I didn't mention Kennedy because he is a Democrat, but because he is the best example of the two things I was talking about (too many years in Congress, and too much pork sent back home [e.g., the Big Dig]), and because he is from "my" state (well, I lived there 20 years, and until recently).
Hm. I am in favor of term limits and ousting career politicians, but one of the greatest problems with career politicians is that they secure their positions through pork, and McCain is one of the few who tries to stand against that practice. Let's save McCain for the end, and start with Ted Kennedy instead.:-)
You seemed to conceive of actions mandated by state code to be the same as actions possible under state code.
So now you're saying the second recount was mandatory? Huh.
I care. I do this idiot thing called thinking. Simply because any citizen in the state of Washington CAN contest an election does not mean that it will do any good. Yes, obviously I am not the arbiter of whether or not claimant has grounds, but I'd like to know anyway, cause I like being informed.
Obviously you would like to know, but you cannot know until the contest proceeding really takes place, because they are not going to tell you everything they have until then.
I would also like to state that my contention was not that by contesting the election, Rossi would be trying to change the RULES, but rather he HAS changed his rhetoric.
I stated that in the original story, that both sides have switched their arguments.
I believe it was actually the county auditors of each and every county that the Republicans wanted to re-hand count who refused to keep counting
So? I never said anything about that. I said the Democrats argued that the counties should not reopen their votes, which is true. They had argued every vote should count, until the tally fell their way, at which point they argued no more votes should be included. This is fact, and it is a clear reversal of their rhetoric.
My problem is that when HE was up by a hundred votes, he said gregoire should concede. When Gregoire is up a hundred votes, the election was the result of fraud, and there needs to be a new one. Thats just a little too much for me. thats all.
When Gregoire was down by a hundred votes, she said that the counts were flawed; when she was up by a hundred votes, she said that Rossi should concede. She has been just as hypocritical, at least. BFD.
on a final note, is there really need for the flame baiting? and dont tell me thats not what it was, you belittled me throughout your entire sarcastic refutation. so I guess you can just keep on trying, maybe someone will bite
When you lie to me, saying the Democrats want to make sure every vote is counted, then yeah, I'll respond a bit negatively in return. BFD.
The context was when a county certified its vote in the initial count, realized it had made errors with the voting machines, and then redid the count and recertified it before the deadline. He was all in favor of that, but was steadfastly against any county opening up its vote to recertification in the second recount.
According to the Seattle Times, Gregoire said: "I respect the rights of others to file an action in court. That's their right," she said. "I have to respect that, I'm the attorney general."
She also said Rossi should concede -- I've heard her say it with my own two ears, several times on the news -- which is the opposite of her position when SHE was behind, which was that the candidate who is behind should not concede as long as there are still open questions about who is actually the winner etc.
Who's blind and lying?
I don't know. I think you are blind OR lying. That does not preclude both, but I can't be sure of that.
In the last September primary, where we could only vote under one party for each race, what prevents malicious voting?
What prevents it under *any* system? Even if we have party registration, I can register for the Democratic party and then vote for Sims in the democratic primary, hurting Gregoire and the Democrats. It's a given.
I'm still a bit confused on how everyone gets into the elections. Like the qualifications for persons/parties for the general election, and how the primary figures into that.
It's simple. To get on the general election ballot, you get a certain number of signatures. That's (essentially) it. The party serves as a means to get those signatures, and the primary is a method parties use to determine which of multiple candidates gets to use those signatures.
So the Democrats get signatures enough to put an unnamed candidate for governor on the ballot. They hold a primary election for their members to tell them which of the two, Gregoire or Sims, they should endorse. The winner, Gregoire, gets the endorsement and gets the signatures to be on the general election ballot.
Another idea, and it's a bad one probably, would be to do this. Have it the same way we did last September, but allow each person to vote under each party for each race. So if there are three major political parties and 20 races, that's 60 votes.
Why should I, as a Republican, have any say in who the Democrats decided to give their endorsement to?
The Democrats wanted their recounts and got it. They haven't changed positions in the slightest.
So when Paul Berendt said every vote should count, that even if certification has already happened in a county they should go back and include votes they missed when he was losing, and then when his side was winning he said it is too late to include votes once a county has certified, that qualifies as what? Consistency? Interesting planet you live on.
And of course, there's the most obvious: they said they should not concede as long as there are still legal avenues to pursue, but now tell Rossi to concede even though he still has legal avenues to pursue.
You're simply blind or lying to say they have not changed their positions.
There are no independents in the primary system we just went through (that's the point: it is only for the parties [well, and nonpartisan races]). The only "third party" in it is the Libertarians, and I think it has something to do with how well the party did in previous elections, whether it qualifies.
Every other party gets no primary, and has to select their candidates outside the primary process (which is what I hope the major parties now will do, too).
I've stated it clearly several times, including in one of the posts you responded to, two replies ago. I've been unequivocal in my support for the party (closed) primary system and the normal (not top 2) general election.
That many people strongly disliked it is a given, but beside the point, since the other options are undemocratic or unconstitutional. And as I firmly believe the overwhelming majority of strong dislike was based on ignorance (such as, thinking a primary is a pre-election instead of a method for a party to choose its candidates), I am even less inclined to take that into consideration.
The recount process was started not by Gregoire contesting the original count, but rather by state election law that MANDATED a recount given the margin between the two candidates. The second recount stemmed from another clause in that same law that allowed one of the candidates to request and pay for a limited hand recount.
Which she did, which is what I was referring to.
Now... state election law does indeed state that any citizen can contest any election...
Like I said, I don't think you disagree with me. The law says it can be contested, as you concede here.
the question at hand is on what grounds could Rossi contest it?
Who cares? The law doesn't say "you can only contest it if you convince AdmiralWeirdbeard that your grounds are sufficient." You can contest, period. Then a court decides whether your grounds are sufficient. If they do, then that is as per the law, so the law is being followed. If not, that is still as per the law, and the contest will end, and the law is still being followed.
In no way does a contest represent anyone trying to change or violate the rules, despite your implication to the contrary.
you seem to be under the impression that Counties besides King did not add votes after signature mix-ups such as in king county
I never expressed anything remotely similar to that, so that impression is your problem, not mine.
So, yes, the rules were followed, and the rules are still being followed.
I never said rules were not followed (except in the case of Judge Lam in King County, who violated federal law by giving the parties access to the provisional voter personal information, but that was in the initial count, and is water under the bridge at this point).
The difference between the democratic and republican take on what following the rules means, is that the Democrats wanted to make sure that as many votes were counted as possible, whereas the republicans acted at every possible step to prevent new votes from being added.
That you actually believe this is sad. All through the first count and the first recount, and most of the second recount, the Democrats were saying the most important thing is to count every vote, even if the letter of the law in regard to that vote was not followed, and even if the county had already certified its results. But as soon as Gregoire went ahead, they changed their tune, arguing that it was too late to add more ballots, even though state certification was a week away.
You can't convince me of something that is clearly not true. Paul "Count Every Vote" Berendt is the biggest hypocrite in the state, completely reversing his arguments as the circumstances required, and every honest person can see that for themselves.
That doesn't mean the Republicans have not been hypocritical, but for you to hold the Democrats on some moral pedestal over the Republicans is ridiculous nonsense.
(Also note that any argument you wish to make about the Republicans wanting to change the rules, about whining, etc. applies even moreso to the Democrats in the House and Senate in DC, who this week tried to block certification of Ohio's votes on far less grounds than what the Republicans in WA have.)
The political parties don't really have a formal membership.
This is a problem that state of Washington already found a way to deal with, years ago. Ever participate in the caucus? By participating in one, you are stating that you -- for that time -- identify with that party in some way, and you promise not to participate in the caucus of any other party for that election cycle.
That system was just carried over to the new primary system. It's not perfect inasmuch as there is, as you say, no formal membership (except for the people who actively participate in the party as officials of it, as I do). But that's never been a problem for the caucuses, that I can see. It's a reasonable compromise.
One solution that is unlikely, and would create more problems, is for each political party organization to hold their own primaries, with the winner going onto the general election.
That is essentially what we had in September, except that the counties ran them. That's really a distinction without a difference, I think (except in that the parties don't pay for them, of course, which isn't all that important to what we're discussing here).
What I hope happens next is that there is either a lawsuit from the parties, or the parties just go ahead and pick their candidates at convention instead of in the primary.
And like I already noted, they are including voter error in there, which means they are not talking about counting accuracy, which is what *I* am talking about, which is the subject of recount methodolgy.
The report actually states that hand-counted paper ballots consistently were the most accurate voting method.
No, in a meaningful way, it did not state that.
The point was that if you held the population steady but only changed the voting system, the percentage of ballots that recorded votes decreased.
And that point is impossible to prove with actual data (as you cannot keep such a large population steady, and every election gives people different reasons to either vote or not for a given office); and even if we accept it as a given, it's irrelevant to the point at hand, which is counting accuracy.
Gregoire hasn't forced anything. The state offered and Gregoire accepted.
You're ignoring the context of the discussion. Someone said Rossi was trying asking the state to pay for a new election, implying that this was being forced upon them: but he is only doing it in the same sense she did, that is, following the available legal procedures that the state has made available. So fine, if you say Gregoire is not forcing, then neither is Rossi. It doesn't change my point at all, which is that he is doing nothing dissimilar from what she has done.
"reverse the result" ? Result of what? The election? The election does not have a result until it is certified.
It *was* certified. Dino Rossi was the governor-elect, according to the Secretary of State's office, until the recount was certified, which overturned the previous two certifications.
Lots of people hate lots of things, but a blanket primary is unconstitutional. You can't have it, so get used to it.
I-872 is trying to exploit a loophole whereby the primary becomes the de facto general election, and there's a mandatory runoff between the top two, which is a ridiculously stupid system, reducing voter choice significantly.
Many people don't understand it. The obvious problem is that the right of the voters to put someone on the general election ballot by signature has been completely destroyed, which is one of the most important rights people have, in my opinion. I-872 advocates say, "you get more choices in the primary, and better choices in the general election."
Yeah, right, fewer choices is better?
But there's a worse problem caused by this problem, that destroys the very intent of I-872. Because groups of people -- including parties -- can no longer join together to select their candidate for the general election, the primary becomes the de facto general election, and the parties -- who have the Constitutional right to decide who gets to represent them -- will decide their candidates in convention and only one candidate from each party will be on the primary ballot anyway.
hand-counted paper ballots, optically scanned paper ballots, and lever machines were the most accurate voting methods. Punchcards and paperless DREs were significantly less accurate.
Yes, punchcards are a problem, but those represent a relatively small minority of the votes in Washington.
Counties that switched to DREs from other methods saw an average increase of undervotes of 1% of the votes cast (i.e., from 2% to 3%, as opposed to 2% to 2.02%).
It seems you're talking about voter error, which is a completely separate issue from counting/tabulation accuracy.
If your definition of an accurate counting method in this case is one that results in the same result every time, that's an unreasonable standard (especially considering part of the discrepancies seem to have been new ballots included in the count by the courts).
My definition is simple: the one that comes closest to the actual vote. Of course, we don't know what that is, which is the problem.:-)
what exactly leads you to believe that the machine recounts are so much more accurate than the process used in the so called "hand recount?"
Well, for starters, all the elections officials said so, including the current and previous Secretary of State and Dan Logan, the King County elections director.
I could get more specific about the "why," but you don't care.
Also, you say "people are much better at reading than machines," but that's only true in the sense that people are more *subjective* than machines: that is, if a line is not drawn or bubble not filled perfectly, a human can pick it up perhaps where a machine cannot. This is true, but it necessarily also means that the same people open themselves up to a host of possible mistakes (both false positives and false negatives). i.e., the truth your statement is based on does not help the idea that hand recounts are more accurate any more than it hurts it.
As a matter of law we place more confidence and all of the wieght in the hand recount.
Yes, we do, and that is unfortunate. It's why I oppose the hand recount in principle, but supported the Democrats' right to have it done.
Right, he should conceed (sic), if he has any integrity and puts any stock in his own values, now that the process really has run it's course.
It has not run its course yet. Stop lying.
Even republican observers have told the local news outlets that the widespread incompetence or corruption necessary to overturn the election just isn't there.
I don't know what observers you're talking about, but I would agree that I have not seen such evidence. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and they have until January 22 (IIRC) to find it.
If the military isn't making sure ballots get to where they need to be, that's a problem for the military. If people are having trouble getting their ballots overseas, well international mail can be like that sometimes, again, not washington's problem.
No. I think you don't understand the problem (or you just don't give a damn, since you hate Republicans and are against anything that might give Rossi a chance, which is probably more likely).
The primary was held on September 14. It was not certified for a couple of weeks, putting us almost into October. It takes some time to get the ballots and voter guides printed and mailed. The time was simply too short, less than a month in some cases.
If the absentee ballots had been sent out 2 or 3 months before the general election, I might be inclined to agree, but less than a month? No, sorry. And even the Secretary of State, who is responsible for all this, says that this is the fault of the state.
The counties are indeed the ones who handle much of this, but they are forced into the short timeframe because of the state's dates.
That doesn't mean we should nullify the election, but it's clearly a problem, and it's clearly the state's fault, and it is unlikely it will happen again, as Reed has vowed to address the problem.
or their were signed improperly in some significant respect
Such as?
Gregiore did not compel the state to pay for the recount. She, compeled them to do the recount.
And Rossi will not be doing either: he is asking for a new vote, he cannot compel it. And so what? The point is simply that someone was attacking Rossi for trying to get the state to pay millions, and Gregoire did the same thing.
Are the democrats wrong for expectiong the republicans to up hold and pursue their own publicly professed values?
No, they are wrong for saying that the Republican argument was wrong before, and that it is right now. They are wrong for being hypocrites.
Now, I do hate republicans. For national office, there are very few I can see myself voting for anymore
No. You were complaining about how the Democrats were acting and I pointed out that the Republicans are not any better.
I was complaining about how the Democrats were acting IN WASHINGTON STATE. And I already wrote in the original story, that both the Republicans and Democrats in the state were acting hypocritically.
You want to restrict this to a sub-group in one state in one election.
That is all I was ever talking about. That's what the story is about, that's what my comments have all been about.
Since you have been completely unable to provide a single substantiated instance where he did push to fix such problems
I gave several examples. I didn't back them up, but a simple Google search would do it. They are well-known, as it's been a big part of his work in office -- pushing for paper trails -- and recently, his advocacy for fixing absentee balloting by changing the primary date to give it more time has been all over the news.
But you would rather lie and say that none of this exists, because you hate Republicans.
The same as they are now (that is, pre-I-872, which aims to change it to a top two general election). I see no need for a change. I see a need for changing how the votes are tabulated, to make it more efficient and accurate, but no need to change the overall idea of voting.
You're conflating. "Margin of error" as used in statistical samplings that pollsters do is a very different sort of thing than the actual error found in counting an entire population (as opposed to a sampling of that population).
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I didn't mention Kennedy because he is a Democrat, but because he is the best example of the two things I was talking about (too many years in Congress, and too much pork sent back home [e.g., the Big Dig]), and because he is from "my" state (well, I lived there 20 years, and until recently).
Hm. I am in favor of term limits and ousting career politicians, but one of the greatest problems with career politicians is that they secure their positions through pork, and McCain is one of the few who tries to stand against that practice. Let's save McCain for the end, and start with Ted Kennedy instead. :-)
You seemed to conceive of actions mandated by state code to be the same as actions possible under state code.
So now you're saying the second recount was mandatory? Huh.
I care. I do this idiot thing called thinking. Simply because any citizen in the state of Washington CAN contest an election does not mean that it will do any good. Yes, obviously I am not the arbiter of whether or not claimant has grounds, but I'd like to know anyway, cause I like being informed.
Obviously you would like to know, but you cannot know until the contest proceeding really takes place, because they are not going to tell you everything they have until then.
I would also like to state that my contention was not that by contesting the election, Rossi would be trying to change the RULES, but rather he HAS changed his rhetoric.
I stated that in the original story, that both sides have switched their arguments.
I believe it was actually the county auditors of each and every county that the Republicans wanted to re-hand count who refused to keep counting
So? I never said anything about that. I said the Democrats argued that the counties should not reopen their votes, which is true. They had argued every vote should count, until the tally fell their way, at which point they argued no more votes should be included. This is fact, and it is a clear reversal of their rhetoric.
My problem is that when HE was up by a hundred votes, he said gregoire should concede. When Gregoire is up a hundred votes, the election was the result of fraud, and there needs to be a new one. Thats just a little too much for me. thats all.
When Gregoire was down by a hundred votes, she said that the counts were flawed; when she was up by a hundred votes, she said that Rossi should concede. She has been just as hypocritical, at least. BFD.
on a final note, is there really need for the flame baiting? and dont tell me thats not what it was, you belittled me throughout your entire sarcastic refutation. so I guess you can just keep on trying, maybe someone will bite
When you lie to me, saying the Democrats want to make sure every vote is counted, then yeah, I'll respond a bit negatively in return. BFD.
Context?
The context was when a county certified its vote in the initial count, realized it had made errors with the voting machines, and then redid the count and recertified it before the deadline. He was all in favor of that, but was steadfastly against any county opening up its vote to recertification in the second recount.
According to the Seattle Times, Gregoire said:
"I respect the rights of others to file an action in court. That's their right," she said. "I have to respect that, I'm the attorney general."
She also said Rossi should concede -- I've heard her say it with my own two ears, several times on the news -- which is the opposite of her position when SHE was behind, which was that the candidate who is behind should not concede as long as there are still open questions about who is actually the winner etc.
Who's blind and lying?
I don't know. I think you are blind OR lying. That does not preclude both, but I can't be sure of that.
In the last September primary, where we could only vote under one party for each race, what prevents malicious voting?
What prevents it under *any* system? Even if we have party registration, I can register for the Democratic party and then vote for Sims in the democratic primary, hurting Gregoire and the Democrats. It's a given.
I'm still a bit confused on how everyone gets into the elections. Like the qualifications for persons/parties for the general election, and how the primary figures into that.
It's simple. To get on the general election ballot, you get a certain number of signatures. That's (essentially) it. The party serves as a means to get those signatures, and the primary is a method parties use to determine which of multiple candidates gets to use those signatures.
So the Democrats get signatures enough to put an unnamed candidate for governor on the ballot. They hold a primary election for their members to tell them which of the two, Gregoire or Sims, they should endorse. The winner, Gregoire, gets the endorsement and gets the signatures to be on the general election ballot.
Another idea, and it's a bad one probably, would be to do this. Have it the same way we did last September, but allow each person to vote under each party for each race. So if there are three major political parties and 20 races, that's 60 votes.
Why should I, as a Republican, have any say in who the Democrats decided to give their endorsement to?
The Democrats wanted their recounts and got it. They haven't changed positions in the slightest.
So when Paul Berendt said every vote should count, that even if certification has already happened in a county they should go back and include votes they missed when he was losing, and then when his side was winning he said it is too late to include votes once a county has certified, that qualifies as what? Consistency? Interesting planet you live on.
And of course, there's the most obvious: they said they should not concede as long as there are still legal avenues to pursue, but now tell Rossi to concede even though he still has legal avenues to pursue.
You're simply blind or lying to say they have not changed their positions.
There are no independents in the primary system we just went through (that's the point: it is only for the parties [well, and nonpartisan races]). The only "third party" in it is the Libertarians, and I think it has something to do with how well the party did in previous elections, whether it qualifies.
Every other party gets no primary, and has to select their candidates outside the primary process (which is what I hope the major parties now will do, too).
what do you propose?
I've stated it clearly several times, including in one of the posts you responded to, two replies ago. I've been unequivocal in my support for the party (closed) primary system and the normal (not top 2) general election.
That many people strongly disliked it is a given, but beside the point, since the other options are undemocratic or unconstitutional. And as I firmly believe the overwhelming majority of strong dislike was based on ignorance (such as, thinking a primary is a pre-election instead of a method for a party to choose its candidates), I am even less inclined to take that into consideration.
I disagree with your conception of "the rules."
I don't think you do.
The recount process was started not by Gregoire contesting the original count, but rather by state election law that MANDATED a recount given the margin between the two candidates. The second recount stemmed from another clause in that same law that allowed one of the candidates to request and pay for a limited hand recount.
Which she did, which is what I was referring to.
Now... state election law does indeed state that any citizen can contest any election...
Like I said, I don't think you disagree with me. The law says it can be contested, as you concede here.
the question at hand is on what grounds could Rossi contest it?
Who cares? The law doesn't say "you can only contest it if you convince AdmiralWeirdbeard that your grounds are sufficient." You can contest, period. Then a court decides whether your grounds are sufficient. If they do, then that is as per the law, so the law is being followed. If not, that is still as per the law, and the contest will end, and the law is still being followed.
In no way does a contest represent anyone trying to change or violate the rules, despite your implication to the contrary.
you seem to be under the impression that Counties besides King did not add votes after signature mix-ups such as in king county
I never expressed anything remotely similar to that, so that impression is your problem, not mine.
So, yes, the rules were followed, and the rules are still being followed.
I never said rules were not followed (except in the case of Judge Lam in King County, who violated federal law by giving the parties access to the provisional voter personal information, but that was in the initial count, and is water under the bridge at this point).
The difference between the democratic and republican take on what following the rules means, is that the Democrats wanted to make sure that as many votes were counted as possible, whereas the republicans acted at every possible step to prevent new votes from being added.
That you actually believe this is sad. All through the first count and the first recount, and most of the second recount, the Democrats were saying the most important thing is to count every vote, even if the letter of the law in regard to that vote was not followed, and even if the county had already certified its results. But as soon as Gregoire went ahead, they changed their tune, arguing that it was too late to add more ballots, even though state certification was a week away.
You can't convince me of something that is clearly not true. Paul "Count Every Vote" Berendt is the biggest hypocrite in the state, completely reversing his arguments as the circumstances required, and every honest person can see that for themselves.
That doesn't mean the Republicans have not been hypocritical, but for you to hold the Democrats on some moral pedestal over the Republicans is ridiculous nonsense.
(Also note that any argument you wish to make about the Republicans wanting to change the rules, about whining, etc. applies even moreso to the Democrats in the House and Senate in DC, who this week tried to block certification of Ohio's votes on far less grounds than what the Republicans in WA have.)
The political parties don't really have a formal membership.
This is a problem that state of Washington already found a way to deal with, years ago. Ever participate in the caucus? By participating in one, you are stating that you -- for that time -- identify with that party in some way, and you promise not to participate in the caucus of any other party for that election cycle.
That system was just carried over to the new primary system. It's not perfect inasmuch as there is, as you say, no formal membership (except for the people who actively participate in the party as officials of it, as I do). But that's never been a problem for the caucuses, that I can see. It's a reasonable compromise.
One solution that is unlikely, and would create more problems, is for each political party organization to hold their own primaries, with the winner going onto the general election.
That is essentially what we had in September, except that the counties ran them. That's really a distinction without a difference, I think (except in that the parties don't pay for them, of course, which isn't all that important to what we're discussing here).
What I hope happens next is that there is either a lawsuit from the parties, or the parties just go ahead and pick their candidates at convention instead of in the primary.
And like I already noted, they are including voter error in there, which means they are not talking about counting accuracy, which is what *I* am talking about, which is the subject of recount methodolgy.
A) Blanket primary - Cross party primary voting, declared unconstitutional after like 70 years
Obviously not, since illegal.
B) Pick a party and vote only for that party in each race - The one so many people hated, the one we used last September.
The only reasonable one, yes. Many people hate it because they don't understand the purpose of parties and primaries.
C) Top two primary - I-872 created this
Unconstitutional and undemocratic.
D) Instant Runoff Voting
Undemocratic.
The report actually states that hand-counted paper ballots consistently were the most accurate voting method.
No, in a meaningful way, it did not state that.
The point was that if you held the population steady but only changed the voting system, the percentage of ballots that recorded votes decreased.
And that point is impossible to prove with actual data (as you cannot keep such a large population steady, and every election gives people different reasons to either vote or not for a given office); and even if we accept it as a given, it's irrelevant to the point at hand, which is counting accuracy.
Gregoire hasn't forced anything. The state offered and Gregoire accepted.
You're ignoring the context of the discussion. Someone said Rossi was trying asking the state to pay for a new election, implying that this was being forced upon them: but he is only doing it in the same sense she did, that is, following the available legal procedures that the state has made available. So fine, if you say Gregoire is not forcing, then neither is Rossi. It doesn't change my point at all, which is that he is doing nothing dissimilar from what she has done.
"reverse the result" ? Result of what? The election? The election does not have a result until it is certified.
It *was* certified. Dino Rossi was the governor-elect, according to the Secretary of State's office, until the recount was certified, which overturned the previous two certifications.
Lots of people hate lots of things, but a blanket primary is unconstitutional. You can't have it, so get used to it.
I-872 is trying to exploit a loophole whereby the primary becomes the de facto general election, and there's a mandatory runoff between the top two, which is a ridiculously stupid system, reducing voter choice significantly.
Many people don't understand it. The obvious problem is that the right of the voters to put someone on the general election ballot by signature has been completely destroyed, which is one of the most important rights people have, in my opinion. I-872 advocates say, "you get more choices in the primary, and better choices in the general election."
Yeah, right, fewer choices is better?
But there's a worse problem caused by this problem, that destroys the very intent of I-872. Because groups of people -- including parties -- can no longer join together to select their candidate for the general election, the primary becomes the de facto general election, and the parties -- who have the Constitutional right to decide who gets to represent them -- will decide their candidates in convention and only one candidate from each party will be on the primary ballot anyway.
Oops.
hand-counted paper ballots, optically scanned paper ballots, and lever machines were the most accurate voting methods. Punchcards and paperless DREs were significantly less accurate.
Yes, punchcards are a problem, but those represent a relatively small minority of the votes in Washington.
Counties that switched to DREs from other methods saw an average increase of undervotes of 1% of the votes cast (i.e., from 2% to 3%, as opposed to 2% to 2.02%).
It seems you're talking about voter error, which is a completely separate issue from counting/tabulation accuracy.
If your definition of an accurate counting method in this case is one that results in the same result every time, that's an unreasonable standard (especially considering part of the discrepancies seem to have been new ballots included in the count by the courts).
:-)
My definition is simple: the one that comes closest to the actual vote. Of course, we don't know what that is, which is the problem.
what exactly leads you to believe that the machine recounts are so much more accurate than the process used in the so called "hand recount?"
Well, for starters, all the elections officials said so, including the current and previous Secretary of State and Dan Logan, the King County elections director.
I could get more specific about the "why," but you don't care.
Also, you say "people are much better at reading than machines," but that's only true in the sense that people are more *subjective* than machines: that is, if a line is not drawn or bubble not filled perfectly, a human can pick it up perhaps where a machine cannot. This is true, but it necessarily also means that the same people open themselves up to a host of possible mistakes (both false positives and false negatives). i.e., the truth your statement is based on does not help the idea that hand recounts are more accurate any more than it hurts it.
As a matter of law we place more confidence and all of the wieght in the hand recount.
Yes, we do, and that is unfortunate. It's why I oppose the hand recount in principle, but supported the Democrats' right to have it done.
Right, he should conceed (sic), if he has any integrity and puts any stock in his own values, now that the process really has run it's course.
It has not run its course yet. Stop lying.
Even republican observers have told the local news outlets that the widespread incompetence or corruption necessary to overturn the election just isn't there.
I don't know what observers you're talking about, but I would agree that I have not seen such evidence. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and they have until January 22 (IIRC) to find it.
If the military isn't making sure ballots get to where they need to be, that's a problem for the military. If people are having trouble getting their ballots overseas, well international mail can be like that sometimes, again, not washington's problem.
No. I think you don't understand the problem (or you just don't give a damn, since you hate Republicans and are against anything that might give Rossi a chance, which is probably more likely).
The primary was held on September 14. It was not certified for a couple of weeks, putting us almost into October. It takes some time to get the ballots and voter guides printed and mailed. The time was simply too short, less than a month in some cases.
If the absentee ballots had been sent out 2 or 3 months before the general election, I might be inclined to agree, but less than a month? No, sorry. And even the Secretary of State, who is responsible for all this, says that this is the fault of the state.
The counties are indeed the ones who handle much of this, but they are forced into the short timeframe because of the state's dates.
That doesn't mean we should nullify the election, but it's clearly a problem, and it's clearly the state's fault, and it is unlikely it will happen again, as Reed has vowed to address the problem.
Many hadn't been signed
How many?
or their were signed improperly in some significant respect
Such as?
Gregiore did not compel the state to pay for the recount. She, compeled them to do the recount.
And Rossi will not be doing either: he is asking for a new vote, he cannot compel it. And so what? The point is simply that someone was attacking Rossi for trying to get the state to pay millions, and Gregoire did the same thing.
Are the democrats wrong for expectiong the republicans to up hold and pursue their own publicly professed values?
No, they are wrong for saying that the Republican argument was wrong before, and that it is right now. They are wrong for being hypocrites.
Now, I do hate republicans. For national office, there are very few I can see myself voting for anymore
What you personally do is irrelevant.
No. You were complaining about how the Democrats were acting and I pointed out that the Republicans are not any better.
I was complaining about how the Democrats were acting IN WASHINGTON STATE. And I already wrote in the original story, that both the Republicans and Democrats in the state were acting hypocritically.
You want to restrict this to a sub-group in one state in one election.
That is all I was ever talking about. That's what the story is about, that's what my comments have all been about.
Since you have been completely unable to provide a single substantiated instance where he did push to fix such problems
I gave several examples. I didn't back them up, but a simple Google search would do it. They are well-known, as it's been a big part of his work in office -- pushing for paper trails -- and recently, his advocacy for fixing absentee balloting by changing the primary date to give it more time has been all over the news.
But you would rather lie and say that none of this exists, because you hate Republicans.
The same as they are now (that is, pre-I-872, which aims to change it to a top two general election). I see no need for a change. I see a need for changing how the votes are tabulated, to make it more efficient and accurate, but no need to change the overall idea of voting.
Yes, it is.
You're conflating. "Margin of error" as used in statistical samplings that pollsters do is a very different sort of thing than the actual error found in counting an entire population (as opposed to a sampling of that population).