Judge blocks count of new Wash. ballots 12/17

[EMunster]

edit: Thread already started...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x173784


TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A judge Friday granted a state Republican Party request to block the counting of hundreds of recently discovered King County ballots in Washington's extremely close governor's race.

Even if the election workers wrongly rejected the ballots, it is too late for King County to reconsider them now, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend said...


damn..

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/politics-0/110330964852630.xml&storylist=

[clydefrand]

1. Some judge higher than she is should rule otherwise. No way

this can happen.

[RaulVB]

2. "Is too late for King County..."

Why?

Because I say so!

I'm going to check if they have any openings for the judge position in King County...any moron can be a judge there!:argh:

[berniew1]

8. Ludicrous ruling; obviously based on judges choice rather than law

A recount is to recount all legal votes to determine whether some votes were miscounted or left out of first count. Many new votes not included before were found and added in several counties. Excluding legal votes counted in a large Dem county in the recount preferentially because they are Dem is not a finding one can get to by quoting a law. Its a clearly discriminatory ruling by the judge based on who the judge prefers to be Govenor, rather than based on equal rights under law of legal voters to have their votes counted. Says its ok to discriminate against legal voters as long as they are Dems.

[Chimpanzee]

3. Again the republicans sue to discount ballots

What legal basis does the judge have to say these 700+ persons votes shouldn't count? Is it their fault that someone missplaced them?

BULLSHIT! This country is going to hell in a handbasket!

[berniew1]

4. Ludicrous, unethical, and "illegal' ruling by judge it appears

A recount is to recount all legal votes to determine whether some votes were miscounted or left out of first count. Many new votes not included before were found and added in several counties. Excluding legal votes counted in a large Dem county in the recount preferentially because they are Dem is not a finding one can get to by quoting a law. Its a clearly discriminatory ruling by the judge based on who the judge prefers to be Govenor, rather than based on equal rights under law of legal voters to have their votes counted. Says its ok to discriminate against legal voters as long as they are Dems.

[Hamoth]

5. I want to see the judges ruling ver batim

I can't see WHAT law they are goign with for this. This stinks on ice.

I voted for, and won, judge Col. Sanders...lol....wehre's he on this!?

[mary195149]

6. Why bother even having a recount,

if they are going to do what they want anyways. It's time for americans to stand and fight hard for this country. The repubs have crossed the line!! They obviously don't care what people want any longer. Our country needs to be saved before it is too late. Is this where civil war comes in?

[Goldeneye]

7. So if republicans can hide 100's of ballots

for enough time, then they become no good? I didn't realize there voting clause that says "If one party can hide ballots without the other party knowing for over one month, then those ballots become null and void."


on second thought... i didn't know ballots had an expiration date. Since all the ballots were cast on the same day, don't they all become spoiled?

[Igel]

9. If they're repubs, why are they fighting to include them?

In any event, my limited understanding is that for the last decade or so the interpretation has been that on the first pass, the county board decides what's a valid vote. I'm not sure that other counties were allowed to include previously rejected votes.

[CaptainCorc]

10. Whether they're repub or dem remains to be determined....

maybe. Here's a link to an article which casts gloom on the prospect of getting those puppies counted. Note that this article is from the 15th and deals with a different court decision. The upshot of it is that the Washington State Supreme Court "rejected a lawsuit that would have required counties to reinspect more than 3,000 previously disqualified absentee and provisional ballots."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/203826_governor15.html

Another snip:

In rejecting the Democrats' lawsuit yesterday, the high court ruled that under Washington law, "ballots are to be 'retabulated' only if they have been previously counted or tallied."

end snip

Now the word "tallied" is interesting here. I worked a little with Washington state elections and absentee voters are given credit for having voted even if their ballots don't count for some reason. Please don't ask me for the law behind that :). So if those 500 odd ballots have been "tallied" it may be possible that they'll be counted.

snip:

...the justices qualified that part of the ruling. State law also includes a provision that allows counties to fix errors, the justices wrote.

end snip

That seems significant to me because on these 500 odd ballots that were ruled on (negatively) today, the problem was that the election people did not go to the registration cards for signatures LIKE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO. When they found the signatures were not in the computer database, they rejected the ballots. This, as I understand it, is a procedural error. (If you're confused about all this signature business I beg your pardon: absentee ballots are mailed in a special envelope that the voter signs in order to allow the election workers to compare the signature with one on record--either in a database or on a registration card--in order to verify that the sender is really the voter in question).

Well this has gotten long hasn't it? Sorry about that. :)

Oh and my apologies if I didn't handle the snipping right.

[Igel]

14. Snipping's fine.

Didn't know that the absentee ballots were tallied even if not valid.

And I thought that the retallying restriction was part of the SOS administrative decisions, not part of law. I'll have to look at the ruling.

Re: Logan.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002121275_recount16m.html
"Elections Director Dean Logan, a Democrat appointed by King County Executive Ron Sims, chairs the canvassing board." (It's in a sidebar)

Ron Sims
http://rsimsforgovernor.meetup.com/
Democrat, but if you want a bit of intrigue, he ran against Gregoire in the primary and was soundly defeated.

[CaptainCorc]

16. Thanks for the input on the snipping

Not being an expert on Washington election law I can't tell you for sure if the restriction you asked about is part of the law. The idea, I believe, behind giving absentee voters credit for having voted even if their ballots don't qualify to be counted is to keep those voters from being dropped off the list of registered voters. That's why the use of two words (count and tally) struck me, although I do believe it's not unusual for lawmakers to use two words where, to the eye of a layman, one would do.

Precedent for counting an absentee ballot that was missed in the first go around due to clerical error has already been set in a case where a red county absentee vote was counted for Rossi after the discovery that there were (get this) two voters with the same name. Yes, this threw the whole mechanism into confusion the first time and the ballot in question was not counted. However, county election officials discovered the error during the hand recount and rectified it by duly counting the vote for Rossi. There were no objections from the Democrats over this (God bless them). Being a rural person myself I am reluctant to cast aspersions on this rural county but I mean REALLY--two voters with the same name causes one of them to be skipped??? Ahem.

Here's hoping the state Supreme Court reverses the decision and allows those King County ballots to be counted as it appears they should be.

[weeve]

18. That's the key, methinks

I think the fact that Rossi already accepted even ONE extra ( valid ) absentee vote in the hand recount( when county election officers discovered a problem ) should bode well for counting the ~700 King Co. (valid) votes. From what little I understand, as long as the vote has not yet been certified, errors like this can still be fixed. It's OUTRAGEOUS to think otherwise. I also feel that since the Supreme Court already unanimously decided against counting the 3,000+ questionable votes in their last decision, they may be more willing now to accept these 700 valid votes. It will give the appearance that they're being non-partisan , and have ruled once in favor of each side. Of course I'd love it if Gregoire pulls out a squeaker WITHOUT needing to have those 700 votes counted, but the Supreme Court does need to come down on the side of the principle "Every Vote Needs to Be Counted". Will definitely be an interesting week here in Washington.

[CaptainCorc]

19. Agreed on all counts n/t

[The Judged]

11. Another case of the spirit of the law being choked to death by a judge!

Isn't the purpose of an election to allow registered voters to vote their conscience on candidates for public office and state and local referendums and for their votes to then be counted as valid toward the election results?

Isn't this the primary purpose of elections in a democracy and a republic?

Isn't this judge ignoring the spirit AND foundation of the election law and passing down his own personal edict on behalf of the Republican National Committee by suggesting that valid votes may be disqualified due to faulty actions by election officials, even though the purpose of a recount is to verify the accuracy of the vote?

For example, in Florida "misplaced" votes were found after the initial results were declared and prior to the votes being certified, and they were added into the existing tally on the referendum in order to get that referendum passed!

ONE OF MANY SOURCES:

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Politics/Florida/03PoliticsPOLF01121004.htm

"Group withdraws lawsuit seeking recount of Amendment 4

Associated Press

Last update: December 10, 2004

MIAMI -- Gambling opponents said Thursday they have dropped a lawsuit challenging the election results of a constitutional amendment that could pave the way for Vegas-style slot machines in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Voters statewide approved the measure by 120,000 votes in November for the two south Florida counties to hold referendums on whether to allow slot machines at seven South Florida race tracks and jai alai frontons. The discovery of 78,000 uncounted votes in Broward helped solidify the victory.

The anti-gambling group No Casinos and Broward animal-rights activist Heather Veleanu filed a lawsuit in November in Tallahassee seeking a recount of Broward votes. They said the approval rate for the discovered votes -- 74,000 for and only 4,000 against -- was above average and questionable.

But state Rep. Randy Johnson, who chairs No Casinos, said Thursday that a victory in the lawsuit wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election."

<snip>

SECOND POINT ON "PERCEIVED" WASHINGTON STATE ELECTION FRAUD:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=333911&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

"Conspiracy Theories Abound in Wash. Race

"Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed."

<snip>

"It's either incompetence or fraud," state GOP Chairman Chris Vance said.

"From the outside you can't tell the difference.""

<snip>

[pbartch]

12. Need to get the information you posted to the DEMS in WA State

is anyone on this thread from Washington State????

[spotbird]

13. A friend who lived in the Philippines

says elections here are about the same as they were during the dictatorship there. Counting votes is now illegal, what's the point?

[BanzaiBonnie]

15. I'm from Washington state

and I'm pissed at the whole thing.

What is the point of an election? To assertain the intent of the voter. And a recount is conducted to make sure all the votes are counted.


Whatever happened in King County may have been ineptitude or fraud--- I don't know. What I do know is that some people who voted legally are going to have their votes discarded!


Without Fair Elections,
All Bets Are Off


BB

[glitch]

17. I like your tag line - how about this one:

No Fair Elections
No Civil Contract