as if they were discovered on Dec. 4th. Well, not MOST of them.
But King County was one of the few places where the votes trended Gregoire's way, so Republicans -- playing the same kind of cherry-picking tactics they had earlier accused Democrats of using -- decided to contest the counting of those ballots in that county only, by filing a suit to prevent it. So much for having faith in the voters, not lawyers.
Ahh, but the Dems brought out their lawyers first in order to get them put into the pile.
Fighting fire with fire, as they say.
What was especially noteworthy was that all of the discoveries of mistakes in King County were mistakes that heavily favored Rossi. That is, what they actually signalled was the possibility that Republican operatives within the elections office had made "mistakes" that gave Rossi an illegitimate win and let him claim an initial victory. But using the reverse offense tactics that became famous in Florida, Republicans took to the airwaves charging that the discovery of these mistakes could only be explained by fraud or incompetence on the part of Democrats.
And what exactly were the "mistakes that heavily favored Rossi" that you speak of? Again, you say something that is completely incomprehensible to anyone with their own mind and provide nothing with which to back it up.
This is getting very tiring, Mr. Neiwert.
Chairman Vance (our state's own Karl Rove in miniature) inveighed at length against counting the King Coiunty votes (which eventually tallied some 735 ballots) by impugning the integrity of the elections office: "At this point it is impossible for us to determine whether they are colossally incompetent or completely corrupt," he said.
At this time, on this issue, I'm siding on incompetence.
Eventually, the state Supreme Court ruled in Gregoire's favor, saying unanimously that the votes should be counted. A reading of the ruling itself makes clear that it is based on well established precedent in Washington law, dating back to a key 1926 ruling.
Nonetheless, Chairman Vance declared: "Throughout this process we've objected whenever someone tried to change the rules. The Supreme Court just changed the rules. Now we will aggressively fight by those new rules."
Sure enough, it was only a brief matter of time before the Rossi camp -- you know, the folks who previously attacked their opponents for trying to change the rules after the fact -- announced that they wanted another election -- at taxpayer expense, of course.
I notice that you have not yet chided the Dems for demanding the refund of their $730K. Granted it is law that they can have it back, but there is nothing that says they cannot let the state have in order to not dump the cost of the third recount (current total cost is estimated to be upwards of $1.3mil).
Best of all was their rationale:
"I would not want to enter my governorship with so many people viewing my governorship as illegitimate," Rossi said, reading from a letter sent to Gregoire last night.
Gosh, we certainly can't have people taking higher office in America when some portion of the populace believes the election to be illegitimate. Heavens no.
Sore feelings will get you nowhere, Mr Neiwert.
Nevermind, of course, that both on the week of his inauguration and a poll taken just before his election, over 40 percent of Americans believed that George W. Bush had not been legitimately elected.
I wonder if that could have been started by a left wing campaign of disinformation, just as you accuse those on the right of doing here in Washington state.
Of course, you'll deny that to the grave, right, Mr. Neiwert?
Washington can do better -- right, Dino? We just need to tap another $4 million out of the state budget so the voters can send you packing by another 120 votes. Indeed, all Gregoire needed to win, according to the rules, was the 10-vote margin the hand recount, independent of the additional King County votes, gave her.
Now it's Rossi who wants to change the rules.
As political-science professor Erik Olsen told the Seattle P-I:
Asked what advantages or pitfalls might await Rossi should he refuse to concede, Olsen said, "There is something to be said in a democratic political culture for being gracious when you lose -- but I would not second-guess him if he has some legitimate legal challenges."
However, Olsen said there is a danger that Rossi could be seen as a sore loser.
"There is a real risk for Dino Rossi if he contests this election too much -- that he's excessively partisan, excessively ambitious and that he doesn't respect the process," Olsen said.
Er, too late.
We'd already been exposed to Rossi's, shall we say, less-than-circumspect style. As the Seattle Times reported, "Rossi had been using the title 'governor-elect,' and his family even toured the Governor's Mansion."
And you point this out because why, Mr. Neiwert? It was his right to do so having been declared and certified as 'Governor-Elect' for almost a month.
Or would you have any governor-elect shot on sight if they step foot on the masions grounds before their actual swearing in?
The demand for a new election only cemented the impression. Rossi, like the rest of the Republican Party, is a power-grabber.
And, of course, this 'impression' has never been shown to come out in Dems? I think thou doth prtest too much.
The party's Stalinist side has been coming out since then. Anyone who fails to toe the party line on the election outcome -- which is, that Gregoire is an "illegitimate" governor and that there exists "massive" evidence of fraud -- is nastily and vociferously attacked.
Umm Dave, Stalin never "vociferously attacked" anyone. He just had them shot. Maybe you need to go back and hit the history books?
This includes even Sam Reed, the Republican Secretary of State, who chose to follow his legal and constitutional duty and certify Gregoire as the governor-elect:
Now Reed believes the anger toward him is driven by a feeling he hasn't been Republican enough. For example, some think he should have backed the party's call for county auditors to reopen their tallies in hopes of getting more Rossi votes counted.
"There are people who think I should be using the position of secretary of state simply to weigh the scales on the side of my own party. I just don't accept that, and it would not be proper," he said.
"There are some people who have been dismayed that I wasn't a Katherine Harris who took the position, 'I'm a Republican, and by God that comes first.' "
Of course, Mr. Reed could be talking about blowhards like Carlson, as he doesn't specifically come out and mention anyone by name.
Which is what you need him to do in order for your implications that this behavior is being done by Vance or Rossi to be true.
But go ahead and continue to make baseless accusations. It seems to be all you have so far.
It's clear that the difference between Florida and Washington is that we had the good fortune of having elected a secretary of state with genuine integrity, instead of someone willing to game the system for partisan gain.
halfheartedly spoken/ Proof?
Now the GOP is moving toward contesting the election, which can only take place on such grounds as "misconduct on the part of election workers; the ineligibility of a candidate to hold office; or the casting of illegal votes."
So far, there has emerged no credible evidence of any actual misconduct by any specific election workers, nor of a substantively organized effort to cast illegal votes. Stefan Sharkansky -- who seems to have worked himself into believing that Gregoire's imminent ascension to the governorship is actually the "tipping point" that will bring about her downfall (... er, okaaay ...) -- has been busily compiling evidence of "phantom votes" and the like, most of which involve mathematical anomalies not very dissimilar to those raised by Kerry supporters in Ohio, and none of which rise to the level of holding up in court as a challenge to the election.
One, that last sentence is entirely YOUR OPINION. Your total amount of time spent on a judges bench is exactly how much, Mr. Neiwert?
Two, if the Ohio Kerry supporters could find them in numbers that would overturn the 100,000+ vote difference in Ohio, maybe someone who mattered would listen to them. However, with the difference here being only 129 votes, the Repubs actually have the possibility.
But then again, only Democrats would fault a man for trying.
The chief piece of evidence raised so far is a discrepancy of 3,500 votes in the final King County tabulations; tallies showed that many more votes than people who had actually signed in to vote. But, as always, the GOP was jumping the gun, comparing preliminary tabulations to the finished tallies, which will not be complete for another week and a half.
The GOP went hunting for more of these discrepancies, and today announced it had found more of them in counties that went for Gregoire. In all, it found some 8,500 "phantom votes." But as the story points out, these kinds of discrepancies are extremely common in all elections -- in fact, they're endemic, and will increase the greater the volumes of voters. The 2004 election tallied more votes than any in the history of the state.
So I guess that we will never know if every vote counted under the Dems "Count Every Vote" slogan was actually a legitimate vote.
Unless, OH SNAP, someone looks into it.
Which is exactly what the Repubs are doing! And, of course, Dems and other partisans like yourself don't want them to do.
Moreover, what the story doesn't point out is that the GOP did not seem to look for "phantom votes" in Rossi counties -- even though there is a statistical certainty that they will appear there as well.
And that omission in the story is proof of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy at the Seattle PI!
If the reconciled numbers still reveal a substantial number of "phantom" votes -- greater than, say 1/10 of 1 percent of the final vote -- then there might be cause for concern about the presence of systematic fraud in the election.
"Might be cause for concern"? You have much too much faith in government, Mr. Neiwert. But then again, you would.
Unless of course there is a Republican in charge! Then, there must be a full investigation to see if anyone got away with a 'one cheek sneak' in the committee room!
However, at best this anomaly would be cause for investigation only; it would not of itself serve as evidence of actual fraud on the part of election workers or voters. So far, the GOP has only been able to serve up speculation and not evidence.
After only two weeks with 900,000 voters, I'd say speculation means they're onto something.
In an op-ed in the P-I today by Republican mouthpiece David E. Johnson, we get a classic demonstration of conservative projection: It's Democrats who are taking the election to the courts and trying to litigate the outcome, not Republicans. That legally permitted step that Gregoire took in filing for the manual recount was, you see, a kind of litigation, not the normative political step that Rossi would gladly have taken as well were their roles reversed.
Besides accusing Democrats of employing the very tactic they themselves apparently intend to deploy -- that is, of contesting the election through the courts -- Johnson's piece also contains the obligatory egregious distortions, notably:
The third, a manual recount with dubious ballots suddenly discovered in heavily Democratic King County that were not counted previously gave her the election.
There was nothing "dubious" about the King County ballots; they were legally cast, and improperly discarded the first time around. If anything needs investigating on that count, it is the circumstances under which they were originally disallowed. More to the point: They proved to be moot, since the manual recount gave Gregoire the victory even without those ballots; they only increased her victory margin.
Johnson also asks:
Does anyone believe if Rossi had won the manual recount, the Democrats would be willing to concede the election?
Er, well, yes. Gregoire repeatedly said she would accept the outcome of the manual recount. There is no reason to believe she would go back on that word, unless Johnson can prove otherwise. And it was Rossi who refused to join her in that promise. Just who has respect for the voters' will here?
We'll see how the indications of fraud turn out, Mr. Neiwert.
If it does come to light that there was fraud, will Gregoire join Rossi in the call for a new election, stating that she does not want the office she has won due to illegally cast votes?
First off, I seriously doubt she would join Rossi.
Second, I seriously doubt you would be as rabid in jumping on her if she refuses to.
Just a hunch.
It's important to remember that, as George Howland in the Seattle Weekly points out, Republicans lost because they put all their efforts into playing a PR game in which they hoped to bully the Democrats into submission as they did in Florida. That was, of course, the larger purpose of Rossi's premature assumption of the governor-elect's title and the calls for Gregoire to concede. Meanwhile, Democrats went out and used the legal process, as it's designed to be used, to their advantage to scare up additional votes.
"Scare up additional votes"? Are you implying that dead people voted for the Dems?
It surely wouldn't be the first time.
The Republicans failed because of incompetence, pure and simple, and now they're counting on clubbing Gregoire with the "illegitimate" label for the next four years. The irony is delicious. The hypocrisy, though, is what we've come to expect.
You, Mr. Neiwert, are not without hypocrisy yourself.
You expect the Washington state Republicans, specifically, and Rossi voters in general (almost exactly half of the voters in the 2004 Washington state election, remember) to forget about the mistakes and possible fraud/malfeasance in the states Gubernatorial election.
All the while, you bitch and moan and cry an wail and gnash your little teeth over what happened in Florida FOUR YEARS AGO!
Mr. Neiwert, I should not have expected better of you, but for some reason, I did.
I won't make the same mistake twice.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)
Count ANY Vote: Part Shestnadtsat n Tri
Part 16.3
Karyn Quinlan volunteered to count ballots in the hand recounting of the ballots in King County. She is a Green, but signed up through the Dems (big surprise!). She tells her story of the count here.
The best part is near the end though,
On this last day, I learned something that confounded my notion of what had been going on in the GOP Lounge. That morning I was surprised to see that the Sean Hannity look-alike had also been selected by his party for the final day. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been. After all, I knew he was a GOP party faithful. He was a precinct officer for his Eastside district and worked on the Rossi campaign. Seeing him for the first time in the nonpartisan break room that morning, I decided to seize the opportunity to ask, "How come I see you going in and out of the GOP Lounge at breaks and lunch?" It was a good question, since counters and observers were explicitly instructed not to talk to one another, and the observer rooms on both sides�Democrat and Republican�were supposedly off-limits to ballot counters. But I had personally witnessed several other ballot counters, Ben among them, disappearing inside the GOP Lounge, some even emerging with doughnuts and other tasty contraband. The answer the Sean Hannity look-alike gave me came as a shock.
It was for prayer time, he said barely above a whisper. I had to ask the other people standing with us�one other Democratic ballot counter and two Republican ballot counters�to confirm what he said. This was something I had never considered. That a political party interested in the results of an election would conduct daily prayers, formally or informally, inside an office building in which the express purpose is to conduct civic business left me speechless. Apparently, because they had paid for the space, they felt entitled to do whatever they wanted�or, more precisely, whatever they could get away with. The revelation that prayers were being conducted in the GOP Lounge, together with the fact that the Republican candidate for governor once said he thought creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools, gave me a chilling new understanding of the phrase "party faithful." What I had thought was a contest for governor turned out to be more like a religious war.
What a twit.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Shestnadtsat n Odin
Translation: Part 16.1
I just want to add this to what I wrote yesterday.
It seems that the Repubs are having a handwriting expert take a look at the signatures on a few selected ballots from King County.
OK, more than just a few.
While preliminary reports say that the expert found over 300 ballots that looked to be signed by the same person, those reports have turned out to be false.
But, according to sources inside the party, they have compared the names of people who voted on Nov. 2 with a list of known felons and have found a "substantial number of illegal votes cast by felons".
Surprise, surprise. OK, not really.
I am still looking for a link, but I have heard a rumor that King County voter registrars have admitted that they had 'so many new voters signing up' that they did not do background checks.
If this is true, once again, the Dems are playing their incompetence right into the Governor's office.
*********************
Also, local dipshit and blogger, David Neiwert of Orcinus, has put up his version of events on the topic of the 'Washington State Governor's Election' on his site.
You might remember Neiwert from his uber-ignorant "Pseudo Fascism' diatibe (and my subsequent tearing it down) in November,
Of course, he has been travelling since the 17th of December, but hey, he's got his news updates, so he flaps his lips and the lefties love it.
I will be going through it shortly and hope to have something of a fisk of it up tomorrow.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Shestnadtsat
In new Washington State Gubernatorial Election developments, the Repubs think they have found the smoking gun.
KIRO7 News - State Republican Party leaders say they've found 8,400 more ballots cast than the number of voters registered in the state's five largest counties.
State GOP Chairman Chris Vance says the mismatching numbers in King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and Kitsap are troubling.
Republicans are mulling a possible legal challenge to the election, and Vance says discrepancies like the ones they found so far are clear indications that things went wrong.
8400 is a large number, yes it is.
But is it enough for a judge to toss out the results of the last recount?
Sadly, I do not believe so, unless they find someone with a truly open mind.
When the R's take this to court, they're going to have D lawyers playing every single excuse they can think of for the discrepancy, from the plausible "domestic violence victims who have requested confidentiality so their names will never appear on a voter list" to the insipid "aliens took one of the voter registration files".
And like I promised, if they R's succeed in find an open minded judge who is willing to toss out an election and let the Lt. Governor sit in the big chair while we sort this out, I will be the first to say I was wrong, right before your very eyes.
But one thing I will not do is link to the poorly named "revote" site.
How about "NewVote" or "FairVote" or something that doesn't sound like we're sore losers asking for a 'do over'. Is that too much to ask for, huh?
Another dent in the Dems 'let's quit counting now' armor is this, from Sound Politics,
Intrepid SoundPolitics reader Michael Nervik pulled published death notices from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for August 25th, 2004, then cross-checked the results with the King County voter database. Out of 37 names he found 4 of these that seem to have had an absentee ballot sent in for the November election. He found 4 other identical names from the obituary that voted at the polls, and/or in a different city in King county, that we haven't included here.
In trivial news, after Gregoire was certified as Governor elect, a woman wanted a refund for the tickets she bought for the Inaugural Ball.
The powers that be, of course, said no.
"We had one lady who wanted her money back. She liked Rossi," Neuhauser said. But the committee has not given refunds in 150 years, and is not going to start this year, he said.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Pyatnadtsat
Part 15 and counting. Informative and educational.
Yay!
To add to the Doc's post about how the Democrat led King County Board of Elections is refusing to count the votes of our service men and women who, through no fault of their own, and with a large part of the blame that falls on the shoulders of the KCBoE, did not get their ballots here on time.
The local lefites, both on the radio and in the papers, are actually blaming Rumsfeld for this.
How, you ask?
Like this. 'Because Rumsfeld did not care enough to get the military postal servce sped up so that these ballots could get here on time, he is to blame for the disenfranchisemen of these soldiers.'
Just thought you might like to know.
And now we move on to new business.
Stefan at Sound Politics has been going through election results and has found another King County precinct where some funny business has been going on.
In Precinct 3001, throughout all three counts (first count, machine recount, hand recount) Gregoire kept every single one of her votes.
Rossi, on the other hand, gained one in the machine recount, but then lost two in the hand recount.
The Libertarian candidate also lost one in the hand recount.
And very odd, one undervote was also lost in the last count.
That is the loss of 4 votes in that precinct, none of which is currently accounted for. No one in charge of that precinct or on the county board can say where those four votes went.
Sure, it may be possible that they were all provisional ballots that were finally given to their proper precincts during the hand recount, but there are no records to show the transfer fo any provisional ballots and no one in charge is saying anything.
King County has 2616 precincts. If something like this happened in just 100 of them, we can see how Rossi's lead could have gone away and Gregoire come out the winner.
But wait, there's more!
Precinct 3301 is actually MISSING 2 ballots!
Quote from Sound Politics "The King County voter file tells us that 354 citizens voted in Precinct 3301 -- 252 Absentee, 85 Polling Place and 17 Provisional. 354 voters cast valid ballots, of which only 352 can be located."
And they're not the only ones!
684 King County precincts are missing ballots for at least one voter for a grand total of 1512 missing ballots!.
Fraud or incompetence?
You make the call!
************************
And to clarify and update my stance on Rossi conceeding:
Now that Gregoire has been declared Governor-Elect, and is scheduled to be sworn in on January 12th, the Rossi Crew has only until January 22nd to find a judge who is willing to toss out a sitting Governor.
And after they find a judge with big brass ones they have to be able to prove 130 cases of real fraud. The incompetence pointed out in the above paragraphs will not suffice in court, now that Gregoire has been certified.
I personally do not think that they can do it as any person with a legal degree can tell you that a conspiracy to do something is a hell of a lot more difficult to prove than the actual act. You must first find the crime, then the people who committed the crime AND THEN the evidence that they conspired.
However, in the court of public opinion, the evidence does not need to be that strong.
I want a candidate with a clean face who is not looked at as a whiner. Rossi's call for a 'Do-Over' is doing exactly taht. He is losing (R) votes and not gaining any (D) votes.
Both of which are required to win a recall election.
Once again, the Dems play off their incompetence and win. Hopefully this time, it is only temporary.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:19 AM | Comments (0)
December 30, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Chetyrnadtsat
Well, Dino went and did it.
No, not conceed and save face and time, he made an ass of himself and asked for a Do-Over.
Here is the text of the letter he sent to Gregoire.
Good G*d Man, do you know how much like a sore loser you sound like with that crap?
And of course, the Dems are laughing at him, and as an extension, the Repubs. Including the chuckleheads at places like the Kos IMC.
I just cannot believe that he could be so dense as to think that playing this card would look good. This idea was already dumb last week when former Secretary of State, Ralph Munroe, suggested it.
The only good that can come of this is that the Republicans in the state legislature (now the minority party) can bring this issue up a couple of times in the coming months when they reconvene, making life miserable for the Dems running the show.
BUT, if they push it so hard that nothing else gets done, they'll just look like the national Dems on the level of the fillibustering of judicial seats.
Hey Dino, this is state politics being watched on a national level. There ain't no such thing as a do over.
It already sucks that I will be the one paying for the hand recount that cost my candidate the election (per state law, the Dems got their money back when the rerecount overturned the election, and the bill gets pushed onto the taxpayers), but now I get stuck with 'the whiny candidate'.
**************************
Oh, and remember when I told you that King County would pull delaying tactics on getting the voter rolls to the Repubs?
"King County is still unable to provide conclusive information to validate their vote count.
The voter file, which I obtained earlier today, contains the names of only 895,660 voters recorded as voting on Nov. 2, a significant discrepancy from its hand recount certified total of 899,199.
The Elections Office informed me that they're still doing "quality control" and adding in the names of some of the absentee voters."
Ray Charles could have seen that coming, and he is blind AND dead.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:00 PM | Comments (1)
December 29, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Trinadtsat
To open Part 13 of this series, I would first like to welcome Raging Dave back from 92A training and thank him for the linkage yesterday.
Tim, also at 4 Right Wing Wackos, does not agree with my 'respectfully bowing out and biting the Dems in the ass at a later date' theory. I would also like to thank him for his opinion, because it causes me to have to explain myself which, in my haste yesterday, I failed to do.
Here is why I am thinking that 'taking a knee' (to use a football term) would be the better part of valor, in this case.
The Washington State Republicans have requested the information for all of the people who cast votes on November 2nd from King County. That is a list of just over 900,000 names.
After being turned down by the remaining 38 counties in the state to have them take a fourth look at the ballots they did not count previously, the Repubs have now also asked for the information on the voters in their respective areas.
This will add multiple lists of an additional 2.1 Million names for the party to look at.
King County does not plan on having their list to them until the afternoon today and the other 38 counties do not know when or if they will comply.
The election for Governor is set to be certified at 1200 on Thursday (aka tomorrow).
That gives the Repubs less than 24 hours to search through at least 900,000 names and if the other counties do comply with the request, that will just add to the number of names that need to be researched.
Then you have to add that they have to find a judge that will hear their case, if/when they find the necessary evidence from the voter rolls.
The necessary evidence must include, not 1, not 25, not 100, but 131 verifiable cases of fraud or other malfeasance on the part of either the voters or of the election officials.
In less than 24 hours.
In my book and according to my calculations, that is simply not possible, feasable or reasonable.
But if the Repubs are able to do that AND get it seen by a judge BEFORE the election results are certified, the judge would be able to do one of two things,
1. Nullify the hand recount results and declare Rossi the Governor, giving him the "Selected, Not Elected" moniker that we have all lived with for the first four years of GWB, or
2. Nullify the recount results and call for a revote, which Rossi could possibly, but not likely, lose handily.
IF they are able to do this, I will do my best to be the very first person to announce my surprise and apologize profusely in these very pages.
Therefor, with the odds stacked against Rossi, I made the call for him to conceed.
He and his party can go through the information they were given by the 39 counties slowly and with a fine tooth comb for a month or so, after which they can present their evidence to the public, which is not likely to forget this debacle for a long time.
Rossi then would only need to gather approximately 750,000 signatures to have a recall announced, which, depending on the information that they find he could win by a small landslide or a large one.
And still have three years as Governor and the respect of over half of the electorate.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Dvenadtsat
Yes, we're up to part 12 (we've moved on to Russian numbers, much easier for me).
56 days after the casting of voters, with the certification of Christine Gregoire as the next Governor of Washington State imminent, the state Republicans have only one avenue left.
They are challenging the validity of some of the votes in the county that basically handed the election to Gregoire, Democrat controlled King County and requesting all of the information about the casting of ballots in said county.
Here is a list of that request,
*A list of all voters who submitted ballots in the Nov. 2 general election, whether those ballots were counted or rejected.
*Any current policies regarding the retention of documents.
*Any documents regarding the issuance, delivery or counting of military and overseas ballots.
*E-mails and other correspondence to or from all county workers connected in any way to the 2004 election.
*Any complaints or records of complaints from voters about problems receiving ballots, voting or obtaining information about whether their ballot was counted.
*Any envelopes, updated signature cards or registration records related to provisional and absentee ballots rejected for signature failings.
*A list of voters who cast provisional ballots on which signatures could not be verified.
*Any training materials related to if, how and when election workers should enhance or duplicate ballots or declare a ballot an undervote or overvote.
King County has said they will comply with the request, but have not given a date or time as to when the materials will be delivered other than to say that tomorrow should be looked at as 'firm'. Expect a delaying action here.
It has also come to light that the majority of the military absentee ballots were sent out so late that they did not arrive until the day AFTER the election. King County said that they kept the date for the return of the ballots open until November 17th, giving the overseas members of our armed services fourteen days to fill out their ballots and get them back here.
Not an impossible task, but not exactly a sure thing either. So far, there are 91 service members asking for their late returning ballots to be counted. Oddly enough, they were never notified by the county that their ballots had returned too late. You'll remember that the county notified people with signature problems ASAP.
I hate to say this, but I am of the mind now that the Repubs will never get this fight started in time and that Rossi should conceed so as to leave an image in the state's citizens that he is not a crybaby.
Then, the Repubs can do their investigation without the hinderence of the press demanding to look over their shoulder. When they find provable evidence of election fraud in King County, they can put out to the public and begin to gather signatures for a recall.
Until then, I am content to call Gregoire my 'Selected, Not Elected' Governor.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:20 PM | Comments (1)
December 27, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Odinnadtsat
Americans voted on the 2nd of November, and here it is, the 27th of December and we here in Washington do not yet know who our next Governor is going to be.
We had a count of the votes. Then a recount via machine. Then a hand recount.
In the first two counts, it was decided for the Republican, Dino Rossi. This was not good enough for the Democrats, who came out with their tired old phrase "Count Every Vote!"
And we did exactly that.
Now that the numbers come up on the side of their candidate, Christine Gregoire, the Dems are saying "OK, That's enough counting of the votes. Now let us inaugurate our candidate."
But, the Republicans are charging vote fraud and threatening to take away some of those precious votes that the Dems demanded be counted.
We have already heard about Precinct SEA 37-1823 in our last installment of the 'Count ANY Vote' series, but here I found something else that is very interesting.
There is a chart here, stop on over and taker a look at it. It is a list all of the counties that added votes in the hand recount and the total number of votes from each county.
Now, by my calculations, if you total up all of the counties, besides King, that added votes in the hand recount, it comes to a grand total of 1419.
All of the other counties in the entire state who added votes, and who were done and certified before King County, put in 105 votes less King County.
I, for one, find that a bit odd.
Not the totals and percentages, mind you. The remainder of the counties total number of votes is 462,436. Almost half of the total number of King County.
What I find odd is that, if you add the orginal 10 votes that was the difference between Gregoire and Rossi at the end of the hand recount before the 'found ballots' were allowed to be counted, and then the mystery ballots total for Gregoire, you get 115.
If you look back a week or so, you will see that the Repubs announced that their totals showed Rossi winning by 15 in King County.
Add that to 115 and you get.......?
130.
Coincidence?
Quite possibly. But we'll see.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Juu
Looks like the Dems in charge of King County managed to fix just enough ballots for the re-re-count to go their way.
Of course, it does help when you take votes away from your opponent,
Christine Gregoire 505883 +47 57.66%
Dino Rossi R 351115 -12 40.02%
Ruth Bennett L 18926 -10 2.16%
Write-in 1361 +39 .16%
Undervotes 21262 -45
Overvotes 86 +40
And of course, NOW the Dems want to quit the counting of ballots.
Including, but not limited to absentee ballots from people in the military. In case you didn't hear, King County sent out the military absentee ballots out more than a week and a half late. If those ballots came in after Nov 19th, they were not counted.
And now we have the disclosure of Precinct SEA 37-1823 in downtown Seattle.
In 1823, 527 of its registered voters are listed as living at 500 4th Ave -- the King County Administration Building and 241 of those registered at that building list the room number of the King County Records and Elections Office (#553).
According to an e-mail from Bobbie Egan of the County Elections Office to Steven Sharkansky, of the SoundPoliticsBlog, the voters who are registered at this location are probably homeless as the state allows this practice.
Oh Joy!!!
At least three of the voters registered as living at the County Building also give foreign mailing addresses: Anuj Rathi - Mumbai India, Rayko Suzuki - Tokyo Japan, Pascal Engi - Bern Switzerland.
Oh Golly!!!
In the machine (first) recount, Christine Gregoire got 203 votes from Precinct 1823. Dino Rossi got only 87 votes.
I think I can figure out why......
465 (61%) of the Precinct 1823 voters registered during 2004 and nearly all of them "live" at 500 4th Ave. By contrast, only 13% of all of King County voters registered in 2004.
Talk about the Gregoire campaign getting out the vote!!!
There was talk on local radio about having to look into the backgrounds of these "homeless" voters to see if any of them are felons, and therefore unable to vote.
I say don't only do that, but look to see if our foregin friends are actually citizens and also see about some of those signatures on the Precinct 1823 ballots to see if two people's handwriting writing styles match.
If that gets blocked I got one word.
RECALL
Posted by Nukevet at 11:17 AM | Comments (2)
December 22, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Kyuu
Today is the day that the WSSC will be hearing arguments on the previously thrown out ballots and the 'found' ballots of mysterious origin.
Cross your fingers for sanity, folks. Hopefully the ruling will come down by Friday.
In 'Media Whore' news......
Washington State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt says that, according to his party's calculation of the data tapes sent to them by the King County Elections Board yesterday, Christine Gregoire has won this recount by EIGHT VOTES. (Seattle PI and Seattle Times)
Berendt "We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington," Berendt said. "I believe Dino Rossi should concede."
What a jackass.
End of update.
Copies of the data tapes were also sent to the state Republican Party, but they say that they haven't crunched the numbers yet and have no comment on Berendt's statement.
Personally, I don't believe it. This story broke around 2100 last night and every single news organization in the area was stampeding to get an interview from Berendt.
Remember, the court hears arguments today. I'm thinking it is some sort of media ploy by the Dems to try and influence them.
In 'Stupid Media' news.....
please explain this picture to me.
(found at Michelle Malkin's blog)
What the hell is he looking at?
That is a optical scan ballot, and is more likely an overvote.
Why does it need to be held up to the light? Is he trying to discern 'voter intent' by looking to see which oval was filled in more darkly?
There you are folks, government of the people, by the people, for the people, but scrutinized by idiots.
Anyway, we'll see what the court has to say and talk to you then.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Hachi
Still no news as to when the WSSC will hear the appeal from the Dems on the injuction put on the mysterious ballots 'found' by King County Elections Board.
But we have some new developments that may help the Republicans squash that appeal.
To recap: the problem with the majority of the disputed ballots is that the county did not have a signature on file to match with the signatures on the absentee ballots, making them not valid and not countable.
The county has said that if they can have some time, they can contact each of these people so that they can get a signature for their files, they can then be counted in this hand recount.
The Republicans say "Not so fast, pal! It is your fault that you did not have signatures on file and you should have taken care of it before the election."
The Dems who run the King County Elections Board say "But we didn't know that we needed to do this!"
And that is a lie.
Apparently, the board has been trying to gather these signatures since May of 2004.
Also included in that link is a report about a rally held by the Dems outside of Dino Rossi Headquarters.
After a very short while, a group of Republicans showed up to counter protest. And fun was had by all, with shouting back and forth.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Shichi
And it don't stop, it keeps rockin' on and on, 'til the break of dawn!
Yeaaaaaahh Homieees!
Ugh.
So let's see here, Dino's new lead has shrunk to 8 votes (plus his original 42 from the previous count, giving him a hypothetical 50 vote lead).
If you saw the Doc's post from Saturday, you read that the Dem in King County have 'lost' 162 of the 763 'found' ballots that were previously rejected or missing.
Hmm, could those 'lost' ballots be Rossi voters?
Also there was a ballot found to be marked "Christine Rossi". And, because the King County Elections Board is two-to-one, Dem vs. Repub, it seems that they counted it for Christine Gregoire's favor. Go figure.
Now, to the legal fine print.
The Republicans filed and won in neighboring Pierce County Superior Court to have an injunction put on the King County ballots to stop them from being counted or even investigated as to authenticity.
And the King County Democrats have, of course, appealed the ruling, sending it to the Washington State Supreme Court. There is no word as of now when the court will hear the case.
Just last week, the WSSC basically said that the Dems couldn't change the rules in the middle of the race by admitting ballots that had been previously tossed out due to errors by the canvassing board or the voter or that had been 'found' inbetween the machine recount and now.
The Dems are going to counter this latest injuction with this story of a woman from Leavenworth, WA.. She mailed in her absentee ballot on time and correctly, but it was rejected because of someone else with the same name had also voted in Chelan County via absentee. She appealed to the board, won and got her vote counted this time around.
Of course, the Dems are also bitching up a storm about it. One woman in Chelan County gets her ballot authorized and counted, and now 762 ballots, most with very suspicious heritage that cannot be authenticated, MUST be counted, in their minds.
And the victimhood goes on.
Headline from the Seattle Low-Intelligencer: Prolonged election reveals cracks in system
Yes, cracks that the Dems had over 20 years available to fix, with their occupation of both the Governor's Office and the Attorney General's Office.
But they wanted to jack around the citizens of Washington instead of straightening out the election process, even in the wake of Florida 2000.
So, as Markos Zuniga of the Daily Kos would say "Screw Them"!
Let's hope that the WSSC thinks the same way.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Roku
In Washington State Gubernatorial Election News,
With 36 of the 39 counties reporting, Dino Rossi's lead has dropped down to 32 votes. Only King, Pierce and Spokane counties are left to report.
In Democrat Election Game News, the King County Election Board voted yesterday to change their own rules on over-votes (as a reminder: over-votes are ballots that have votes for more than one candidate in the same race).
The old rule was that the person doing the counting was given the authority to either toss the ballot out or count it for whomever was marked.
Now, it has to go to the KC Elections Board and they will make the final decision (also as a reminder: the KCEB is made up of three people, one Republican, two Democrats).
Guess how the vote for this rule change came down. Yep, 2 to 1.
Also, 245 of those 573 'found' ballots have been approved to be counted. I'm sure I don't need to guess how that vote went.
In good news, as of now, Dino Rossi has gained approximately 15 votes during the recount in King County which is about 3/4 done.
The Republicans are getting ready to head to court to ask about the legality of counting the 'found' votes. I'm not looking forward to that decision.
Addendum: I have switched from counting in Spanish to counting in Japanese as I cannot count past five in Spanish. Excuse me for paying more attention to the girl across from me than Mrs. Sampson, the foreign language teacher in junior high.
If this election thing goes much past ten or so, I may have to switch to either Gaelic or Russian, so be prepared.
FYI: This is Part Six for those keeping track.
If anything happens over the weekend, I'll put it up. Otherwise, look for Part Shichi on Monday.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:16 AM | Comments (5)
December 16, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Cinco
As of Wednesday afternoon, with 35 of the 39 counties reporting, Dino Rossi (R) now leads Christine Gregoire (D) by 79 votes.
But hold onto you whistles and noise makers, King County Board of Elections has voted to begin "preparing" the 573 recently 'found' ballots to be counted.
The Republicans have said that they have their lawsuit ready to file to stop the counting of these new 'found' ballots.
Sadly, they'll probably get put in front of the same judge that OK'd the 'modification by interpretation' of ballots by unsupervised pollworkers during the first recount. And once again, that judge will give the thumbs up to changing the rules in the middle of the game.
Those two words, 'found' and 'preparing' bring visions of the Daley and LBJ election crews to my mind.
An old LBJ anecdotal election story: When he was running for a county office back in Texas, he had sent a staffer out to a local cemetary to gather the names off of headstones in order to register them to vote.
There was one name on a grave marker that the staffer was not able to read. When he reported back to election office, LBJ was pissed off. He ordered the staffer to go back to the cemetary and get the name, even if he had to stay there all night to do so.
Supposedly, LBJ said to the guy "That person has the same right to vote as everybody else in that cemetary!"
One of the few things political that the Analog Mom and I agree on is how tired we are of this debacle. I am about ready to just put a pet rock in the Governor's chair and be done with it. At least we'll know it'll actually be at work and not spending my taxpayer money to go on trips to China, like our current Governor, Gary Locke (D).
And I would be remiss to forget again to mention Murdoc Online's election spreadsheet. If you haven't partaken of it, you should.
As of yesterday, the spreadsheet shows that if the 'found' votes get put in the count pile, Gregoire wins by 59. If they don't Rossi wins by 40.
And I also have YET ANOTHER REASON to hope Washington gets a Republican governor for the first time in 20 years,
Gov. Gary Locke, with only a few weeks left in office, is expected to propose a tax increase of about $500 million tomorrow as a way to soften the blow of a projected $1.5 billion budget deficit.
This guy is such a lame duck that he thinks he can get away with tossing a tax increase to the legislature so as to make it look like he didn't leave the state in a huge mess, just a moderately sized one.
What a jackass.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:13 AM | Comments (3)
December 15, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Quatro
In a surprising decision, the Washington State Supreme Court told the state Democrat party to piss off. That changing the election rules during the recount process is a no-no.
Sadly, the justices forgot to remind the Dems that they had 20 years of one-sided leadership in the state to take care of this problem, but waited until the rules didn't suit them to make their case for a statewide counting standard.
Too bad, Dems. You wasted your opportunity to get the good work done and instead, worked toward making the state unfriendly to small business, giving us one of the highest unemployment rates in the US.
On the other side of the coin, King County, once again, 'magically' found even more previously uncounted ballots to add to the 561 that I told you about yesterday.
They were supposedly stuck in the bases of the optical scanning machines.
I wonder if they're in alphabetical order or if they are just in the order of the tombstones in Mt. View Cemetary?
Either way, now the Dems are going to fight to get these new ballots into the pile to be counted. The recount law states that all the ballots that can be counted in the hand recount had to be included in the previous count that was certified.
These were not in that count.
The Dems contend that since this recount has not been certified, and that since it was the fault of poll workers forgetting where they put them and not the fault of the voter, that they should be included in this recount.
Once again, the Democrats are claiming that everyone in this election, including people in their own party, are incompetent, and that their incompetence should benefit the Democrat Party.
In numbers news, with 32 of the 39 counties reporting totals, Dino Rossi (R) has gained 248 votes and Christine Gregoire (D) has gained 184 votes, bumping Dino's lead to 64 votes.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:27 AM | Comments (4)
December 14, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Tres
As of 5PM PST yesterday afternoon, the Washington State Supreme Court finished hearing oral arguments in the re-recount case pertaining to the recanvasing of vote totals.
Aside from some of the scathing questions from the justices though, I do not see this thing going in the state Republican's favor.
In other new 'News', King County 'magically' found another 561 votes that they want to count. One of these votes belongs belongs to King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips. A Democrat, of course. And elected out of the Seattle District, no less.
it seems that the King County Elections Board has managed to lose the signatures of these 561 voters. Without the signatures to verify their absentee ballots, the commioners had to set them aside and not count the ballots.
Unsurprisingly, it too them over a month after the election to contact these voters in order to get them to come down and verify their ballots.
The elections board consists of 2 Dems and 1 Repub. And in order to win the Governorship, the state Dems are ready to accuse their own party member of incompetence for losing these signatures.
Anything for power for the Dems, I guess.
As it stands now, Rossi has gained 190 new votes in this hand recount and Gregoire has gained 144 new votes, hypothetically extending Dino's lead from the original 42 vote separation to 55 votes.
But as of now, with 24 of the 39 Washington State counties having finished counting, Dino Rossi leads with 318,100 to Christine Gregoire's 232,019. You can keep track at the above link.
But with King County trying to get another 561 votes added to the pile and our pretty darn liberal Supreme Court deciding whether or not to reconsider previously discarded ballots, all I can say is,
Go Dino!
Posted by Nukevet at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2004
Re-Recount Update
Day Two
Well, eight more counties finished up their hand recount on Thursday.
As of Wednesday, Dino Rossi was up from 42 votes up (from the original recount) to 45 votes up. Thursday was not as kind, his lead is now only 43 votes up.
The Washington Secretary of State,Sam Reed, has said that he believes that if the state Supreme Court decides to not favor either party after hearing the Dems arguments for the reconsidering of thrown out ballots on Monday afternoon, that they could order a 'Re-Vote'.
Which prompted the Dem candidate, Christine Gregoire to issue the statement that said that she "had no role in the lawsuit".
But alas, you did not conceed either, Christine.
In closing, I found this little ditty at GregoiretheGrinch.com
Twas the month of Christmas, and across Washington State,
Citizens were wondering about their new Governors fate.
Dino Rossi won the election once, then twice,
The Democrats are naughty while Dino�s been nice.
The chads were hung on the ballots with care,
In hopes that a Gregoire vote would somehow be there.
The votes were counted and counted again,
No Chris Gregoire and no Deborah Senn.
Paul Berendt goes to court and sues Sam Reed,
Crying �43 votes are all we need!�
The Republicans have vowed to put up a fight,
So Merry election to all and to all a good night.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:35 AM | Comments (1)
December 09, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Redux
I misspoke yesterday about the hearing of the Democrat's arguments by the Washington State Supreme Court. It was not yesterday that they were to be heard. They will be heard on Monday, December 13th @ 1:30PM.
In updated re-recount news: It has started.
It has also finished for two of the counties.
The first county to report results showed no change from the earlier machine recount. Garfield County, in eastern Washington, reported results in the early afternoon after hand-counting 1,293 votes: 65 percent for Rossi, 33 percent for Gregoire and 2 percent for Libertarian Ruth Bennett. Mason County also finished its hand recount, reporting a net gain of three votes for Rossi.
GO DINO!
I now have an additional reason for Dino Rossi to win.
No freaking way!
Prove to me that humans are the cause of global warming, and maybe I'll reconsider, but until then, I have a very selective place that the outgoing Governor can stick his proposed vehicle emissions standards.
If the legislature, soon to be majority Democrat, passes this, their vote on this will one of the select few bills that I will base my next vote on.
If Gregoire gets elected, she will sign it.
If Rossi wins, he'll most likely veto for the bunk science it is.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:06 AM | Comments (3)
December 08, 2004
Count ANY Vote
The new slogan of the Washington State Democratic Party.
Today is the day we start re-recounting the ballots in the race for Governor of Washington.
The ballots from around the state have been shipped to a warehouse space south of Seattle (8mi. SW of my residence) to be counted.
To show how big of Drama Queens the King County Dems are, let me just tell you that the county election commissioners (2 Dems, 1 Repub) voted, you guessed it, 2-1 to have the county's ballots transported the 12 miles from a warehouse in Seattle to their current location under an 8 car police escort in Code 3 status (lights and sirens).
No other county in the state did this that I know of or have heard of.
I am surprised they didn't call the news choppers out so as to get 'how much they care' about my vote on celluloid.
Also today, the state Supreme Court will hear the case from the Dems to reconsider any and all ballots cast. These include provisional votes and contested absentee ballots.
These votes were already considered by each county's election board. Some of the absentee ballots were not counted due to no signature, wrong signature or non-matching signature. Some were not counted due to more than one vote per office or no vote for the office.
Of the provisional ballots, some were discounted when it was discovered that the person either voted in the wrong precinct, was not registered or both.
Any and all of the provisional and absentee ballots have already been looked at by the board of elections in the counties in which they were cast.
The last link I placed above is a link to a number of PDF files of the Dems complaint. If you read through it, it boils down to this;
They contend that different counties used different guidlines for qualifying, and yes, disqualifying these ballots.
They also contend that in the smaller counties, the elections board officials are not 'professional' in the terms that they are volunteers who A. only do this type of thing when asked by their respective county council (aka: part-time), B. cannot correctly interpret the rules that they are supposed to follow, which vary from county to county, C. know absolutely nothing about signature verification, and D. are dumb rednecks.
Which is odd, because the Democrat Party has been in power here for over 20 years. In fact, the Dem candidate, Gregoire has been the Washington State Attorney General for TWELVE YEARS. And even after Florida 2000, she never made a peep about the need to get our state's voting laws, which have been on the books, unchanged, for over 50 years, modernized and standardized in case something like Florida 2000 happened here.
And guess what, magically, it did.
Now, she is taking this election to court, as a plaintiff, to get the various laws standardized to meet her and her party's approval.
Which is why she and they are in full denial mode over this little item that came from the Washington Secretary of State's Office yesterday,
"Challenge of Ballots Not Allowed. We are advised by the Attorney General that state law makes no provision for the challenge of ballots or voters (as provided in RCW 29.10.125) during the recount. The recount procedure provided for by statute is a mechanical function of re-tallying the ballots cast and accepted as valid by the precinct election officers or the canvassing board during the canvass of the election. The decision of the canvassing board with respect to the inclusion or exclusion of a particular ballot during the canvass is not open to question during the recount."
That is a 1996 memo from the Sec. of State's office, supposedly from Gregoire, who had been the state AG for four years at that time.
Gregoire is saying that she never issued a statement to the Sec of State in relation to that subject and that the decision must have come from the previous AG (whose name escapes me right now).
Her party chairman, Paul Berendt, on the other hand, said something quite different at around 10:15PM on the loony left wing Mike Webb Show on our local station 710 KIRO.
"That note is nothing short of a major lie. There's no record of this."
I was listening live and can verify that it was said. Webb even made note of the link I supplied at shortly after midnight (he and Orbusmax do not get along. Long story).
So that is where the players stand this morning.
As for the pawns, you might be interested to know that the Washington Education Association (WEA) has put up this ad on their website.
The WEA is basically the state teacher's union. And even though only about 35% of their members identify themselves as Democrats, they are using union money, union time and union space to
"Please sign up today to serve as a Democratic Party observer for this count."
Joining the WEA is the Washington State Labor Council. They are soliciting contributions and encouraging local unions to donate paid staff to the Democratic Party's efforts.
You have to love it when the Dems get dirty. OK. No you don't.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 04, 2004
Making Florida 2000 look like a tea party
Well, the Dems did it. The Re-REcount is en-route.
After a week and a half of whining about not having the money to afford a manual recount of the state, Washington Democrats magically came up with a check for it.
They were able to afford the count of the whole state. King County will start on Monday, the rest of the counties will start recounting on either Wednesday or Thursday. They hope to be done by the 22nd of this month with a hand recount of every vote in the state.
They must have gotten more money than they needed because they are also heading to the Washington State Supreme Court for a fight to get some discounted ballots counted. These ballots are the mismarked and previously rejected provisional votes, most of which reside in King County (a Gregoire stronghold).
They also say they want the mismarked absentee ballots counted, but they do not include the late to arrive military absentee ballots with no postmark.
The proof that the Dems are in full 'panic mode':
State Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt "We will not be bullied by Bush White House lawyers or irresponsible threats from Senator Rossi's campaign,"
Yes, that's right!
The state party who took money from their former Presidential Candiate, a former Party Presidential Primary Candidate and the national party itself is yelling that the Bush White House is behind the Rossi win.
On the Dem fringe, there is talk that if they do not win in this recount, that they will sue for a new election because some of the precincts in two counties (Snohomish and Yakima) use the Diebold Paperless Voting Machines that cannot be recounted.
While I wouldn't put it past them to actually do it. I doubt that they will.
I don't like the 'No Paper Trail' machines anymore than the next guy, but a revote on those same machines is really an ignorant idea, even if the difference between the candidates is only 21 votes.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2004
Washington Gubernatorial Update
Well, today is the day.
Friday is the day that the Dems have to have their money in hand, ready to give to the Washington Secretary of State by the the business day for whatever portion of votes they want hand counted in the contested election that has already been through a machine recount.
You have probably already read the story about John Kerry giving the state party a check for $250K to pay for part of the recount.
But also, Howard Dean has opened up his website for donations to go directly to the recount fund.
The National Party has sent an e-mail to all of their contributors asking for money. But tells them to send it to the DNC, not to the Washington State sub-party.
Shows how much they care, I guess.
The Dems will need close to $700K to do the whole state, but the state party has said that they will count as much as they have the money for.
Maybe they should talk to their candidate though.
Yesterday, Christine Gregoire came out with the statement that she doesn't want any vote hand counted and will conceed the whole race if they cannot afford to do the whole state.
But since she's a politician, I do not trust her to refuse the position if her party does a recount of their cherry picked counties and it turns the election in her favor.
I'll have an update tomorrow as to the happenings, if any.
Please, just let it end.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2004
Another Never Ending Election Update
Today, around noon or so, the Secreatary of Washington State, Sam Reid, will certify the election with Dino Rossi as having won the Governor position.
This is happening two days early and, of course, the Democrats are having a fit over it.
But it will give the Dems until Friday to file for a hand recount, do they should just STFU.
Everyone is fully expecting them to file for the recount and to do it as late as possible on Friday so as to jam the Republicans into a corner as how to counter them.
It comes down to this.....
It costs$.25 to count each vote, so with 2,744,926 votes it'll cost the Dems $686,231.50 to have the entire state recounted.
And they don't have that much $$$$. So we will all probably have to wait to see who and where they will pay to have recounted. It is being said that hand recounting King County will take 2-2 1/2 weeks.
And if the Gregoire people do that and it overturns the election, the state has to give the Dems their money back and have the entire state recounted at taxpayer expense (read: using my money) and spending another 7-10 days recounting.
Which mean we may still not know who our governor is until after Christmas.
Oh the joy.
Updates as they come in.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2004
The Neverending Election Pt 2
As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we here in Washington State are only three counties short of a full recount in our Gubernatorial election race.
As of this morning, Rossi (R) leads Gregoire (D) by 151574 votes.
The three counties that have not completed their counts are King, Kitsap and Whitman.
This link will take you to a county by county look at the vote totals.
The Dems that were silent when King County found approximately 10,000 misplaced and uncounted votes in the ballot vault are now howling about Snohomish County finding 229 previously uncounted votes.
The Secretary of State is, in my opinion, being optimistic and saying that he believes that the Dems won't demand a hand recount unless the vote is closer than 150 votes difference between the two candidates.
With all of the drama the Dems are trying to drum up (that I mentioned yesterday), I seriously doubt that they'll be quiet if it the difference is less than 1000.
Today is the day that the counties are supposed to have their counts done.
We'll soon see.
UPDATE:
GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
Let the hand recount begin. See you around New Years Day or so.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:51 PM | Comments (2)
November 23, 2004
The Neverending Election
With 24 of the 39 counties reporting 100% of their respective counts, Dino Rossi is up by 92945 votes.
Here is the current bar graph of the totals (it may change throughout the day as more totals come in).
In King County, election officials are still filling in the ovals cells for voters who were too stupid to follow the instructions and just put a check mark or an X in the cell.
Just like the Dems want.
Speaking of the Dems, the statewide organization is sending out e-mails asking for their supporters to come forward and report to them any irregularities they experienced on the 2nd and begging for money to pay for a hand recount if the machine recount doesn't turn in their favor.
Meanwhile, the Republicans will get another day in court to contest the filling in the ovals in King County on November 30th. Just two days before the state has to certify the results of the machine recount.
More updates later this afternoon, PST.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:51 PM | Comments (3)
November 22, 2004
Washington State Recount Update
My G*d, will it ever end!?!
As of Monday Morning, with only one of the 39 counties in the state reporting, Dino Rossi is up by 848 votes with 100% of the precincts in Kittitas County reporting.
Last week, sfter the Washington State Republicans complained that, in King County, there were blank ballots being stored in the same room as the ballots to be counted, the top county elections guy told them to shove off and piss up a rope.
So the state Republicans went to court to stop the counting of any ballots that were marked incorrectly.
On the ballot, you are supposed to fill in an oval that is as tall as a pencil eraser and a little bit wider than one in fully so that the optical scanner can read it.
The Republicans, wisely wanted any ballots that just had an X or a check mark on them to be discounted. Which is wise, since the room there are blank ballots sitting right next to the ones to be counted and no press or independant observers are allowed in the room to watch the counting.
See the possibility for fraud?
Well, the judge turned them down.
Remember when they said that they have this done by Thanksgiving and I was doubtful?
3 days to go!
Another update tomorrow
Posted by Nukevet at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2004
The Recount Olympics
For those of you who haven't heard, with all precincts reporting and 2,742,567 votes cast by Washington State voters, there is a 261 vote difference between the two candidates.
Dino Rossi - 1.371.414 (48.8759%)
Christine Gregoire - 1.371.153 (48.866%)
An automatic machine recount has been ordered by the Secretary of State. It should commence this morning and hopefully end before Thanksgiving.
If everything goes well, that'll be the end of it.
But we've got some very crafty Dems here, so if that IS the end, I'll be surprised.
Here is a map of the county by county voter map.
Think of green as the new blue and gray as the new red (hey, we aren't very colorful here. what can I say?).
For those that care or need missle targeting info, I live in King County.
No pity is necessary. One of these days the left will come along with their big, dumb 'revolution' and I'll be able to legally kill hippies.
That will be enough.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2004
Washingotn Gubenatorial Election Update
Update# Will it ever end?
Apparently not.
After another day of counting we saw the lead switch hands again from Rossi to Gregoire and then back again to Rossi.
As of this morning, Rossi leads by 19 votes with 6127 votes left to count.
Here are the rules for a recount:
A. 1/2 of 1% and less than 2000 votes difference between the candidates automatically brings a machine recount into effect.
B. If less than 150 votes separate the two candidates a hand recount is triggered.
And what a coincidence, the Dems in King County miraculously "found" 10,000 votes somewhere yesterday.
They were all counted yesterday and they are the reason Gregoire took the lead again in the middle of the day.
How timely.
Oh and how about another coincidence, one of the smaller liberal counties, Grays Harbor County, will have to recount the entire county due to a 'Machine Error' that they did not discover until Gregoire lost her lead again yesterday.
Once again, how timely for the Dems.
And here is the part that just sets my blood to boiling.
Do you remember those provisional ballots I wrote about on Monday?
Well, the Dems are gathering 'updated signatures' for voters who filed provisional ballots and delivering them to the King County Elections Board.
"if the Democrats inadvertently knock on some Republican's door, they'll just walk away."
And the Dems sued again to force the county to count the provisionals that they had collected signatures for.
They'll steal this election in just about any way they can.
Murdoc of Murdoc Online and his brother have an Excel spreadsheet up that shows, should everything go legally, Rossi should win by just over 1000 votes.
Now, that will trigger an automatic machine recount that could last until after Thanksgiving, which I don't want.
But it doesn't look like my prediction of 'Rossi by 8000' is going to come to fruition either.
So I'm going to switch up my prediction and call it at Rossi by 2200 by this afternoon. But after the crap the Dems are putting up, I ain't putting any money on it.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:52 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 16, 2004
Washington Gubernatorial Update
Well, it's day umpteen in the wait for the announcement of the next Governor of Washington State.
As it stands this morning, Democrat candidate, Christine Gregoire has retaken the lead over Republican Dino Rossi by a whopping 158 votes.
King County (again, the largest and most liberal county in the state) counted 7000 out of their 11,000 remaining votes yesterday and that was the best the Dems could do.
As it stands, King County has only 4000 votes left to count leaving the rest of the state with 17,666 votes. 30 of the reamining 35 counties are generally heavily Republican, so things are not looking bad.
I am still standing by my 'Dino by 8000 votes' prediction.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:53 PM | Comments (1)
November 15, 2004
Drama Queen Democrats
We STILL haven't figured out who will be the next Governor of Washington State.
In my last update on the topic, Republican Dino Rossi was up by 2800 votes. As of Friday night, his lead had dropped down to less than 1000 votes but went back up to just over 1900, with 41,623 ballots left to be counted.
When that happened, the Dems switched to drama mode and filed a lawsuit for the names of the 929 people who cast provisional ballots in King County. Which is, by far, the most highly populated (and liberal) county in the state.
They then went and contacted those people to have them 'fight' to have their ballots counted.
For contrast, remember the 2000 election when the count was just as close and Republican Slade Gorton conceeded to Dem Maria Cantwell.
I'll be doing daily updates on the situation here and I'm still standing by my previous prediction of Rossi by 8000.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:20 AM | Comments (2)
November 12, 2004
Finally! Washington voting results
First, I misplaced my voters pamphlet. Then, I lost the link I wanted to use. But now that I have my shit in gear, here we go with the results of the voting adventure we had in Washington State.
Or, maybe not.
It seems we still haven't chosen who we want to be our next Governor here.
At first, the Democrat candidate, Christine Gregoire was leading pretty well with around 6000 votes over Republican, Dino Rossi.
Then, just like with Kerry's lead in the initial exit polls on November 2nd, her lead slowly disappeared. Rossi jumped out to a lead of 1800 votes really quickly. Then 2100. Then 2800.
Just a couple days ago, Rossi pissed off the entire Democrat establishment in Washington State by announcing his 'transition team'. They were pissed because Gregoire is off hiding someplace. Probably someplace with alot of beach space and people running around asking if she needs another drink with an umbrella in it.
Rossi now leads with just under 3600 votes with less than 85,000 votes left to count. 60,000 of those remaining votes are from the counties of Washington which are either mostly rural or have a large military community.
I'm predicting Rossi by 8000. Go Dino!
Anyway, if you go here, here and here you can see who I voted for and why and make sure I'm staying honest with this.
My batting average for this time around will be at the end.
I'm going to give you some comedy before moving directly to the state and congressional offices.
While Kerry got 1,452,319 votes and Bush got 1,262,601 votes (15,000 MORE than last time) the moonbat political parties got 42,106 votes from the citizens of Washington.
I'm not sure that I have that much ammo on hand.
Christmas time is coming up folks. Remember your humble blogger during the holidays.
This is going to take up some space so the rest of it will be in the extended entry.
National Congressional races:
Sadly, Patty bin Murray beat George Nethercutt with a 12 point spread to keep her Senate seat.
I swear, folks in Washington will vote for Bobo the Chimp if he as a (D) after his name. That is the only thing I hold against the memory of Scoop Jackson.
And on that same note, Baghdad Jim McDermott got 80% of the votes over she who thumps her bible way too hard (on her forehead), Carol Cassidy.
Washington State Republican Party, do you think you could get off your asses and get a real candidate next time, huh?
On a side note, King County Sheriff, Dave Reichert, won the House seat of the retiring Jennifer Dunn over local leftie talk show host, Dave Ross by 5 percentage points.
Since I live in McDermott's district, I didn't get to vote in this race, but a big round of Congratulations go to freshman Congressman Reichert for winning cleanly.
Reichert followed Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment and didn't fight dirty against his fellow Republicans in the primaries and ran the cleanest race anyone had ever seen in recent times.
Statewide Initiatives:
My batting average took a great big dump when I factor in the initiatives. I only got one in my win collumn.
Washingtonians said no to the sales tax increase. But only by a 60/40 spread, so I'm not giving them much credit.
They approved the wacky Louisiana Primary system.
They were frightened by the multi-million dollar add campaign and voted to keep slot machines on the reservation.
They rejected Charter Schools. Again.
And they are going to let the envirweenies have their say over at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Thereby tying the hands of the government and making sure that the mess never gets cleaned up.
Statewide offices:
We'll start off with the #2 job in the state, the Lt. Governor. I went with Repub, Jim Wiest, because he made a very good 'anti-welfare state' statement.
Bad choice. He lost by 16%. Apparently no one else read his voters pamphlet statement.
I did get who I wanted for the Secretary of State, Republican, Sam Reed. It was kind of close there for a while, but almost 164,000 votes doesn't really count after you look at the race for the Guv.
I picked a loser in the State Treasurer spot. His 25 plus years of private industry employment didn't get Oscar Lewis enough votes to beat the incumbent. He needed another 600,000 of them.
Stepping out of the straight (R) ticket, my choice for State Auditor, Brian Sonntag, easily kept his postition. 64% to 32%.
By the grace of whatever deity you might want to attribute it to, Republican Rob McKenna handily whupped Deborah "Raving Looney" Senn for the State AG spot with a 10% spread. Mr. Happy vs. The Harpy.
The enviros came close in the competition for the Commisioner of Public Lands with their ads impying that Doug Sutherland would take a huge lawn mover to the state forests. Screw them. A big L on their forheads for the next 4 years on that one.
Performance testing for both students and teachers is guaranteed with the re-election of Terry Bergeson as Superintendant of Public Schools. We knocked down the Washington Education Association's candidate. Too bad we can't get rid of the WEA. Yet.
John Adams' famous name didn't get him very far in the election for insurance commisioner. Mike Kreidler, the incumbent with nothing to say won with a 300,000 vote difference and a whole lot of nothing will happen in that office for the next four.
Yay!! I won with all of my Judicial candidates.
Jim Johnson and Richard Sanders are on the State Supreme Court. Very Good.
My Batting Average:
So far, I'm at an even .500. Getting 10 out of 20 races in my win collumn.
If Rossi wins, he'll put over and bring my average up to .526
If he losed, it'll bring me down to .476.
So, once again, Dino by 8000 votes.
Go Dino!
Posted by Nukevet at 10:57 AM | Comments (1)