I am all in favor of making voting easier to tabulate and cheaper to run, and if Internet voting can do that, great. However, we are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of making it reliable and secure. Someday, maybe. Don't hold your breath.
After it is actually over, yeah, we will. I will, anyway. But it is not over. If the legislature refuses to act and 1. there is no contest or 2. the contest is rejected, then it will be over, and yes, I will get over it.
Which was her legal right & the only reason the state had to pay was because the recount changed the results
Yes... and? I think you completely lost the context. I was replying to someone who was complaining that Rossi was going to ask the state to pay for a new election, by noting that Gregoire has already made us pay more. I wasn't saying she was bad for doing it.
If any party here is being hypocritical, then it is the Republicans.
Yes, because the Democrats have been far more consistent than the Republicans... are you on drugs? Seriously. Pull off the blinders. I never claimed the Republicans did not change their argument, and in fact, I explicitly stated the opposite in the story. But you're claiming their arguments changed more than the Democrats when in fact they changed *exactly as much*.
He has two options, both outlined in the story: asking the legislature to step in, and contesting the election.
Rossi is asking for a recount - something not provided for in the legal process.
Yes, it is. The legislature making laws is very clearly provided for in the law.
He has lost.
And Gregoire had lost before yesterday. So what?
Gregoire asked for what she's entitled to under state law and won, Rossi's asking for a whole new law
Something he is entitled to ask for.
Sorry, there's simply no difference. There are legal avenues open, and Rossi is taking them as he sees fit, which is his right. Just as Gregoire did.
Look, I didn't say Gregoire should concede. I supported her right to pursue all available legal avenues. And now I support Rossi's right to do the same. I won't be a hypocrite, like most everyone else.
Pardon? I am the one who wrote the story, which says both sides predictably switched arguments. That I didn't repeat that in the comment you're replying to doesn't negate it.
Too bad for you that I-872 is unconstitutional. A blanket primary was already ruled unconstitutional in CA by the Supreme Court, and the ruling was upheld in WA by a federal circuit court (which is why we got rid of it in the first place).
As soon as the governor's thing is finished, I hope the parties set their sights on this despicable law that steals choice and power away from the people. Most people -- like you -- had no idea what I-872 said when they voted for it.
Beyond that, it is incredible to me that anyone thinks we can save Democracy by taking away the right of the people to put candidates on the ballot.
So, in the general election voters will have only two choices. This will result in every voter's vote being counted.
Please do not lie. Every vote is counted now.
As a side effect, I think it will also help 3rd party candidates get to the final ballot.
Sorry, but that's the stupidest thing I've seen in weeks. Every third party is against I-872, and no one with a clue thinks this will help third parties. On the contrary, it's quite clear that this is the death of third parties.
If we were to have a run-off vote, it's like saying that the first election was botched, that we messed up and didn't fix it.
You cannot fix a significantly flawed election. You can only fix it for next time, and you can fix the results by holding a new election.
That when we went out to vote, our vote didn't count, cause now we have to re-vote.
Yes, it is a serious step, and one that should not be undertaken lightly.
If we have a re-vote, who should pay for it? Should we really make the taxpayers pay for it?
Yes, of course. There's no one else who could or should. This is the people's business, and the people should pay for it.
I would think the hand recount would make a clear winner, with a Democrat, Republican, and neutral party, looking over each ballot. Or was there voter fraud somehow?
Hand recounts are not accurate. There is no reason to think that just because we did a hand recount, that we did a better job. In fact, there's reason to suspect the opposite, as handling of ballots can make them more susceptible to damage and loss.
Beyond that general principle -- which even the King County officials agreed with before the hand recount started -- there are many questions about how the hand recount was conducted that point to serious problems, including the allegation that depending on who was counting the ballot, it might be more likely to be counted for Gregoire.
Anyone have any ideas on solutions to make sure this doesn't happen again?
Better electronic voting systems, with paper trails. Earlier primary, so that there is more time to get the absentee ballots out (the primary is held less than two months before the general election, and many military people overseas did not get their ballots in time to vote), and also perhaps earlier required postmark date (maybe a week before the election, instead of election day).
All of these things are already being considered or are slated for implementation for the next major election. I'm sure there are more things that can be done, too.
Gregoire has already forced the state to pay upwards of $1 million already.
And WA Democrat head Paul Berendt looks like a far bigger idiot than any of the Republicans. Remember, he's the one who cried after a Democratic judge in King County ruled in the Democrats' favor (by violating federal law, ignoring the part of HAVA that forbids giving personal information from provisional ballots out), saying through his literal tears, "all we want is for every vote to count."
But where were Berendt's tears for the last week, when the Republicans were trying to make sure everyone's vote counted? Suddenly, Berendt was saying it was too late to count any more votes, even though certification was still a week away.
If Rossi just keeps his mouth shut and behaves as a gracious winner...
Right, because it is good for your Democrat to follow the legal process to challenge the election result when she lost, but not good for the Republican to do it when he lost.
The hypocrisy of the Democrats here would be stunning if it weren't so predictable.
It was a mistake that had been oft repeated but that all it was.
It is only a mistake if it was not intentional. This was intentional. It may have been an error, but it was not a mistake. It was policy.
You seem to want to read something that isn't there. I'm clearly speaking to the amiguity which exists in the law
The Anonymous Coward I was replying to was not clear, no. That Anonymous Coward said, "legality shouldn't be determined by the convience of the counter, or the would-be victor seeking to preserve a margin, but by whether the voter did the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith."
I don't know what you meant, but what that Anonymous Coward said was quite clear.
And I stated the obvious: that this standard is not reasonable, because the law is more restrictive than that standard.
The law seems clear to me. Legal votes should be counted.
A blue sky is blue!
And where there is room for interpretation, the perspective should be from the position of protecting the wronged voter.
The voter is only "wronged" if we assume that their vote should count, which is precisely the question at issue. You're speaking circularly.
Worse for you, these standards *are* defined in the law. You're just trying to pull out of a hat some arbitrary definition of what you think is fair. The law defines these things. We are a nation of laws.
Maybe it would help -- though I doubt it -- if you gave a specific example of where there is room for interpretation in the law, that is relevant to the present case. We know the court already violated the law in the first lawsuit, giving out personal information about provisional voters. The law was not ambiguous there, but they violated it anyway. Then there's the present case about the rights of the canvassing board to correct mistakes, which many people found to be ambiguous after the first ruling a couple of weeks ago, and which is no longer ambiguous, following yesterday's ruling.
I've never seen anything in the papers about either Rossi or the Republicans encouraging the disenfranchies to seek redress from the government
OK, so to your mind, the fact that you don't see them support X, that not only means they do not support X, but they are actually *against* X.
You don't follow the news much either, do you? The election workers followed the same procedure they had in the primary. This was part of the way they did things, it was not a simple mistake.
And the Republicans were arguing to follow the previous Supreme Court decision that stated that the hand recount was to be a retabulation, not a reconsideration of previously rejected ballots. That the canvassing board had already rejected these ballots is not in question. The only question is whether the Supreme Court sill preserved all the discretion to the county canvassing boards, and they affirmed yesterday that they did.
Note that there's only one case so far in this entire affair where a judge has ruled to change the law, and that was in King County, where Judge Lam violated federal law by compelling the county to provide lists of provisional voters and their personal information to the Democrats.
I note that they don't think people who've had their legal votes rejected should be able to have some sort of redress
You note a lie. Goody for you!
How about this, ever legal vote should count.
No one ever disputed that. You're just showing your own abject ignorance by contending otherwise. The question is what constitutes a legal vote, not whether legal votes should count.
And legality shouldn't be determined by the convience of the counter, or the would-be victor seeking to preserve a margin, but by whether the voter did the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith.
No. It should be determined by the law. That's what "legal" means. And Washington law does not recognize "the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith" as its standard.
For example, the law states, "A ballot is invalid and no votes on that ballot may be counted if it is found folded together with another ballot or it is marked so as to identify the voter." Even if the voter registered his vote in good faith, it is invalid under those conditions. Sorry. That's the law, and the law is what determines legality.
I would submit that anyone who suggest anything short of that test, is a fucking coward, a freind to tyrants, and a foe of freedom, deserving of only the inequities they would foist on others.
I submit that anyone who suggests anything different from the law as that test is an anarchist or a moron. You're spouting unintelligent rhetoric that sounds good to people who don't know any better (which may include yourself).
That is not obvious at all. Most other people in this and previous discussions on the matter who have argued along similar lines have asked why we don't do X *now*, regardless of the law.
Anyway, the recount is considered more accurate because *most* of the difference in a recount is the inclusion of ballots that were not properly counted the first time around. Note that very few counties subtracted votes in the hand recount. It's not merely a matter of making sure you got the count right, it's a matter of correcting mistakes made the first (or second) time around.
I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's the general idea.
The law has already been changed here. There is only to be one recount whose standings are absolutely final.
That is incorrect, sorry. There is one mandatory recount if the margin of difference is within 0.5% or 2000 votes, and after that, the parties may request a recount, on their dime. They get a refund if the recount changes the result in their favor. This is quite clearly spelled out in state law, even down to how much the parties have to pay.
Statistics apply when you are *sampling.* We are not sampling, we are counting.
I thought republicans were supposed to be the dumb ones, too.
Are you implying I am not a Republican?
Does the majority have a right to change the law to reflect their desires or not?
Of course. But not in the middle of the process. Change it for next time, if you like.
You mean the part where they don't even verify signatures on the absentee ballots? Or the part where they allow people to list office buildings as their primary residence? Or the part where they allow people to register and vote multiple times under the same name at the same address? I didn't know the Supreme Court ruled on those matters.
All counties have similar issues. Obviously, the Republican Party didn't think there was a significant enough legal case to bring about any challenges to these relatively minor problems.
King County is not very democrat. It's split. Seattle is 60-40 democrat, but the rest of the county is most definitely republican.
King County votes 66% for Kerry, and 59% for Gregoire. That's pretty heavily Democrat. Taking out Seattle from those totals won't change those numbers much in the Republicans' favor.
* Statistically speaking, Rossi is still considered the winner unless Gregoire pulls out with a 300 vote lead. This is pure math, folks, nothing more, nothing less.
No. She is the winner if she has a 1-vote lead. You don't average out the previous counts. The result of the current recount is the result, period. It's simple law, folks.
* A survey of the voters in Washington showed that if Rossi wins, he should be declared the winner. However. the majority feel that if Gregoire wins, we should have a runoff election.
What the majority feel is irrelevant. What the law says is what matters.
* Everyone in Washington State now admits that King County has not been following state law in the elections process.
In some respects, perhaps, but the question is whether they are following the law properly *now,* and the Supreme Court just ruled in its favor, and the Republican Secretary of State is on the county's side in this matter.
It's no more strange for Rossi to win Snohomish (where I live) than it is for Rossi to be where he is statewide (considering Kerry won the state by about 7 percentage points, and he won Snohomish county by a greater margin than Rossi did).
It's actually what I expected and predicted more than half a year before the election, when I said on/. that Rossi would win the state and this county. It's not strange because farmers and small business owners and people who pay a lot in taxes -- which is increasingly what Snohomish county is -- are likely to vote for Rossi. The Democrats myopically didn't see this coming, but many of us did.:-)
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I am all in favor of making voting easier to tabulate and cheaper to run, and if Internet voting can do that, great. However, we are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of making it reliable and secure. Someday, maybe. Don't hold your breath.
After it is actually over, yeah, we will. I will, anyway. But it is not over. If the legislature refuses to act and 1. there is no contest or 2. the contest is rejected, then it will be over, and yes, I will get over it.
Which was her legal right & the only reason the state had to pay was because the recount changed the results
... and? I think you completely lost the context. I was replying to someone who was complaining that Rossi was going to ask the state to pay for a new election, by noting that Gregoire has already made us pay more. I wasn't saying she was bad for doing it.
Yes
If any party here is being hypocritical, then it is the Republicans.
... are you on drugs? Seriously. Pull off the blinders. I never claimed the Republicans did not change their argument, and in fact, I explicitly stated the opposite in the story. But you're claiming their arguments changed more than the Democrats when in fact they changed *exactly as much*.
Yes, because the Democrats have been far more consistent than the Republicans
Dino Rossi has no more legal process.
He has two options, both outlined in the story: asking the legislature to step in, and contesting the election.
Rossi is asking for a recount - something not provided for in the legal process.
Yes, it is. The legislature making laws is very clearly provided for in the law.
He has lost.
And Gregoire had lost before yesterday. So what?
Gregoire asked for what she's entitled to under state law and won, Rossi's asking for a whole new law
Something he is entitled to ask for.
Sorry, there's simply no difference. There are legal avenues open, and Rossi is taking them as he sees fit, which is his right. Just as Gregoire did.
Look, I didn't say Gregoire should concede. I supported her right to pursue all available legal avenues. And now I support Rossi's right to do the same. I won't be a hypocrite, like most everyone else.
Pardon? I am the one who wrote the story, which says both sides predictably switched arguments. That I didn't repeat that in the comment you're replying to doesn't negate it.
She is not a congresswoman, she is a senator.
Oops, out of control bold!
Too bad for you that I-872 is unconstitutional. A blanket primary was already ruled unconstitutional in CA by the Supreme Court, and the ruling was upheld in WA by a federal circuit court (which is why we got rid of it in the first place).
As soon as the governor's thing is finished, I hope the parties set their sights on this despicable law that steals choice and power away from the people. Most people -- like you -- had no idea what I-872 said when they voted for it.
Beyond that, it is incredible to me that anyone thinks we can save Democracy by taking away the right of the people to put candidates on the ballot.
So, in the general election voters will have only two choices. This will result in every voter's vote being counted.
Please do not lie. Every vote is counted now.
As a side effect, I think it will also help 3rd party candidates get to the final ballot.
Sorry, but that's the stupidest thing I've seen in weeks. Every third party is against I-872, and no one with a clue thinks this will help third parties. On the contrary, it's quite clear that this is the death of third parties.
If we were to have a run-off vote, it's like saying that the first election was botched, that we messed up and didn't fix it.
You cannot fix a significantly flawed election. You can only fix it for next time, and you can fix the results by holding a new election.
That when we went out to vote, our vote didn't count, cause now we have to re-vote.
Yes, it is a serious step, and one that should not be undertaken lightly.
If we have a re-vote, who should pay for it? Should we really make the taxpayers pay for it?
Yes, of course. There's no one else who could or should. This is the people's business, and the people should pay for it.
I would think the hand recount would make a clear winner, with a Democrat, Republican, and neutral party, looking over each ballot. Or was there voter fraud somehow?
Hand recounts are not accurate. There is no reason to think that just because we did a hand recount, that we did a better job. In fact, there's reason to suspect the opposite, as handling of ballots can make them more susceptible to damage and loss.
Beyond that general principle -- which even the King County officials agreed with before the hand recount started -- there are many questions about how the hand recount was conducted that point to serious problems, including the allegation that depending on who was counting the ballot, it might be more likely to be counted for Gregoire.
Anyone have any ideas on solutions to make sure this doesn't happen again?
Better electronic voting systems, with paper trails. Earlier primary, so that there is more time to get the absentee ballots out (the primary is held less than two months before the general election, and many military people overseas did not get their ballots in time to vote), and also perhaps earlier required postmark date (maybe a week before the election, instead of election day).
All of these things are already being considered or are slated for implementation for the next major election. I'm sure there are more things that can be done, too.
No, the Democrats only triggered the second recount, not the first. The first was automatic, by state law.
Gregoire has already forced the state to pay upwards of $1 million already.
And WA Democrat head Paul Berendt looks like a far bigger idiot than any of the Republicans. Remember, he's the one who cried after a Democratic judge in King County ruled in the Democrats' favor (by violating federal law, ignoring the part of HAVA that forbids giving personal information from provisional ballots out), saying through his literal tears, "all we want is for every vote to count."
But where were Berendt's tears for the last week, when the Republicans were trying to make sure everyone's vote counted? Suddenly, Berendt was saying it was too late to count any more votes, even though certification was still a week away.
The Democrats won the Presidential and Senatorial votes by wide margins. Obviously, it's not merely party difference that makes the difference.
If Rossi just keeps his mouth shut and behaves as a gracious winner...
Right, because it is good for your Democrat to follow the legal process to challenge the election result when she lost, but not good for the Republican to do it when he lost.
The hypocrisy of the Democrats here would be stunning if it weren't so predictable.
It was a mistake that had been oft repeated but that all it was.
It is only a mistake if it was not intentional. This was intentional. It may have been an error, but it was not a mistake. It was policy.
You seem to want to read something that isn't there. I'm clearly speaking to the amiguity which exists in the law
The Anonymous Coward I was replying to was not clear, no. That Anonymous Coward said, "legality shouldn't be determined by the convience of the counter, or the would-be victor seeking to preserve a margin, but by whether the voter did the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith."
I don't know what you meant, but what that Anonymous Coward said was quite clear.
And I stated the obvious: that this standard is not reasonable, because the law is more restrictive than that standard.
The law seems clear to me. Legal votes should be counted.
A blue sky is blue!
And where there is room for interpretation, the perspective should be from the position of protecting the wronged voter.
The voter is only "wronged" if we assume that their vote should count, which is precisely the question at issue. You're speaking circularly.
Worse for you, these standards *are* defined in the law. You're just trying to pull out of a hat some arbitrary definition of what you think is fair. The law defines these things. We are a nation of laws.
Maybe it would help -- though I doubt it -- if you gave a specific example of where there is room for interpretation in the law, that is relevant to the present case. We know the court already violated the law in the first lawsuit, giving out personal information about provisional voters. The law was not ambiguous there, but they violated it anyway. Then there's the present case about the rights of the canvassing board to correct mistakes, which many people found to be ambiguous after the first ruling a couple of weeks ago, and which is no longer ambiguous, following yesterday's ruling.
I've never seen anything in the papers about either Rossi or the Republicans encouraging the disenfranchies to seek redress from the government
OK, so to your mind, the fact that you don't see them support X, that not only means they do not support X, but they are actually *against* X.
That's pretty sad.
You don't follow the news much either, do you? The election workers followed the same procedure they had in the primary. This was part of the way they did things, it was not a simple mistake.
And the Republicans were arguing to follow the previous Supreme Court decision that stated that the hand recount was to be a retabulation, not a reconsideration of previously rejected ballots. That the canvassing board had already rejected these ballots is not in question. The only question is whether the Supreme Court sill preserved all the discretion to the county canvassing boards, and they affirmed yesterday that they did.
Note that there's only one case so far in this entire affair where a judge has ruled to change the law, and that was in King County, where Judge Lam violated federal law by compelling the county to provide lists of provisional voters and their personal information to the Democrats.
I note that they don't think people who've had their legal votes rejected should be able to have some sort of redress
You note a lie. Goody for you!
How about this, ever legal vote should count.
No one ever disputed that. You're just showing your own abject ignorance by contending otherwise. The question is what constitutes a legal vote, not whether legal votes should count.
And legality shouldn't be determined by the convience of the counter, or the would-be victor seeking to preserve a margin, but by whether the voter did the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith.
No. It should be determined by the law. That's what "legal" means. And Washington law does not recognize "the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith" as its standard.
For example, the law states, "A ballot is invalid and no votes on that ballot may be counted if it is found folded together with another ballot or it is marked so as to identify the voter." Even if the voter registered his vote in good faith, it is invalid under those conditions. Sorry. That's the law, and the law is what determines legality.
I would submit that anyone who suggest anything short of that test, is a fucking coward, a freind to tyrants, and a foe of freedom, deserving of only the inequities they would foist on others.
I submit that anyone who suggests anything different from the law as that test is an anarchist or a moron. You're spouting unintelligent rhetoric that sounds good to people who don't know any better (which may include yourself).
No, I was talking about a separate issue when I said "relatively minor."
That is not obvious at all. Most other people in this and previous discussions on the matter who have argued along similar lines have asked why we don't do X *now*, regardless of the law.
Anyway, the recount is considered more accurate because *most* of the difference in a recount is the inclusion of ballots that were not properly counted the first time around. Note that very few counties subtracted votes in the hand recount. It's not merely a matter of making sure you got the count right, it's a matter of correcting mistakes made the first (or second) time around.
I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's the general idea.
The law has already been changed here. There is only to be one recount whose standings are absolutely final.
That is incorrect, sorry. There is one mandatory recount if the margin of difference is within 0.5% or 2000 votes, and after that, the parties may request a recount, on their dime. They get a refund if the recount changes the result in their favor. This is quite clearly spelled out in state law, even down to how much the parties have to pay.
Uhhh... statistically speaking.
Statistics apply when you are *sampling.* We are not sampling, we are counting.
I thought republicans were supposed to be the dumb ones, too.
Are you implying I am not a Republican?
Does the majority have a right to change the law to reflect their desires or not?
Of course. But not in the middle of the process. Change it for next time, if you like.
You mean the part where they don't even verify signatures on the absentee ballots? Or the part where they allow people to list office buildings as their primary residence? Or the part where they allow people to register and vote multiple times under the same name at the same address? I didn't know the Supreme Court ruled on those matters.
All counties have similar issues. Obviously, the Republican Party didn't think there was a significant enough legal case to bring about any challenges to these relatively minor problems.
Why is a recount considered more accurate than the original count?
Because the law says so. There are good reasons why that is the case, but the bottom line is all that matters: follow the law.
If a recount doesn't agree with the figures from a prevoius counting, shouldn't they count it again until they get two countings that match?
Only if the law says so. It does not. Following the law is all that matters.
Huh? Those are not 735 Democrat ballots ... and they were initially rejected because a *Democrat-controlled* canvassing board decided to reject them.
King County is not very democrat. It's split. Seattle is 60-40 democrat, but the rest of the county is most definitely republican.
King County votes 66% for Kerry, and 59% for Gregoire. That's pretty heavily Democrat. Taking out Seattle from those totals won't change those numbers much in the Republicans' favor.
* Statistically speaking, Rossi is still considered the winner unless Gregoire pulls out with a 300 vote lead. This is pure math, folks, nothing more, nothing less.
No. She is the winner if she has a 1-vote lead. You don't average out the previous counts. The result of the current recount is the result, period. It's simple law, folks.
* A survey of the voters in Washington showed that if Rossi wins, he should be declared the winner. However. the majority feel that if Gregoire wins, we should have a runoff election.
What the majority feel is irrelevant. What the law says is what matters.
* Everyone in Washington State now admits that King County has not been following state law in the elections process.
In some respects, perhaps, but the question is whether they are following the law properly *now,* and the Supreme Court just ruled in its favor, and the Republican Secretary of State is on the county's side in this matter.
It's no more strange for Rossi to win Snohomish (where I live) than it is for Rossi to be where he is statewide (considering Kerry won the state by about 7 percentage points, and he won Snohomish county by a greater margin than Rossi did).
/. that Rossi would win the state and this county. It's not strange because farmers and small business owners and people who pay a lot in taxes -- which is increasingly what Snohomish county is -- are likely to vote for Rossi. The Democrats myopically didn't see this coming, but many of us did. :-)
It's actually what I expected and predicted more than half a year before the election, when I said on