Centerfield

Tully:

The Republicans have vastly overstated their case in Washington state. The "extra votes" they contend are over 8400. The counties that I have seen publicly report the extra vote status are half or less than half of Republican claims. In Clark County they've already reconciled all of the "extra votes" to clerical errors...basically throwing out votes that should have been counted and weren't.

Posted by: carla at January 10, 2005 01:32 PM

Shouldn't every election have a built in "automatic do-over" threshold that kicks in at, like, a hunddreth or a thousandth of a percent margin?

Carla, you're sure that your "shouldn't" isn't in the eye of the beholder, right? Isn't that always the real rub?

Posted by: bk at January 10, 2005 02:03 PM

Yup yup, Carla. It's a travesty, an error-ridden process, a thorough mess where the votes have not been counted correctly, an absolute fraud! Until the vote count tips for the Democrat, and then the results are completely accurate, must be locked down and certified immediately, and any problems are "vastly overstated."

The evidence that King County (with almost 900,000 votes out of 2.2 million in the state) has diddled the books in several ways, including covering up their late mailing of military ballots, is pretty solid. The unexplained net discrepancy in King County is 1817 votes BEFORE accounting for the 348 unchecked provisional ballots that were run through. Provisionals this year nationwide ran over 50% unqualified. Some long-dead "voters" have turned up in King County as well.

Frankly, King County alone has so screwed up and warped and mangled the electoral process in Washington that if Rossi were still in the winner's column by several dozen votes, I'd probably be agreeing right now with Christine Gregoire that a revote is called for.

And no, I don't think a court should award Rossi a victory based on the previous counts either. This turkey stinks, and it should be thrown out. Anyone trying to govern as legitimate on the results of this election is walking on quicksand.

Posted by: Tully at January 10, 2005 02:06 PM

I actually think the Ohio thing is a little shady. I think Bush won, but the Secretary of State there seems to me to be highly partisan which I think is more a fault of the system. We shouldn't have elected election directors.

Yes Carla, they are Republican in Washington and therefore wrong... How surprising of you.

Well said about King County Tully, and this isn't the first election they have screwed up, it only has mattered this time. They are on their third election director in as many elections because of mistakes with ballots. In short, GO DINO!!! If they have a new election to ensure legitimacy in the Ukraine than we surely can do it in the United States of America.

FYI, two former RINO (centrist) elected officials in Washington, Secretary of State Ralph Munro and Governor Dan Evans, have endorsed a revote.

Posted by: Mathew at January 10, 2005 02:54 PM

Sheesh. Attack the messenger. LOL

It's on the news here every freaking night, kids. It's not like our market isn't getting the numbers information on a regular basis.

BK: "Should" in this case means that the voter properly cast their ballot and it wasn't counted due a clerical error. How "eye of the beholder" is that to you, exactly?

Tully:

I don't recall anyone from the Democrats saying that there was fraud in Washington State over this election..even when it appeared Gregiore had lost.

I agree that King County has a history of screwing up elections. They're pretty messed up. But from what I understand, most of the counties in Washington State ended up with numbers that differed from recount to recount.

The contention that military ballots were mailed out late is being dismissed by the Secretary of State's office:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/205686_robert29.html

Ballots were mailed on October 8...and very few complaints have been taken.

The provisional ballots issue needs to be addressed. There's evidence in Oregon, Washington and Nevada that Republican operatives were registering people to vote, only to cast out those who registered Democratic. A lot of these people may have voted provisionally, thinking they were duly registered. And then there votes didn't count. But hey...it's only corruption when Democrats are accused, right? (rolling eyes)

And Mathew...Republicans in Washington are wrong because they are giving inflated numbers. Period. Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap and Clark have already reported in that the GOP "extra votes" claim for their counties is completely blown up.

Frankly...if Washington State has a new election...then we should get a new Presidential election in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico. But that's right...we can't. When Democrats complain about voter fraud and disenfranchisement it's "sore loser". When Republicans do it..it's legitimate.

Posted by: carla at January 10, 2005 06:21 PM

Here's King County's breakdown of how military ballots were mailed out and handled:

http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/news/2005_01_05.htm

Posted by: carla at January 10, 2005 06:28 PM

I'll be honest with everyone; the system is broken.

Thousands of votes in every election are always thrown out simply due to the infamous "hanging chads" or because the person working the poll wasn't trained properly and loaded it wrong.

How many people attempted to vote only to find that their registration was thrown out because the person who "registered" them was being paid to throw away a particular party's registrants?

How many people were almost unable to vote because their voter registration card wasn't thick enough?

How about those who had their provisional ballots thrown out because they were considered "dubious?" Of course, that's even understandable when someone is made in crack for registering voters.

All of these reasons are why the system is broken.

However, I challenge anyone to find a system which can't be ruined or corrupted. As far as corruption goes, our system is fairly good.

Perhaps 3% of the votes are thrown out. That's not good, but it's better than not getting to vote at all.

Yes, maybe some absentee ballots weren't counted, but at least we don't get executed for voting against the current incumbent.

The bottom line, Washington doesn't need a recount any more than Ohio does. It's upsetting that these things happen, but certain discrepancies will occur despite re-votes. Both parties need to stop crying foul because anything that they're claiming is happening to them, they've already done something of the equivalent.

Posted by: CleverWes at January 10, 2005 09:01 PM

Carla,

"I don't recall anyone from the Democrats saying that there was fraud in Washington State over this election..even when it appeared Gregiore had lost."

I think he's referring to other elections such as the 2000 Presidential election and Ohio. But of course Democrats wouldn't call for a recount in the election when their canidate is the winner just as Republicans resist recounts when their canidate is victorious, that's just smart politics, dirty, but politics all the same.

But as far as voting...shall we say, "irregularities" go, neither party can claim angel status. It seems the dead have risen to vote both Republican and Democrat in the past.

Posted by: scott at January 10, 2005 09:54 PM

Gee, Carla, it's really strange. Sound Politics checked the google cache of that page this morning, and it claimed the second (major) bulk mailing of military ballots on the 10th of October. I checked it myself--why trust a blog?--and it indeed said the second mailing was on the 10th. Yet now it references the same mailing as being on the 7th--and shows that the web page was "updated" (aka "corrected") today. Maybe it had something to do with that settlement requiring them to mail the military ballots by the 8th at the latest.

Yet the King County web page that mysteriously corrected itself to conform with the suit settlement now claims:

The bulk of the military and overseas ballots were mailed on Oct.7, 2004, with some mailings in between these two dates and subsequent mailings as further requests were received...For the Oct.7 mailing, King County prioritized our mail-out to ensure military and overseas ballots were mailed as soon as they were available and within the timeframes required by state law and guidelines from the United State Department of Justice.

Amazing, no? Those wonderfully honest election workers in King County! How could we ever distrust them? Well, just to be sure, we could check Bulk Permit #1455, the King County Election Office's absentee ballot mailing permit, to see what activity has been recorded. And someone did just that. Guess what? Bulk Permit #1455, the permit that is used for mailing absentee ballots, only had activity on October 2nd (1,605 pieces) and October 13th (28,000 pieces), almost a week later than they now claim...with NO activity between those dates. Zip. Zero. None.

The US Post Office says they're lying. Their own previous web page said they're lying. A large percentage of military personnel who expected King County ballots have been complaining that they either never got them, or got them too late for a timely return. So I gotta go with "lying" and "late mailing of militaryballots" as a primary assumption at this point, given the evidence.

Posted by: Tully at January 10, 2005 10:45 PM

Tully:

I read the link you posted...and the blog you referenced is doing nothing more than speculating. The Washington Secretary of State's office is saying that they've received less than a trickle of complaints about this.

Further, the military people had until November 16th to get ballots back to the State of Washington. If they weren't getting them in a timely manner, counties (including King) were faxing and providing email ballots. It's not like USPS was the only alternative.

And if ballots went out on October 13, as this blog is claiming...and they still couldn't get them to the troops and back in a month..that's a pretty serious problem that has nothing to do with King County.

Posted by: carla at January 11, 2005 01:50 AM

Yup yup, Carla. The changing web pages are irrelevant. Mailing overseas military ballots late is irrelevant. The USPS is in cahoots with Rossi. Those "extra" votes are fictional. Nobody ran 348 unchecked (and therefore illegal) provisional ballots through the voting machines. Ballots never appeared weeks later, without any tracking as to where they came from. No one remarked "partial" ballots with white-out and ink so that the original state of the ballot is indeterminable. The 1800+ unaccounted-for votes are just a bookkeeping error. Those dead people filled out their ballots in advance--last year. The Democrat has a few dozen more votes on this count, so let's quit looking at the details right now and just lock it down. We can believe King County, right?

Which if their web pages should I believe, the one that they pubished first, that showed they violated the settlement, which is backed up by the USPS records, or the one they "updated" yesterday that says they did everything the way they were actually supposed to--and is directly contradicted by the USPS records? Which of their vote totals should we believe? The several where Rossi won, or the one where Gregoire won? (Frankly, I don't believe any of them at this point.)

Here's some more "speculation" for you, Carla. This time it comes from the mouth of the King County election superintendent, as printed in today's Seattle Times. Over 1800 votes and voters unaccounted for, plus 348 illegal provisional ballots. That's over 2,000 mystery votes in an election where the "corrected" margin for Gregoire is now 129 votes. And oh yeah, they got caught changing their web site. I can hardly wait for the USPS report to show up in the Seattle Times as well.

New error found in vote tally

Are you still going with the "Dan Rather TANG memos are authentic" line as well?

Posted by: Tully at January 11, 2005 01:01 PM

I just came back from Washington visiting family. I think the citizens are tired and just want to move on BUT I have to admit (and I have no bias for either candidate) the story of suddenly found ballots that changed the recount sure sounded like a "Florida 2000" story. And yet it seemed to not have that effect in Washington. Why? Again I think folks in Washington are just tired of it all. I'd be interested in input from folks from Washington.

Posted by: Chris at January 11, 2005 02:16 PM

Tully:

King County said they changed the website to reflect the correct date. You say it's part of a cover up. Okay. But the proof of that so far is kind of shaky, IMO.

Your leap that I somehow think the USPS is in league with Rossi is ridiculous and specious. Or do you think that somehow mailing the ballots out a week late (as is the allegation) would somehow have mattered if the USPS can't manage to get them there and back in over a month? Some people who had ballots mailed from other counties (Pierce and Kitsap, specifically) have apparently complained that theirs didn't show up until Bush was certified the winner.

Further, are you planning to completely ignore the fact that the counties were faxing and emailing ballots to soldiers upon request?

If King County cannot reconcile the vast majority of the ballots/voters...then I think there's a problem. However, keep in mind that if it were Gregiore who were making this stink instead of Rossi...she'd be hailed as a "sore loser". I think we both know this.

Oh...and are you planning to ignore the fact that all of the "forgery" allegations on the CBS story have been roundly debunked? Or is bloggery just journalism when it comes from those who lean right?

Posted by: carla at January 11, 2005 02:59 PM

There's that patellar-reflexive partisan river in Egypt again....

Sarcasm, Carla. Try not to miss it. The fact is King County has shown quite thoroughly that it's incapable of handling an election. I think BOTH Rossi and Gregoire should call for a new election--as it stands right now, there is no legitimacy to the "winner." That's true even before King County started "discovering" all those new ballots. Even if Rossi had held his initial edge from the first two counts, or gets a court reversal. 2000+ mystery voters is a lot of mystery voters, and given the margin, even those 348 illegal provisional ballots should be enough for an overturn. And yes, inside sources at the election office are now admitting that they lied about when they mailed the ballots.

Oh...and are you planning to ignore the fact that all of the "forgery" allegations on the CBS story have been roundly debunked?

My, you are in an alternate universe! But that's the other thread. I invite you to post that "debunking" there. We can then compare it to what the panel's expert said.

Posted by: Tully at January 11, 2005 03:54 PM

Tully:

The difference here is that if Rossi had stayed ahead...even with the problems in King County...Gregiore would be labeled a "sore loser" in asking for a revote. There'd be screaming and gnashing of teeth...saying she lost three recounts and that she's just munching on sour grapes. And that would be the CW.

I remained unconvinced on the King County situation, however. I've been doing a little checking around today...and that bulk mailing permit info is pretty tough to come by. I think you can get the permit # directly off of the envelopes...maybe. Some bulk mailers have the permit # on and some don't. But the information about when the permit was used and how many pieces were mailed on a certain day is not something that the USPS just gives out. I've called both the Portland downtown central office and the main Seattle office today and talked to them about it. They don't just give out that information. I have a call in right now to the head of Business mailing for the Seattle area. I'll probably blog on what comes of it.

I've already blogged at length about the debunking of "forgery" story over at PK, and provided the links. If you're quite serious about discussing it further, I'd be more than happy to engage you about it over there.

Posted by: carla at January 11, 2005 05:56 PM

Thanks, Carla, but I've already seen the DU & Company "debunking" efforts. Almost as much fun as watching creationists explain paleontology and carbon-dating. I don't argue religion with fundamentalists, as faith permits no doubt or evidence. And I've seen the actual evidence, and Appendix 4 of the CBS report, and several other examinations by document experts and foresnic examiners and printing professionals with decades of experience, and there's nothing left to say. Every independent typography authority and document expert of any reputation who has examined them is in agreement. The memos are forgeries, and not even very good ones. They're so blatant even stupid bloggers spotted them as such in mere hours.

They do not typographically match any other document found in the archives of the TANG, much less that particular unit, which used manual Underwoods. They can not be accurately reproduced to match the "originals" using any of the equipment available at the time, in any way that is remotely as close a fit as simply typing them directly into MSWord with default settings. MSWord at default settings produces an exact match, within the variation resulting from the memos being photocopies. None of the equipment that conceivably could have produced even a slight resemblance was in use by the TANG, or by much of anyone but professional printing offices and publishers. In sheer terms of internal evidence, they still fail the test. The style is wrong. The formatting is wrong. The signature blocks are wrong. The abbreviations and acronyms are wrong. The "source," purportedly one Lucy Martinez, does not appear to exist. And there is NO chain of evidence at all to connect them with TANG. Zip.

The "memos" were produced on a computer, probably with MS Word on default settings, and then run through a Xerox(tm) a few times, just as the pajamahadeen initially asserted. To believe otherwise requires one hell of a lot of Koolaid.

RE: Seattle: FOIA. Those are the initials to remember. Watch the Seattle Times. The media sharks are circling.

Posted by: Tully at January 11, 2005 06:29 PM

Tully:

I don't go to DU so I don't know a thing about their "debunking effort". You are free to come to my blog where I've already posted it...post the panels findings, and we can compare them.

Btw...don't rely to much on those "sharks" in Seattle. I've been doing a little email exchange with the one from the Seattle Times story you cited. I've also been doing some investigating of the allegations being made by Soundpolitics. As soon as I get my followups finished (hopefully all today), I'll be blogging on it.

Posted by: carla at January 12, 2005 10:45 AM

You can argue the memos with whomever, but they're still fake by every accepted standard of evidence and according to every expert of any repute who has examined them, and the $50,000 reward for reproducing them on period equipment remains unclaimed despite hundreds of attempts. If you wish to insist that water is dry and blood is green, that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it, go right ahead. It does not say good things about you.

As I said, I don't argue religion with fundamentalists.

Posted by: Tully at January 12, 2005 11:39 AM

Tully:

Interesting dodge...but do as you must. You invited a discussion...and now you won't participate. I can't be held responsible for accepting your invitation, I guess. LOL

Posted by: carla at January 12, 2005 12:24 PM

Carla, I invited YOU to post whatever arguments you wished to make in the appropriate EXISTING thread right here on Centerfield. As appropriate, since you made the claim here. You refused, insisting it could only be done on your own blog! So who's dodging? You are.

You made the claim right here. Go right ahead and prove your claim. Right here, where you made it. If you can actually do so, you can also claim that $50,000 reward!

Claiming that they're real because you don't like George Bush and that an expert engraver of 1972 with a full print, tool and die shop at his disposal might have been able to produce them doesn't cut it. You have to show there is some legitimate and substantial evidence of authenticity.

Posted by: Tully at January 12, 2005 01:02 PM

Tully:

My preference is to do it at PK. That's where the relevant posts are and that's my preference. The allegations are there as well.

Further, I've completed my initial findings on the soundpolitics story you referenced in your comments here yesterday. Here's my blog post on it:

http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2005/01/truth_or_conseq.html

Please feel free to come over to PK and comment at will.

Posted by: carla at January 12, 2005 03:27 PM

Tully, you've got some factchecking to do.

2.8 million votes at least, not 2.2.

KC reports provisional validity is running about 90%. National rates have no bearing.

Gregoire made clear there would be no revote if she was the loser after the manual count.

The military ballots are not sent through the main KC bulk mailing ID. It's done through a federal account.

A "large percentage of military personnel" does not sound right, unless more than 90 affadavits have turned up since Rossi last made a claim. And a number of those were outside King.

2000+ "mystery voters" is a lot? Based on what? Apparently the 2000 count was 1200, assumedly on smaller turnout.

The provisional ballots are NOT enough for an overturn, not by any stretch. They cannot be identified as to who they were for, and the standard as laid out in RCW 29A 68.110 is clear that a number of votes for the "winning" candidate must be shown to be invalid, such that deducting them from their total, changes the result. Based on acceptance rates and KC voting patterns overall, that could be about 17-20 ballots to throw out. The estimation of which is irrelevant, of course, since the court cannot assume anything about the tabulation of those ballots. They could all be Rossi votes put through the machines by angry Republicans, for all we know. I'm certainly not saying they are, but no one can safely say they aren't.

Posted by: torridjoe at January 12, 2005 03:44 PM

Carla, on the Rather memos you sound just like an irate fundie creationist trying to drag a paleontologist into the True Temple for a prayer whuppin' in front of the congregation Of the Holy Writ. You made the claims here. If you don't "prefer" to defend them where you made them, that's your choice. And your default.

But let me say, nice followthrough on the mailing permit story! I look forward to seeing the results of an investigation by independent sources, and applaud your work. I will not take the word of the KC Election board. They've shown themselves to be incompetent. (Any one who has missed that tidbit, I repeated an allegation made at Sound Politics. Carla has done some fantastic blogger-prodding of media and public officials in checking it out--and it looks like it may well be totally false. Credit where credit is due--if it comes up BS I will personally go throw the truth all over Sound Politics, and forward a Pajamahadeen Certificate of Outstanding Bloggerhood to Carla, printed on genuine fake parchment. Go to Pre-emptive Karma and check it out. Red meat for the election junkie. Tasty!)

TorridJoe, you should at least check the Seattle Times article where the facts are cited from. You would find that the KC Election surperintendent himself publicly acknowledged yesterday that there are approximately 1800 "mystery" votes and 348 known illegal provisional ballots. Check HAVA. Provisional ballots are illegal until verified. None of those were verified. The number of them is over twice the margin of "victory." QED. The voter totals in Wash state as of the latest recount are 2,884,783 votes, just shy of 2.9 million. (Yep, I screwed up. So did you. You were closer.) If we take the statement of "99.9% accurate" at face value, that means the error margin at 2,884 votes is over ten times as large as the win margin, more than a full order of magnitude--which means we don't know the legitimate winner, only the current variance swing.

I have a good deal of experience parsing large voter databases. King County is either incompetent, or caught with their pants down to their knees, and in either case desperately trying to cover up. Take your pick. Every single competent election board I have ever worked for or with does frequent archival backups of the entire database. It doesn't take an extra mainframe or a two-day disk load. Have they never heard of CD burners in Washington state, home of Microsoft? They should be able to state with reasonable certainty which precincts those mystery were in within hours, at most. But they can't even find their duplicate records with two months lead time! Or even keep track of where the ballots are--they kept finding new ones, almost on cue. They are making the Florida 2000 vote look like a model of precision and rectitude.

I'm not sure if Rossi's continuing to contest is his best political move, or if he should just let the state GOP savage and undermine Gregoire for the next four years while he politely bows out. I do know that without a re-vote, Gregoire will spend four years as the lamest of despised ducks. If the election results were reversed, Rossi would be in the exact same position.

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 12:33 AM

Tully, a little confused. I cheerfully stipulate everything in the entire first paragraph, except the "QED," and the fact that I was aware it was something less than 2.9 million, although I knew it had been commonly rounded in news accounts Which is why I said "at least." What's curious is that none of these things I stipulated to, are part of the things I don't think you have quite right.

Rossi's right to contest has never been in doubt. His standard to succeed in annulment is much, much higher. RCW 29A 68 .070 and .110 are I think pretty clear about what the standards are. Also clear are your own standards, that makes "savaging and undermining" a political official sensible recourse to reccommend for a lost election. That's partisan demagoguery, when you pledge to screw up ideas and plans you don't even know about yet. Talk about flouting the will of the people.

Posted by: torridjoe at January 13, 2005 03:48 AM

"Partisan demogoguery?" LOL. Oooh, nice job of skipping the point and going directly for the confrontational ad hominem, Joe! I'm sorry you have failed to contextually distinguish between my view of what WILL occur as compared to what my own personal preferences (or yours) might be. So I'll rephrase in words capable of the meanest understanding. One of the two things I mentioned WILL happen (and it looks like the former not the latter). Given the margin in today's political climate, they would happen regardless of the declared winner. Noting that Rossi has a choice to make between those two realities does not constitute any express or implied partisan or non-partisan approval, cheerleading, or endorsement of the realities, but simply the informed acknowledgement that they do exist, and a speculation as to Rossi's most viable option in terms of his personal political aspirations in the face of those certainties. Were the situation exactly reversed, Gregoire would be facing the same career decision. Got it? Do try not to read more into what I say than what I actually say.

A brief analysis of the legal questions involved with relevant statutes quoted can be found at Timothy Goddard's blog. I think your opinion as to the barrier for successful challenge is mistaken, but neither your opinion or mine is relevant--the court's is. I am not predicting the outcome of the eventual court decision. But....

The irregularites present in King County alone appear to meet the standards for materiality under RCW 29A.68.070 and RCW 29A.68.080. Under the standard of RCW 29A.68.090, the number of illegal votes alleged need merely be enough change the result if subtracted from the total of the winner. And with a margin of 129 out of 2.9M that standard is clearly meetable, and would have been meetable for Gregoire as well had it gone the other way.

Clearly, there are more than sufficient grounds for legal challenge under the statutes.

You seem to think that RCW 29A.68.110 is an insurmountable bar to an annulment decision. It's not. It will hinge on a finding of fact by the court that the number of disputable votes is high enough to alter the election results, and given the numbers that's not unlikely. We can't know the results of that until the court rules--but similar cases in elections that were not nearly this close in either gross or percentage terms have resulted in annulment of the election. There is a fair chance the court will throw it out and order the revote that so many Washingtonians seem to desire.

As regards the absentee mailings, there is a paper trail and a chain of custody for those ballots. They did not carry themselves to the Post Office, and the USPS did not send them out without recording the billing, which billing would note when received and how many. I want to see the paper trail. I want to see the sworn statements of the people who moved them. It may show that King County is telling the literal truth. And it may show that they're not. I'm of the personal opinion that they are not, but lack any material evidence for or against at this point other than a pattern of ambiguously evasive behavior. KC could clear up the point simply by producing the paper trail, which is completely within their power to do. They have not produced it. Instead, they have equivocated. They appear to be avoiding any such production. I once again applaud and commend Carla for her zealous inquiries and cattle-prodding of press and public officials, and hope it bears fruit, and not just more evasions. But until that chain of custody is shown, I'll keep my opinion.

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 11:52 AM

FOLLOWUP!!! King County produces the goods! Carla incentivizes truth release!!!!

Military ballots sent out on time, county logs show

(I'm making up your certificate today, Carla. Email me a mailing addy.)

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 12:00 PM

FYI:

There's more to this story than what I've been able to post so far. For those that haven't seen the initial stuff...you can see it here:

http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2005/01/truth_or_conseq.html

From what I've been able to glean so far, King County Elections is no more or less incompetent than any other county in Washington State. They've just got a lot more voters (and a lot more ballots) than anybody else. Their margin of error seems about the same as the rest, if not a wee bit better.

I don't feel comfortable posting information unless I've been able to properly source it and verify it...which is why I'm mum for the moment on the other info.

Posted by: carla at January 13, 2005 12:38 PM

Btw Tully:

The invite is still open for you to come to PK and discuss the Rather memo issue. :)

Posted by: carla at January 13, 2005 01:01 PM

From what I've been able to glean so far, King County Elections is no more or less incompetent than any other county in Washington State.

From what I've seen to date, I don't know that that's much of a recommendation.

I have personally posted the appropriate mea culpa link in both PK and Sound Politics. I repeat my applause for Carla's work. She has the met the objective burden of proof, and was (I am guessing with some confidence) instrumental in pushing some of the investigation and info release. HuzzaH!

Now, Carla, if you want to argue the Rather memos, the thread is here. Try to remember the standards of evidence. Minute metaphysical probabilities will not suffice to debunk, and the preponderance of available negative evidence is a very large mountain to climb.

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 03:04 PM

Tully--if your intent was simply to dispassionately go over Rossi's options, I apologize for reading more into it than you intended.

You can read the comments to Tim's post, in order to discover where "Steve" and I find his analysis wanting. .070 and .110 seem to be the primary relevant statutes, and based on .070 Rossi clearly falls short. Misconduct must be such that it was done to procure a result for a candidate. No such misconduct has been proven. I think your reading of .110 is similarly flawed; the standard there is that an amount of ballots for a candidate must be found, such that deducting them changes the result. Again, I don't believe Rossi has any way of producing sufficient actual Gregoire ballots from any of his sources. Interestingly, the "enhanced" ballots could be traceable for a particular candidate, but unfortunately for Rossi case law precedent suggests these would not be counted as "illegal" ballots, and thus not be applicable to the .110 standard. Foulkes v Hays found that votes properly cast and subsequently altered are NOT illegal ballots. The altered votes in that case were deemed to have been intentionally altered to elevate a particular candidate, and as such the "procurement" clause of .070 applied. So Rossi's in a pickle, it seems--the ones he might be able to trace, aren't illegal, and the ones that are illegal, he can't trace. The dead votes and felon votes I think cannot be challenged on the basis of .020 5(b), because they were not challenged at the time they were cast.

Commenter Steve's being a lawyer doesn't represent the last word in that thread, but so far it's the only professionally qualified opinion I've seen on the subject. And it mostly matches mine, with regard to Rossi's chances.

Posted by: torridjoe at January 13, 2005 05:25 PM

LOL Tully...we're at the proverbial "Mexican Standoff" on the Rather memos.

I'm even willing to start a new discussion thread at PK...but I won't be doing it here. I prefer home turf.

Another follow up to the WA Gubernatorial piece is forthcoming at PK as well.

: )

Posted by: carla at January 13, 2005 05:58 PM

It can't be a Mexican standoff, Carla, we're not using firearms!

I think there are still some unanswered questions about the military absentees, but right now I'd want a strong evidentiary showing of malfeasance or negligence to move the pendulum back. Barring something more substantial than the allegations of the Rossi Right, KC looks to be covered on that one. (Why the heck did they mail them from Snohomish? But as long as they actually did mail them, and on time, the question is a side issue.)

Joe, accepted in the spirit given. In truth, I have no dog in that fight, I'm just a true fan of politics, and love to know what really happened and who's diddling what and how. This does give me a somewhat gleeful attitude when I see apparent stonewalling, side-stepping, and back-shuffling. Some folks are addicted to football...I'm a politics junkie.

Some of what I learn in such observations I use to help keep local elections (relatively) clean in my neck of the woods. I think with this one we're down to the meaning of "is." Foulkes v Hays was a case about reversing a decision ordering a new election, and the appellant lost. The lower court's initial ruling for a new election on the grounds of "neglect of duty" by election officials was upheld, even though the original allegation was for fraud, finding sufficient other reasons to believe the original recount results were not reliable.

In short, the court is likely to consider more than just dueling interpretations of statute, though the decision will of course be framed as such. We'll find out what the court thinks of this turkey in a few months. And it'll give us weeks of juicy political soap opera and spitball-throwing! Maybe even provide Washington state some impetus to fix some of their glaring electoral system problems.

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 06:29 PM

Tully:

Those ballots were mailed from Snohomish cuz that's where the vendor is located, as I understand it.

I have some new information up on the procedures for military voting, too.Feel free to journey to PK for the details. Fascinatingly wonky goodness type stuff.

I also spent some time today talking with an attorney who is quite familiar with the Washington State regs on this revote issue. I have been way too swamped with my other research to give it it's due...but I'm hopeful to have something written up on that by...um...sometime soon. LOL

Also..I'm still digging on the FOIA for the bulk mail permit that was my impetus for starting this research in the first place. I have to say..that one has been sticking in my craw and the USPS is slooooow to get back to me.

A post on that will go up when I get the info.

Posted by: carla at January 13, 2005 08:31 PM

WHAT!?!?!?!? The Post Office slow?!?

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. :-)

I'm sure that sending business to an out-of-county vendor greatly endears them to the county tax base and in-county vendors [/sarcasm] and could explain their initial reluctance to spell out details. And I'm positive that the "outsourcing" will be used as a noisy talking point against incumbents in the next round of county elections, including any contested primaries.

I don't have to ask why they would use a vendor at all, because I know why. The vendor is equipped to handle bulk mailings, a point some of the chatterers seem to miss entirely. I've done WAY too many mass mailings. You haven't lived until you've had to print and place pre-sorted address labels on thousands (or tens or hundreds of thousands) of mailers under a short deadline. Or at least you haven't lived miserably.

I'm hopeful to have something written up on that by...um...sometime soon.

Just quit sleeping. Gives you all kind of extra time.

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 09:01 PM

Tully--my reading of Foulkes is that at the appellate level, fraud was still accepted. They kind of combined the rationales from .070 and .110. They counted "an amount" of ballots that had been altered--46, I think--to create votes for the appellant. Even though the amount was not sufficient to change the result, they knew a) they had intentional misconduct designed to procure a favorable result for a particular candidate, b) they had an amount of votes that allowed them to say it appeared that there were enough altered votes to make the difference, and c) even though they couldn't name the officials either in neglect or in altering the ballots, the neglect LED to the fraud.

I have to agree that rulings often rely on crossreferences of different parts of the code. But I think it still boils down to either enough ballots that they can provably deduct from Gregoire, or intentional misconduct. Unless he's holding out until trial, I don't think Rossi has either.

Thanks for the discussion.

Posted by: torridjoe at January 13, 2005 10:05 PM