I'll wrap up with a few more installments about my recently settled public records lawsuit with King County -- including deposition transcripts and incriminating evidence that came out in discovery. But first, some important acknowledgements: * My lawyer, Chip Goss...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 28, 2009 12:25 PM
Today's Seattle Times features a lurid article about allegations made against Elections Director candidate Julie Anne Kempf. Lurid until the punchline at the end of the article which explains why Kempf was never charged with anything:The AG's office decided the...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 25, 2009 03:25 PM
Elections Director Sherril Huff puts this claim at the center of her election campaign: Staff reports to the Canvassing Board demonstrated continued improvements by elections officials in such areas as inventory reconciliation of ballots received and counted, and voters credited...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 20, 2009 01:30 PM
I called King County Elections yesterday with a trivial request for e-mailed copies of Candidacy Declarations in the Elections Director race. By statute these documents "must be open to public inspection". It should be a no-brainer to immediately fax or...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 6, 2009 10:19 AM
Now that King County voters have changed the county charter so that the Director of Elections is to be elected, the first race for county Elections Director is underway. Three plausible candidates have filed in the race. The most qualified...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 13, 2008 05:51 PM
Charter Amendment #1 - Electing the Elections Director - Enthusiastic YES! The Elections Director should be accountable directly and solely to voters, unlike today where the Elections Director is support staff for the County Executive's political patronage machine. Vote NO...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 31, 2008 06:30 PM
On the heels of this past weekend's update, note that Dean Logan is enmeshed in a voter fraud lawsuit in the City of Angels. Probably something to do with accuracy...and a bank...or something like that....
Posted in Sound Politics on June 10, 2008 10:42 PM
Multiple readers have sent me this story about troubles in LA with Dean Logan playing a starring role. The post itself is l-o-n-g, but here are the Logan highlights: After speaking late last night about the problem to Dean Logan,...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 7, 2008 04:38 PM
Anyone still watching the cable networks at this hour from the lovely environs of the Puget Sound is noting that Lake County, Indiana is confirming that King County does not have a monopoly on aggravating election night performance. It's probably...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 6, 2008 10:18 PM
Barack Obama's slogan might be "Yes We Can" but when it came to wrapping up the Democratic nomination yesterday, well, No He di-int. If you've ever watched "Halloween", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Friday the 13th" or any of those good...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 5, 2008 03:29 AM
This time a lot of votes for Democrats may be thrown in the trash:An estimated 49,500 votes were cast incorrectly in Los Angeles County by nonpartisan voters in the presidential primaries and cannot be counted because the voters' intentions are...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 12, 2008 06:39 PM
At the top of the Drudge Report:The board of elections failed to deliver voting equipment to polling places ALL OVER LOS ANGELES... Developing... UPDATE: The L.A. Times has more:At the Westside Jewish Community Center on Olympic Boulevard, officials didn't get...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 5, 2008 10:54 AM
Vote YES on I-25 so we can elect our elections director and make some progress towards restoring integrity and public confidence in King County Elections. I-25 is supported by decent people from across the political spectrum who favor fair and...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 5, 2007 01:23 PM
The King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office under Maleng/Satterberg did investigate some allegations of malfeasance by election workers, an elections employee reminds me. In 2005 the Sheriff's office (with PAO authorization) investigated former Superintendent of Elections Julie Anne Kempf, who had...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 29, 2007 11:18 AM
Today's Seattle Times editorial against I-25 is so puerile that it (unwittingly) presents the perfect case for I-25:Electing an elections director will politicize the office because the individual in office may operate in ways that lead to re-election.That's the whole...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 26, 2007 10:06 AM
The Los Angeles Times reports that longtime L.A. County elections chief Conny McCormack has announced she will step down later this year. McCormack's top deputy is none other than former King County Elections Director Dean Logan (remember him?), whom McCormack...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 30, 2007 11:12 AM
Top Ten Reasons the Seattle Times hasn't reported on King County's scandalously slow and expensive verification of I-24 and I-25 petitions 10. "$50,000 is hardly any money. Frank Blethen spends that much every time he pisses!" 9. "The last time...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 11, 2007 03:13 PM
Sherril Huff's Top Ten Reasons For Not Verifying The I-25 Petitions In a Timely Fashion. 10. "Just give me two more years until my state pension is fully vested, then they can do whatever they want with the office!" 9....
Posted in Sound Politics on August 8, 2007 12:23 PM
The Seattle Weekly article on I-25 includes Ron Sims's senseless argument for keeping the Elections Director an appointed, not elected, position. Sims' chief-of-staff Kurt Triplett says:"An elected auditor could screw up every election for four years, and you wouldn't have...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 12, 2007 03:13 PM
The King County Council is scheduled to vote this afternoon to confirm Sherril Huff's appointment as Director of Elections. I expect Huff to be confirmed (and they wouldn't have put it on the agenda if she didn't have the votes),...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 2, 2007 01:14 PM
Environmental lawyer Keith Scully has filed as a Democrat candidate for County Prosecutor. I perused Scully's campaign website. His top 3 issues:Death Penalty Diversity LaborHe wants to expand the purview of the criminal justice system:As we get serious about protecting...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 6, 2007 11:28 PM
Here's a partial transcript of John McKay's interview with bloggers and newspaper reporters at the Mainstream Republican conference yesterday. Complete audio here. [13MB]. (Other participants and their reports listed here. Audio of McKay's breakfast speech to the conference audience, here)....
Posted in Sound Politics on May 21, 2007 05:34 PM
More poor judgment at the Elections office -- using public resources to advertise its bureaucrats. And the result also reveals poor judgment and questionable ethics over at the P-I. Spokeswoman Bobbie Egan wasn't just providing information to the public, she...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 11, 2007 12:45 PM
Many people support I-25, the King County initiative to make the Elections Director a separately elected non-partisan office, because they're fed up with Ron Sims and the lying bastards who currently run the elections office. Even if you don't agree...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 5, 2007 04:49 PM
From the latest "Poll Cat", the L.A. County Recorder's newsletter for poll workers. Just thought I'd throw that up there to reminisce about old times. And also appeal to you to donate to Citizens for Accountable Elections so we...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 19, 2007 09:43 PM
"King County investigates apparent forgery of hundreds of voter cards"King County prosecutors are investigating apparent voter-registration fraud in the 2006 general election. Dan Satterberg, chief deputy to King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, confirmed late Thursday that attorneys from his office...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 16, 2007 04:56 PM
Former U.S. Attorney John McKay is complaining that Congressman Doc Hastings's aide asked him about his apparent unwillingness to investigate allegations of fraud in the 2004 gubernatorial election. McKay should have (but didn't) investigate King County's illegal counting of provisional...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 7, 2007 12:35 PM
We ring out the old year with our picks for Best and Worst in local politics and journalism for 2006. Thanks to Andy and Eric for helping me make the final picks and to all the readers who posted nominations...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 31, 2006 09:00 PM
These are some photos of the King County Elections workers who are the most maligned (by senior elections officials): Pictured above are canvassing workers wanding the poll books to give credit to poll voters. Whenever the number of votes fails...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 27, 2006 01:15 PM
UPDATE: I posted the item below from the election night party at the Bellevue Hyatt. I don't really know what to make of it. King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan posted a comment yesterday suggesting that some of the details...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 9, 2006 10:35 AM
Item (1): As if Ron Sims doesn't already generate enough bullshit, the federal government is now paying him to produce some more: "King County wins grant to plan manure digester". Item (2): I've spoken with several Councilmembers and/or their staff,...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 25, 2006 02:58 PM
So said King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson at last night's meeting of Washington Citizens for Fair Elections . Ferguson is convinced that if the proposal for an elected Auditor is placed on the ballot this November, it will pass. Ron...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 23, 2006 02:55 PM
Yesterday's Council meeting and the machinations of the Democratic leadership shows that the Sims cabal is scared witless at the prospect of electing the county's Elections Auditor. This is solely about power. Sims wants to keep the elections office under...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 22, 2006 01:51 PM
This just in: Nicole Way, the mail ballot supervisor in King County during the November 2004 fiasco who was terminated by Dean Logan last year, has prevailed in her arbitration against King County. According to a spokesman for Teamsters Local...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 21, 2006 02:51 PM
The King County Council is discussing the proposal for electing the county's Elections Auditor, this Monday, August 21 at 10am. Please come testify to the Council in support of this proposal. Here's another example of the astonishing behavior of the...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 19, 2006 01:36 PM
The King County Council is discussing the proposal for electing the county's Elections Auditor, this Monday, August 21 at 10am. The Councilmembers will be taking public comment. You may speak for up to 3 minutes and explain why you believe...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 18, 2006 04:59 PM
Ron Sims discussing his mail-only voting scheme on KUOW Weekday, June 15: We do have a very good plan. And Dean has really put together a very, very good plan [audio clip of quote. complete exchange online at KUOW starts...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 17, 2006 06:40 PM
Today is Dean Logan's last day as King County's Director of Records, Elections and Licensing Services Division. (In case you need a refresher course on Dean Logan, you can start here) Logan becomes the No. 2 elections official in Los...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 14, 2006 12:38 PM
King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips has a guest op-ed in today's Seattle Times: "Done right, vote-by-mail will improve county elections". The flip side is that "Done wrong, vote-by-mail will cause the wrong people to get 'elected'". One can only...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 13, 2006 01:23 PM
Stefan has a good post below on the topic of electing the elections director in King County. Can anyone seriously imagine Dean Logan standing for election after events of the last couple years? Heh. The King County charter should be...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 9, 2006 09:08 PM
Today's Seattle Times editorial argues against the Hague/Dunn proposal to make King County's Director of Elections an elected position: "Not another campaign". The editorial is unsigned, but has the hallmarks of Joni Balter: slavish support for Ron Sims, backed by...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 9, 2006 12:14 PM
King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn held a press conference today to discuss this recent discovery: King County's Records, Elections, and Licensing Services (REALS) Division has posted the social security numbers for potentially thousands of current and former King County residents...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 26, 2006 03:26 PM
Oops. When the Democrat majority on the King County Council approved mail-only voting last week, they were nominally relying on Ron Sims' representations that the Elections section had produced a plan for the transition. But responses from Elections and the...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 26, 2006 11:52 AM
Joni Balter, in today's column, "And the governor in 2012 is ...": The young boy in the movie "The Sixth Sense" sees dead people. I see future elections.The poor woman. Balter still hasn't responded to my inquiry about last week's...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 22, 2006 01:07 PM
"Bob's a special kind of friend. The kind that drives you crazy!" Okay, we do like King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson and he doesn't really drive us crazy. We supported him in his primary campaign last fall because he's...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 22, 2006 12:14 PM
UPDATE: The County Council approved forced mail-voting on a party line vote, 5 Democrats YES, 4 Republicans NO. Most of the Republican amendments similary failed 4-5. My running liveblog commentary from the gallery is in the extended entry....
Posted in Sound Politics on June 19, 2006 01:52 PM
The King County Council is voting this afternoon on the forced vote-by-mail ordinance. The Council meeting starts at 1:30pm (agenda here), but there's a lot of business before they'll get to vote-by-mail. The vote-by-mail ordinance, 2006-0191 is item #8. I...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 19, 2006 12:22 PM
King County GOP Chairman Mike Young issued a statement upon Dean Logan's resignation. It's posted at Postman's blog: [Logan's] departure offers the citizens of King County a unique opportunity to resolve the one issue that has divided us so bitterly....
Posted in Sound Politics on June 16, 2006 03:35 PM
King County Executive Ron Sims is on KUOW's Weekday at this hour, 10 -11 am. Listen online or at 94.9FM. Sims is talking about the departure of Dean Logan and ongoing changes. Sims says that he's going to be "very,...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 15, 2006 10:04 AM
When I first read Wednesday's Seattle Times editorial, presumably by Joni Balter, I wasn't sure whether I was going to laugh or vomit: "Where's Logan? Somewhere, smiling" Outgoing King County Elections Director Dean Logan is a competent professional and solid...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 15, 2006 12:47 AM
Ron Sims and Larry Phillips appear to be forging ahead with their scheme for forced mail voting, in spite of Dean Logan's resignation, according to today's P-I report and Chairman Phillips' press release: "The vote-by-mail ordinance remains on our agenda...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 14, 2006 04:31 PM
I've never seen how leaving a mess behind amounted to much of an accomplishment. Or how blaming others for your failures solves problems. But then I'm not a Democrat. Today's editorial in the King County Journal on the resignation of...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 14, 2006 09:16 AM
I'll have more to say later about Dean Logan's career in King County and the future of King County Elections (elect the Auditor!). For now, some more thoughts on Deanron's parthian shot at his critics. Logan cited the "toxic" political...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 13, 2006 11:19 AM
I have a couple of radio appearances this morning: * Kirby Wilbur, KVI 570 at 8:45 * Dave Ross, KIRO 710 in the 9:00 hour, following Dean Logan...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 13, 2006 08:29 AM
Tuesday's P-I: "County elections director resigns" Dean Logan, the politically battle-weary director of King County elections, is resigning to take the No. 2 elections job in Los Angeles, prompting County Executive Ron Sims to delay moving the county to a...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 13, 2006 12:15 AM
Seattle Times editorial, January 30, 2005 One bad idea would make the elections director a directly elected nonpartisan auditor instead of an executive appointee ... The more important goal is to have a qualified professional lead the office, and that...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 8, 2006 06:06 PM
From the Seattlest, which I really should read more often: "Al-Zarqawi Found. Dean Logan Still on the Loose"...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 8, 2006 02:28 PM
Among the more revealing moments in Monday's Council meeting on forced mail-voting were when Councilmember Julia Patterson lashed out at me from her seat. [The video is just now online, here, starting at 37:00] (if the link doesn't open in...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 8, 2006 01:44 PM
This one from Scott in Spokane. (and check out his online political button shop) This one from a reader who calls him/herself "That's Regrettable" From Andy in Olympia...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 8, 2006 10:18 AM
This morning's Seattle Times has a great piece by Keith Ervin discussing the mysterious absence of Dean Logan, and his staffers' attempts to explain his whereabouts. Where was elections chief Dean Logan on Monday when the Metropolitan King County Council...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 8, 2006 09:06 AM
Dean Logan Pinocchio As Jonathan Bechtle posted above, Keith Ervin of the Seattle Times reports today that Dean Logan was busted telling a lie about his whereabouts during Monday's Council meeting on mail-only voting. Logan has a long record...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 8, 2006 08:32 AM
Just before the forced vote-by-mail measure came up on the agenda, Council Chairman Larry Phillips and his wife introduced their new Golden Retriever puppy Chase (I think this was Chairman Phillips way of expressing his commitment to strengthening animal...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 6, 2006 09:55 AM
This morning the Seattle Times, the King County Journal, and the Seattle P-I ran stories on the vote-by-mail debate at the King County council meeting yesterday afternoon. One interesting point mentioned by Keith Ervin of the Times: "A council staff...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 6, 2006 09:02 AM
Deanron sent this letter to the King County Republican Party asking the GOP to submit a list of observers for the May 16th election. The deadline for submitting the list is yesterday, May 1. Only problem -- the letter, which...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 2, 2006 10:55 AM
The federal Election Assistance Commission met in Seattle Thursday to discuss the topic "Vote Counting and Recounting". Jonathan Bechtle of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation attended and gives the session a mixed review. His trip report follows --...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 23, 2006 03:56 PM
Armen Yousoufian is perhaps best known as the man who's been suing Ron Sims for the last nine years over violations of the Public Disclosure Act, winning the largest award for public records violations in state history. Yousoufian is also...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 23, 2006 12:30 PM
Animal rescue activists are accusing Federal Way Police and King County Animal Services of bungling the case of Mooie, the 4-month-old puppy killed by acid. Today's Seattle Times reports: "Agencies deny they bungled investigation of dog's death". Pasado's Safe Haven,...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 21, 2006 09:51 AM
OK, voting closed at noon today in our First Annual Sound Politics State Of Washington Slogan contest. You'll recall that the announcement of the state's new tourism slogan, "Say WA," was recounted in this SP post last week, which also...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 20, 2006 01:30 PM
Mrs. Gregoire1 wants you to know that she is keeping her promises. One of the most important promises of her (nearly successful) campaign to win a convincing majority of legal votes in 2004 was to not raise taxes: "To go...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 18, 2006 09:45 AM
Attorney General Rob McKenna informs me that the new Public Records Act Model Rules are now effective and posted online with the rest of the Washington Administrative Code. My interest here is obtaining the records, not in going to court...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 8, 2006 12:29 PM
Today's P-I editorial is on the money: The state's intent on open meetings and records is clear. The government works for the public and the public has a right to know what is done. Somebody should tell this to Deanron,...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 28, 2006 11:29 AM
As I noted last week, Deanron claimed that forcing everybody to vote by mail will somehow increase "transparency". Deanron and transparency go together like Fidel Castro goes with human rights and capitalism. Deanron has a long and glorious track record...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 14, 2006 11:12 AM
USA Today reports Friday, February 10 Seattle - King County [Executive/Elections Director Deanron] says the elections department has made so much improvement that it no longer needs an overhaul by an outside turnaround team. The team was hired on the...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 10, 2006 10:43 AM
When writing about the ongong crisis in King County elections, I find myself using the phrase "Ron Sims and Dean Logan", pronounced "RonSimsAndDeanLogan", as if they were one person, which they essentially are. Dean serves at Ron's pleasure and merely...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 8, 2006 08:57 PM
I attended Ron Sims' press conference this morning on his mail-only voting proposal. His people handed out Dean Logan's report "Moving to Vote By Mail". The report claims that one of the county's goals with mail-only voting is to "Be...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 8, 2006 06:23 PM
Ron Sims press event this morning: King County Executive Ron Sims will update the press on the county's plan to transition to all-mail balloting. Copies of a report to the Executive from Records and Elections Director Dean Logan outlining and...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 8, 2006 09:00 AM
Crunching through the statewide database with my exquisitely fast server, I find 31,214 pairs that match exactly for birthdate, last name and first name. 1,824 of these pairs are within the same county. 1,408 (77%) of the intracounty duplicates are...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 3, 2006 12:46 PM
Dean Logan is not just in charge of King County Elections. He is the Director of Records, Elections and Licensing Services Division. Licensing, as in pet licensing and animal control. In other words, Dean Logan is the county dogcatcher. Some...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 24, 2006 10:50 AM
When the King County Council reactivated the "Citizens’ Election Oversight Committee" last spring, the stated goal of the enabling legislation was: The goals of the committee and this ordinance are to investigate and report on problems identified in the 2004...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 22, 2006 02:56 PM
Happy New Year to all of our cherished readers! Here are some of my resolutions for 2006 --...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 2, 2006 11:18 AM
We read in the P-I last week that "King County elections gets good report on Nov. 8 vote". Sadly, that's more of a reflection on the shoddiness of the Election Center's report than it is on the quality of King...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 28, 2005 04:10 PM
A reader with intimate knowledge of King County's mail ballot operation e-mailed to comment on my report yesterday that Dean Logan sat on the GOP's challenges of mail box voters for an extra week, which was long enough to allow...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 27, 2005 10:30 AM
Last month the Democrats and their amen choir in the local newspapers savaged the Republicans for inadvertent errors in challenges against illegally registered mail box voters -- even though the Republican errors were promptly acknowledged and corrected and no legitimate...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 26, 2005 12:50 PM
Attorney General Rob McKenna has proposed a "shield law" to protect journalists and their confidential sources. The text of the proposed law is here. When this was announced in early November I wondered aloud whether the bill defined "news media"...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 22, 2005 12:32 PM
The problem of voters registering at bogus addresses seems to be more pervasive than I ever realized. Here is a spreadsheet of King County addresses where individuals are currently registered at commercial address. There are over 5,000 such registrations on...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 21, 2005 12:32 PM
Ron Sims has announced that he'll be making an announcement: King County Executive Ron Sims will be joined by King County council members Julia Patterson and Bob Ferguson as he makes a major announcement about King County elections. 10 a.m....
Posted in Sound Politics on December 19, 2005 08:59 PM
The Election Center, which performed a fraudulent $300,000 audit of the King County Elections section earlier this year has returned with another glowing endorsement of Dean Logan, today's P-I reports: "King County elections gets good report on Nov. 8 vote"....
Posted in Sound Politics on December 19, 2005 11:13 AM
After five months of public records requests, I finally have some answers on the mysterious claim made nearly a year ago by King County Elections that Staff confirmed ... 251 federal write-in absentee ballots were tabulated. These represent validly cast...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 12, 2005 01:21 PM
Today's Seattle Times reports on the astonishing number of flawed ballots that were "duplicated" by election workers last month in an attempt to determine the "voter's intent" In all, [King] county workers redid more than 45,000 ballots so that voters'...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 12, 2005 11:45 AM
Dean Logan is dragging his heels on my public records request for the key data files from the 2005 fall elections. Everything I asked for in this request should be readily available (e.g. the standard voter registration file, which Logan,...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 9, 2005 12:25 PM
King County GOP Chairman Michael Young has a good op-ed in today's Seattle Times where he raises the bar for Dean Logan to do a better job of cleaning up the voter rolls -- "It's still important to count every...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 7, 2005 12:42 PM
In a recent post, yellow rabid dog Democrat blogger David Goldstein attacked County Prosecuting Attorney Norman Maleng for declaring his intention to take action against the illegally registered mail box voters. It's weird enough to attack Maleng for following both...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 2, 2005 11:55 AM
According to this year's Mail Ballot Report, there were 23 more votes counted than voters accounted for. On its face, that's certainly an improvement over the still unexplained discrepancy of 390 ballots from this year's primary, not to mention the...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 29, 2005 11:13 PM
The punchline of yesterday's voter challenge rulings is that the standards that Dean Logan and the Democrats want to use to maintain the integrity of the voting rolls is impossibly high and they've effectively announced open season for voter registration...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 29, 2005 12:25 PM
The King County Canvassing Board is scheduled to issue rulings on the challenged mail box voters on this morning at 9am. I'll plan to be there unless I get snowed out. UPDATE: The canvassing board voted to accept only those...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 28, 2005 07:42 AM
Most of yesterday's meeting of the King County Canvassing Board was spent trying to determine the validity of various weird mailed in ballots -- whether envelopes that were received damaged and open had been tampered with or were merely mangled...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 23, 2005 11:13 AM
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is upset about the Republican challenge of nearly 2,000 people who registered to vote illegally by providing a private mail box instead of their valid residence. For once we agree with the conclusion of a P-I editorial,...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 20, 2005 10:45 AM
Most of yesterday's canvassing board meeting was spent "interpreting voter intent" on several dozen ballots. Click here for a photo essay of some of the frightening "voter intent" determinations made yesterday, or keep reading for more background....
Posted in Sound Politics on November 11, 2005 12:14 PM
I attended most of this afternoon's canvassing board meeting. More weird things to report later. Oy vay. All I'll say for now is we're lucky there aren't any close races this year. Former Superintendent Bill Huennekens was resurrected and was...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 10, 2005 05:48 PM
Sims' re-election should not be taken as a mandate for his handling of the Elections scandal, as even the Seattle Times editorial page admits in a rare moment of common-sense Step one, as he and everyone else knows, is restoring...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 9, 2005 10:37 AM
In a nutshell, I quit as a poll judge because the inspector threatened me for doing my job of dissuading an ineligible individual from voting. The poll judge's statutory oath says: we will not give our consent to the receipt...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 8, 2005 04:37 PM
I was out poll watching today, when who did I run into but Bill Huennekens. He was at the Northminster Presbyterian Church in Ballard, demonstrating the new Diebold touch screen voting machine that the county will be using next year...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 8, 2005 04:15 PM
I'll be working at the polls again, so won't be blogging on Tuesday. Be sure to vote if you haven't already voted by mail. If you have an absentee ballot and haven't cast it yet, do NOT put it in...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 8, 2005 01:23 AM
On the first anniversary of the bungled (and yes, fraudulent) 2004 election, we pause to honor the man who in all likelihood would now be serving as governor -- if Dean Logan hadn't screwed it up and then covered it...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 8, 2005 01:17 AM
Dean Logan, criticizing state GOP chairman Chris Vance for the King County Republicans' newbie mistakes made when challenging nearly 2,000 illegally registered mail box voters: Logan said the GOP error rate was too high. "His effort resulted in a at...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 7, 2005 11:57 PM
Here's the wrap-up of the astonishing story of politically-motivated official election fraud under Ron Sims and Dean Logan, its ongoing cover-up, and the failure of the local newspapers to report what they know about the scandal. On February 8th I...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 7, 2005 12:46 PM
Seattle's liberal newspapers are interested in only one angle of the story that hundreds of voters are illegally registered at private mailboxes -- the fact that some GOP volunteers attempting to help clean up the problem made some mistakes. The...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 5, 2005 10:39 AM
My good friend Dan Savage at The Stranger regrettably jumped the gun and rebroadcast an as yet unsubstantiated claim by an anonymous poster. The poster claims to be one of the voters challenged by the GOP on the grounds that...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 4, 2005 02:57 PM
The judge handed down a postponement in my Public Disclosure Act lawsuit against King County yesterday. He's not willing to hold a "Show Cause" hearing before the Nov. 8 election and suggested we all reconvene in 30 days. I'll be...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 3, 2005 12:21 PM
The Thursday newspapers report on the bogus Mail Ballot Report from the September primary election which showed that 390 ballots were missing....
Posted in Sound Politics on November 3, 2005 01:04 AM
Norman Maleng's office, representing Dean Logan, filed this response today to my Public Disclosure Act lawsuit against King County. I'll let my lawyer refute Logan's specific assertions in court, but suffice to say that Logan's defense is nonsense. There's a...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 31, 2005 03:06 PM
Yesterday I finally received a portion of King County's voter database transaction log. It was weeks late, incomplete and issued only after I sued the county. These records confirm more elements of my recent article in The Stranger -- that...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 29, 2005 03:45 PM
This afternoon my attorneys served King County with this summons, complaint and motion for violations of the Public Disclosure Act. The papers will be filed in Snohomish County Court tomorrow morning. Thanks to the many readers who donated to the...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 25, 2005 06:05 PM
In today's Seattle Times, King County Elections responds to the GOP's imminent challenge of 1,943 voter registrations that illegally list a residence at private mail box services or storage locker rental facilities Bobbie Egan, a spokeswoman for the King County...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 25, 2005 10:46 AM
The King County Republican Party will be holding a press conference outside the King County Elections office on Wednesday to announce challenges to the registrations of 1,943 voters who are illegally registered to vote at private mail box services and...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 24, 2005 04:23 PM
Today's Seattle Times reports on Andrei Locklear, currently of Issaquah, who is trying to persuade federal agencies that he's a U.S. citizen, even though his life story sounds highly implausible He has no school, dental or medical records — no...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 24, 2005 10:07 AM
In a rambling post yesterday, horse's ass blogger David Goldstein acknowledged that Ron Sims' campaign manager had a hand in Goldstein's sleazy attack on David Iron's family last week. Hilariously, this admission came in the middle of Goldstein's implausible attempt...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 23, 2005 12:19 PM
It looks like I'll be going to court next week in order to compel Ron Sims and King County Elections to release the documents they don't want to release. Among the items that I'm going to the mat about --...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 20, 2005 04:16 PM
H.E.L.P., the Honest Elections Project, needs your help. The Honest Elections Project is the campaign for Initiative 23, the King County ballot measure for changing the county Elections director from an appointed position to an elected position. King County is...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 20, 2005 09:55 AM
As I mentioned the other day, I found a bunch of voters who cast both absentee and provisional ballots where both were counted. Here are some photos of the ballot envelopes for the matching pairs that have been found to...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 19, 2005 04:57 PM
One of the most troubling things I've discovered from looking at the processed ballot envelopes from last November's election is that many of the corresponding computer records appear to have been suspiciously modified after the fact. A few examples --...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 17, 2005 02:43 PM
Why did the numbers make it appear that King County counted more votes than voters last November? If you listen to Dean Logan, it was because of "human error during the crediting process and when voters sign the poll books"....
Posted in Sound Politics on October 13, 2005 05:41 PM
Today's Seattle Times and P-I both have articles about the dueling press conferences outside the King County Elections office yesterday P-I: "Many on voter rolls twice? GOP says thousands in county could cast 2 ballots" Times: "Voter names found twice"....
Posted in Sound Politics on October 13, 2005 10:40 AM
Big day today for Dean Logan. First, my article in The Stranger which reported that Logan instructed staff to count hundreds of votes from ineligible voters. Next, the King County Republican Party holds a press conference outside Logan's office to...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 12, 2005 06:31 PM
My article, based on my recent research into ballot envelopes at the King County Archives, appears in print in this week's The Stranger. The article was just posted online: Fatally Flawed King County Knowingly Counted Hundreds of Ineligible Votes in...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 12, 2005 11:28 AM
This provisional ballot was counted last November for someone identified by a poll worker as a "green card voter". "Green card voter" is not an official elections term, so I'm not exactly sure what it means here, but I fear...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 11, 2005 12:03 PM
No, not that Provisional IRA -- the Provisional Ballot Envelope Independent Research Audit! King County has finally granted me access to all of the provisional ballot envelopes that were processed in the November 2004 election. Neither of the "blue-ribbon" groups...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 8, 2005 11:39 AM
An update on the bogus audit of the elections office that was performed in response to the County Council's request for a real audit --...
Posted in Sound Politics on October 1, 2005 04:44 PM
King County Elections is poised to conduct a county-wide recount in the Sheriff's primary race. As of yesterday, the vote count was: Sue Rahr 171,659 Jim Fuda 43,920 Greg Schmidt 43,988 Write-in 572 The recount would be done solely to...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 29, 2005 09:28 AM
Dean Logan all but explicitly instructs the pollworkers to follow his example and look the other way at illegal voting. The training session and handouts, for example, don't even mention the poll judge's oath, which is required by state law...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 23, 2005 12:06 AM
Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- "King County officials have a lot riding on primary" the primary Tuesday provides an acid test of the measures Logan has adopted in response to 2004. A repeat debacle, or anything close to it, almost certainly...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 19, 2005 07:30 AM
Whenever I read a Joni Balter column it occurs to me that if I didn't already know more than she did, I'd come away from her column knowing less than I knew before I read it. Today's column is no...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 15, 2005 05:08 PM
As has been discussed previously on this blog, in my column last week for The Stranger and by King County Councilwoman Jane Hague at a recent Council meeting: Dean Logan has ended a long-standing Elections office policy to hire both...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 7, 2005 12:20 PM
Martin Ringhofer was in the P-I back in January of this year. Months later, his parents are still getting their voter registration cards and absentee ballots. I e-mailed Dean Logan's spokeswoman Bobbie Egan on Friday morning and asked her for...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 6, 2005 10:51 PM
Dean Logan issued a press release today in regards to the illegal postal endorsement that went out to 650,000 King County absentee voters last week --"No voter impact from absentee ballot envelope postal endorsements" “The postal endorsement on absentee ballot...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 6, 2005 06:02 PM
I spent a good part of the day looking at last November's absentee ballot envelopes trying to figure out what might have caused King County to count roughly 1,000 more absentee ballots than absentee voters. (i.e. a good part of...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 6, 2005 05:53 PM
I'll be off at King County Archives today looking at absentee ballot envelopes. Won't be posting until later in the day. In the meantime, here are some new Dean Logan curiosities to ponder -- 1) Dean Logan has notified Ron...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 6, 2005 07:55 AM
Here's a copy of the absentee ballot envelope that Ron Sims' nephew Donald voted in last September's primary election. Although registered at Uncle Ron's Seattle home, Donald was working in Staten Island, NY at the time. The handwritten Staten Island...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 2, 2005 06:25 PM
A tip of the hat to King County Councilmembers Peter von Reichbauer and Jane F. Hague for taking on Dean C. Logan at last week's Committee-Of-the-Whole meeting. Look at the KCTV archives under Committe of the Whole and 8/22/2005. I...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 2, 2005 10:25 AM
Dean Logan is proud to announce that "Local voters' pamphlet and absentee ballots arrive in mailboxes this week". Indeed they do. Matt Manweller e-mails: Today, a friend of mine who lives in King County got the voter guide with a...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 1, 2005 11:47 PM
This is from Dean Logan's Notice of Proposed Termination to Nicole Way last week. I am aware that you have completed the Secretary of State's certification courses where accuracy in the count is stressed as the most important part of...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 1, 2005 11:34 AM
My apologies. I was wrong when I called the "independent investigation" into King County's absentee ballot problems by law firm Williams, Kastner and Gibbs at a cost of $55,800 to county taxpayers a "whitewash". It was, in fact, an under-the-table...
Posted in Sound Politics on September 1, 2005 11:00 AM
I obtained a copy of King County's so-called "independent investigation report" on absentee ballot handling that was reported in yesterday's paper. First, here is Dean Logan's press statement that accompanied the release of the report. It opens In the spring,...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 31, 2005 05:40 PM
Dean Logan has relented and agreed to release original absentee ballot envelopes for my inspection. These should have been made available to me when I first asked for them two months ago. We'll only have 9 weeks from when they're...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 30, 2005 02:53 PM
KING 5: "More elections department employees facing discipline" As the King County Supervisor of Absentee Ballots, Nicole Way found herself in the spotlight when things went wrong. When Republicans tried to get the governor's election thrown out, Way testified that...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 29, 2005 09:58 PM
I spent the morning in a lecture hall at North Seattle Community College for training for my first time as a King County Elections poll worker this fall. Here are my impressions -- praise for some positive improvements but also...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 24, 2005 04:23 PM
This is a substantially rewritten and expanded version of Saturday's post on the topic of "Federal Write-In Ballots" for unregistered voters. Based on newly obtained documents, it now appears that there were enough problems with the federal write-ins that the...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 23, 2005 01:00 AM
This morning's King County Council Committee-Of-the-Whole meeting is a briefing on "Operational improvements to the King County Elections Division in preparation of the September Primary Election". Curiously, the briefing is being held at the elections office, where unlike most other...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 22, 2005 09:58 AM
The National Council of State Legislatures, meeting in Seattle this week, today has an afternoon break-out session on elections titled "Every Vote Counts" History is filled with examples of elections decided by a handful of votes, sometimes by one vote....
Posted in Sound Politics on August 19, 2005 11:49 AM
My head is beginning to hurt from all of this, but every time I turn around Dean Logan pulls yet another stunt that appears designed to eliminate transparency and public oversight. Tim Borders, the nominal plaintiff in the governor's election...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 19, 2005 12:03 AM
Dean Logan has violated the Public Disclosure Act yet again, this time to evade disclosure of documents about Ron Sims' nephew who appears to be illegally registered and voting at Sims' house....
Posted in Sound Politics on August 18, 2005 03:23 PM
Ron Sims re-election strategy is now becoming apparent. The centerpiece is to turn the county elections office into a de facto subsidiary of the re-election campaign organization. Specifically, that entails putting the non-team player (= honest) employees on administrative leave,...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 17, 2005 04:57 PM
King County Politburo Chairman Larry Phillips reassures us that "Election Oversight Efforts in High Gear" USSR Communist Party General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko King County Politburo Chairman Larry Phillips Metropolitan King County Council Chair Larry Phillips said today’s briefing from the...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 16, 2005 10:30 AM
Ron Sims is defiantly standing by his man in the elections office, ignoring even the tepid recommendations of his lame-ass task force -- "Sims says "turnaround team" wouldn't have election control": King County Executive Ron Sims wants to bring in...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 16, 2005 09:23 AM
Dean Logan, who promises "transparency and public access", draws the line at actually giving the public access to information that is potentially embarrassing to himself and Ron Sims. The Amazing Transparent Man continues to stonewall my public records requests....
Posted in Sound Politics on August 15, 2005 02:00 PM
The King County Council Committe-Of-the-Whole is now having its elections briefing. Watch on KCTV. Meeting is now adjourned. Some running commentary in the extended entry......
Posted in Sound Politics on August 15, 2005 10:38 AM
The only thing more amusing than reporting that Ron Sims has an out-of-county nephew registered to vote at his house, is reporting that said out-of-county nephew actually voted claiming Ron Sims' address as his residence while he was living in...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 9, 2005 11:41 PM
The Kitsap County Commission voted last month to abolish public voting and adopt all-mail voting. Chris Shardelman is asking the Commission to reconsider. He claims that arguments made by the Kitsap Auditor were bogus. Her letter to a local newspaper...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 6, 2005 08:19 AM
All six Republicans on the King County Council today called on Ron Sims to get out of the way and invite Sam Reed to run the county's elections this fall. I'm certainly in favor of taking the election out of...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 5, 2005 07:33 PM
I now have documentation from King County and the Secretary of State proving what has been suspected for months but which state and county officials have insistently denied all along -- King County did NOT mail all of the required...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 4, 2005 03:55 PM
King County Councilman Reagan Dunn has called for a non-partisan canvassing board, asking Ron Sims to appoint someone other than Dean Logan to the canvassing board for the fall elections. I second that. I would also call on Larry Phillips...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 4, 2005 03:23 PM
Today's P-I reports "King County gets no takers for elections job" "We can't fill the superintendent of elections job," County Executive Ron Sims admitted yesterday. "We posted (the opening), and nobody wanted it. Nobody wants a career breaker. I don't...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 3, 2005 10:36 AM
As Matt wrote below, King County Elections allowed convicted felon and would-be mayoral candidate James C. Garrett to re-register to vote in 2004 after his registration had been properly cancelled in 2002. Today's Seattle Times article includes this intriguing tidbit:...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 3, 2005 10:29 AM
State law says candidates for elected office must be legally registered voters. But Seattle mayoral candidate James C. Garrett (a.k.a. Omari Tahir-Garrett) didn't have his voting rights legally restored after a felony assault rap for bashing then-Seattle mayor Paul Schell...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 3, 2005 08:54 AM
Ron Sims sent this letter to the County Council today, summarized in this press statement. Sims said he intends to implement the task force’s key recommendation, the creation of a “turnaround team” reporting directly to the Executive. The turnaround team...
Posted in Sound Politics on August 2, 2005 03:14 PM
One of the weirder "findings" of Ron Sims' Task Force on Elections is that While the new Elections Section managers made headway in introducing procedural and technological changes in the Elections office, they were unable to improve an entrenched organizational...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 29, 2005 04:54 PM
Given the lack of grassroots excitement over Safeco CEO Mike McGavick's announcement of a Senate bid, others are trying to decide whether to jump in the race. The Seattle Weekly reports that former KIRO-TV anchor Susan Hutchison has "pollsters in...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 29, 2005 10:03 AM
I've posted the main report from Ron Sims' Independent Task Force on Elections, here. The final technical report is here. Okay. I just finished reading them. I was actually one of the many citizens interviewed by the task force staff...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 28, 2005 08:44 AM
Ron Sims' Indpendent Task Force on Elections released its recommendations Wednesday afternoon. I'm curious to read the full report, which should be available mid-day Thursday. But based on the group's Cover Letter to Ron Sims , news reports and an...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 28, 2005 01:13 AM
I'm not the only one whose public records requests are being stonewalled by Dean Logan. Bob Edelman of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has for weeks been asking for documentation on the mailing of military ballots during October 2004, which belive...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 27, 2005 10:24 AM
Today, July 27, is the final meeting of Ron Sims' Independent Task Force on Elections. I've heard from a variety of sources that the task force's final recommendations to be presented today will include a call for new leadership of...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 27, 2005 10:07 AM
Thanks to everyone who hit the tip jar today to help me Sue Ron Sims for repeated violations of the Public Disclosure Act. More details on King County Election's NON-DISCLOSURE of documents that I've been requesting for months --...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 26, 2005 03:03 PM
LEFTIST PINHEADS, including the P-I reporter who wrote the self-parody of a lead to this article, are besides themselves with rage that somebody wants to take the vote away from illegal immigrants An initiative aimed at halting voting rights and...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 22, 2005 12:42 AM
There appear to be thousands of duplicate voter registrations in King County, i.e. individuals who are listed on the voter rolls more than once. Duplicate registrations damage election integrity in two main ways: (1) they inflate the number of registered...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 21, 2005 08:34 PM
Yet more fishy business in the investigation and booking of Julie Anne Kempf that adds to the perception that this is politically motivated --...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 21, 2005 10:19 AM
Seriously. Dean Logan has decided to spend more than $90,000 of the public's money in order to evade his responsibilities to make a full public disclosure of election records --...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 20, 2005 05:12 PM
Ron Sims is misusing the police to suppress dissenters and intimidate his subordinates. Former Superintendent of Elections Julie Anne Kempf was arrested yesterday No formal charges have been filed, and details are sketchy. I can't comment on specific sketchy details...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 20, 2005 11:54 AM
Last week I mentioned that King County was conducting a criminal investigation against former Superintendent of Elections, Julie Anne Kempf. I posited that this was politically motivated and partly intended to intimidate current election employees from speaking out. I keep...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 19, 2005 04:48 PM
If you didn't already see the trailer of Dean Logan and Ron Sims' first Hollywood movie together be sure to check it out! And on a more serious note, Logan is speaking at the Election Center's conference in Beverly Hills...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 18, 2005 05:39 PM
Here is the trailer of their new film...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 15, 2005 05:07 PM
Wednesday's P-I reports -- "Former elections worker investigated".A former King County elections worker is under investigation for possible forgery, theft and criminal impersonation, the Sheriff's Office said yesterday, adding that none of the crimes is believed to have occurred while...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 13, 2005 12:28 AM
Pierce County displayed the good sense last week to reject all-mail balloting after concluding that voting by mail actually costs a lot more money than voting at the polls. Meanwhile, the independent elections task force appointed by Ron Sims seems...
Posted in Sound Politics on July 12, 2005 12:33 PM
... Joel Horn or Dean Logan? Post your best guesses as to the date when each of these guys is fired. The person who comes closest (first entry in case of tie) will win some sort of suitable prize....
Posted in Sound Politics on June 30, 2005 10:49 PM
Ron Sims' independent task force says that King County's election office is in worse shape than it was before County Executive Ron Sims hired Dean Logan two years ago In a scathing briefing to the Metropolitan King County Council's review...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 29, 2005 12:24 AM
Kudos for this editorial. Here are the key paragraphs. The onus still remains with [Dean] Logan, and with [Ron] Sims. Conducting fair and accurate elections is a fundamental role of the county and flaws in that area can and should...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 19, 2005 11:33 AM
I've obtained and posted the complete interim report of the Independent Task Force on Elections (the one reported on in today's newspaper articles and mentioned at the entry below) In three parts: The report The complete survey results Survey comments...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 18, 2005 10:41 AM
Ron Sims' "Independent Elections Task Force", of which I expressed initial skepticism, demonstrated genuine independence and fortitude yesterday when it disclosed and discussed the results of its survey of King County Elections staff. This mornings Seattle Times: "Morale "very low"...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 18, 2005 07:43 AM
The daily newspapers are reporting today on Bill Huennekens' demotion from Superintendent of Elections. In the P-I -- "County election manager demoted" and in the Times -- "King County elections official demoted" Two things strike me as not quite right...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 15, 2005 10:33 AM
A source close to the WSRP emails this update on the lawsuit to overturn the Top Two Primary. The one local race that could be most affected in the near term by this lawsuit is the Hammond-Dunn contest for the...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 14, 2005 05:18 PM
The King County Prosecutor's Office informed me this morning that the Elections office will release copies of the outer envelopes from the uncounted absentee ballots later this week. Thus we'll know exactly which voters didn't get their ballots counted. Rep....
Posted in Sound Politics on June 14, 2005 10:35 AM
King County has steadfastly refused to release the names of the now 96 absentee voters whose ballots were not counted last November. But I now have some names. Based on best available information from other King County documents, this weekend...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 13, 2005 12:01 AM
A round-up of post-mortem opinion on the election debacle and ineffectual court decision * Today's P-I published one of the few sensible editorials it has published in the last two years, ironcially headlined "King County: Leading to excellence" Can Dean...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 8, 2005 10:48 AM
Croker Sack uncovered the internal version of Dean Logan's post-ruling press release. The internal version somehow seems more factual than the public version....
Posted in Sound Politics on June 7, 2005 04:54 PM
RCW 29A.84.720 Officers -- Violations generally. Every person charged with the performance of any duty under the provisions of any law of this state relating to elections ... who willfully neglects or refuses to perform such duty, or who, in...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 7, 2005 04:13 PM
The one bright spot of yesterday's ruling was Judge Bridge's rebuke of King County Elections, even if it was milder than deserved: clearly, the evidence here suggests that the problems require more than just constructing new buildings and hiring more...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 7, 2005 10:58 AM
I'm about to leave for Wenatchee. This is my final post before the ruling. As I've mentioned before, I'm predicting that Judge Bridges will set aside the election. This is, of course, far less than 100% certain, but it's based...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 5, 2005 07:06 PM
Our stealth legal expert answers my question on the significance of Bridges' questioning of Dean Logan yesterday: I think that there is an awful lot of spin going on from the political parties - especially the D's. I thought Bridges'...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 2, 2005 03:03 PM
One of the most telling moments of the trial so far was when Judge Bridges read back to Dean Logan these of Logan's own words from the 2004 Elections Report Report [sic] to King County Executive Ron Sims I am...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 1, 2005 01:48 PM
Noon recess until 1:30pm. The first morning session ended with this cross-examination [exact words] --...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 1, 2005 10:59 AM
Trial starts at 9am. Dean Logan will be the star witness today. Saved by the bell at 10:50!...
Posted in Sound Politics on June 1, 2005 08:54 AM
Snohomish County Auditor "Sideshow" Bob Terwilliger is on the stand. Terwilliger also counted several hundred more ballots than voters, was unfamiliar with Secretary of State administrative rules for proper election conduct and drafted the idiotic letter from county auditors praising...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 31, 2005 02:54 PM
Back from lunch. In order to show that Handy didn't know what he was talking about when he said that crediting doesn't need to be done prior to certifcation. Foreman reads to Handy from WAC 434-240-250 The special ballot shall...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 31, 2005 01:21 PM
* Handy had never heard the term "voter crediting" throughout the election. [ As Handy acknwoledged earlier, he's a "public sector manager", a career bureaucrat. He is not any kind of an expert on how elections are supposed to be...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 31, 2005 11:02 AM
Tan, rested and ready for litigation, day six of the trial starts at 9:30am. Watch it on TVW. Among today's witnesses for the Democrats: State Elections Director Nick Handy (presumably offering the opinions of his boss, Sam Reed) and King...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 31, 2005 09:21 AM
is an approximate answer to the question "what is the likelihood that the distribution of King County's unexplained absentee ballots is attributable to chance?" This question arose in comments to my earlier posts (here and here) about the distribution of...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 29, 2005 12:31 PM
To recap last session: 1) Bridges agrees to accept CFRs as evidence of felony convictions (unless proven otherwise, it seems) 2) Bridges denied motion to dismiss On lunch break until 2:15pm, when Democrats will call various county auditors who are...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 27, 2005 01:26 PM
After short break, petitioners rest case. Democrats move to dismiss. Snooooooooooze. Democrats move, Republicans refute, Judge denies motion. Details in extended entry....
Posted in Sound Politics on May 27, 2005 11:37 AM
This morning's reports by both Greg Roberts of the P-I and David Postman of the Times missed what is, in my opinion, the single most important bit of new information that has come out in the trial. I'm referring to...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 26, 2005 12:22 PM
Durkan objected to Korrell's redirect on the Mail Ballot Report. Judge Bridges not only overruled the objection but thought the Mail Ballot Report was important enough that he insisted on interrogating Way from the bench. The most significant new revelation...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 25, 2005 02:31 PM
A report from this week's shindig of the state's election officials King County - where the largest number of mishandled ballots was found and alleged felons voted - was the brunt of a few lighthearted jabs. But the county's director...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 13, 2005 04:52 PM
Here are some quotes from Gonzaga University Law School Professor Stephen Sepinuck (left) upon presenting the school's Law Medal to Secretary of State Sam Reed: Seven months ago, Secretary Reed found himself at the center of a political maelstrom. As...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 9, 2005 10:39 AM
Gonzaga University Law School, ranked as a "Tier 3" school, today awards Secretary of State Sam Reed the Gonzaga University School of Law Medal, the school's highest honor. "Reed has shown exemplary character and legal judgment during the ongoing political...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 7, 2005 08:29 AM
I recently asked the other members of the King County Canvassing Board to comment on Dean Logan's deposition -- specificially on the admission that Logan and election staff knew about significant numbers of irregularities that they didn't disclose to...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 5, 2005 10:36 AM
King County Councilman Reagan Dunn has introduced a Motion for No-Confidence Vote on Dean Logan. Council Chairman Larry Phillips says "It is far too soon to consider any change in leadership at King County Elections" What King County elections needs...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 4, 2005 06:19 PM
From Dean Logan's deposition, p. 224 - 225: Q: Have you ever said that state-wide, you know, I think that perhaps we'll never know the answer to that because of it being as close as it is? THE WITNESS: I...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 4, 2005 02:03 PM
I've been reading the Bill Huennekens deposition transcript. Lots of good stuff. pp. 103 - 160 takes us back to Precinct 1823, where hundreds of people are registered to vote at the King County Administration Building. The deposition pertains to...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 3, 2005 01:44 PM
The King County Prosecutor's Office issued this legal opinion advising Dean Logan on his responsibilities as elections director regarding voter registration. The punchline is that he has to accept any complete registration form and register the voter. But if he...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 3, 2005 11:43 AM
This just in -- Republicans have won a victory in their challenge to the election of Washington Governor Christine Gregoire. Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges said Republicans will be allowed to use "proportional analysis" to prove their case...
Posted in Sound Politics on May 2, 2005 09:44 AM
More highlights from Dean Logan's deposition. The one thing that I did get wrong in my summary of Chris Vance's remarks before the official transcripts was released was this: polling place inspectors (who were appointed by the Democrat Party this...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 29, 2005 03:23 PM
Dean Logan, in his deposition, finally gives credit where credit is due. p. 32 Q Okay. So you use signatures from poll books to credit individuals with voting? A To credit the individuals whose names are listed in the poll...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 29, 2005 02:01 PM
My latest column in The Stranger is up! Put away the John Grisham. This week's best beach thriller is the 436-page transcript of King County Elections Director Dean Logan's deposition in the election contest lawsuit. Read the whole thing. The...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 28, 2005 02:26 PM
Sam Reed comments on Dean Logan [mp3, 37sec.], from yesterday's John Carlson Show posted courtesy of KVI 570...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 27, 2005 01:44 PM
Dino Rossi: "Confident Judge Will Throw Out Nov. 2 Election" Rossi made the comments after releasing a 476 page transcript of the deposition of King County Elections Director Dean Logan. ... He told KOMO 4 News: "It's becoming clear now...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 27, 2005 11:03 AM
More curiosities from Dean Logan's deposition transcript. p. 133 Q: Do you know whether King County counted any ballots cast by individuals who voted more than once? A: I'm not aware of specific cases of that, no. Hmm. One of...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 27, 2005 12:48 AM
Okay, I've now read the entire 436 page transcript of Dean Logan's deposition. Lots of damning admissions. I'll post a few of the highlights in between tending to other business. One of the most serious admissions is that Logan was...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 26, 2005 11:28 AM
I just obtained a redacted version of Logan's deposition transcript. So new, I haven't even read it myself yet. Warning: it's 436 pages....
Posted in Sound Politics on April 25, 2005 06:34 PM
As I've documented on many occasions there was an unprecedented meltdown at King County polling places last November: hundreds of unverified provisional ballots that went through the Accuvotes; hundreds of absentee voters who showed up at the polls and...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 25, 2005 01:02 PM
Dean Logan sent this e-mail to Ron Sims and members of the County Council last Friday regarding his deposition --...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 25, 2005 11:55 AM
I just spoke with Chris Vance. He's not yet able to release the actual deposition transcripts until the court reporter issues a clean, proofread and redacted copy on Monday. In the meantime, he is able to characterize the essence of...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 22, 2005 11:01 AM
Here's yet another indication that election officials commited fraud in the November election. Dean Logan admitted in his deposition on Monday that he knew that provisional ballots went into the Accuvote machine before he certified the election. Never mind the...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 22, 2005 10:42 AM
This week is deposition week in the gubernatorial election contest. Dean Logan was deposed by the Republicans on Monday and the Democrats on Tuesday. Bill Huennekens turn is yesterday and today. The Republicans are starting to talk about what came...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 22, 2005 09:25 AM
Former Sen. Slade Gorton told some great stories at tonight's 43rd District Republican meeting about his time in the legislature back in the 1950s and 1960s. Did you know that the 43rd District used to be the most solidly Republican...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 19, 2005 11:24 PM
The file that King County Elections gave me in fulfillment of my request for the "Absentee Ballot Audit Trail" is a complete mess. The Audit Trail is required by WAC 434-240-270 and is supposed to account for every absentee ballot...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 18, 2005 02:08 PM
In honor of Dean Logan's deposition today, I'm posting a video clip of Dean Logan's opening statement to the canvassing board on December 15, during the manual recount. Some of my favorite quotes: 4:34 it's important to point out that...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 18, 2005 12:45 PM
Weird Al YankovicDean Logan photoshop credit: reader DanC....
Posted in Sound Politics on April 15, 2005 10:33 AM
An attendee of this evening's Town Hall Meeting with Dean Logan reports -- Logan made an astonishing whopper of a claim when asked why he didn't say anything about the recently discovered ballots at last month's Issaquah Town Hall meeting:...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 14, 2005 11:48 PM
Tonight appears to be Dean Logan's last town hall meeting for a while: Seattle First Baptist Church Thursday, April 14 at 7 p.m. 1111 Harvard Ave. Seattle, WA 98122 The League of Women Voters originally scheduled two more such town...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 14, 2005 12:38 PM
KING-5's Robert Mak had this interview with Dean Logan, who says he has "no plans to resign over election mess". Asked how it’s possible that the numbers on the batch slip didn't account for all the ballots, Logan said: "Well,...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 12, 2005 11:41 PM
The townhall meeting in Shoreline was sponsored by King County Council rep Carolyn Edmonds and the League of Women Voters. Council rep Bob Ferguson was in the audience. Attendance was at least 200. It was tightly structured to the chagrin...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 12, 2005 10:42 PM
My King County council person has been very quiet during the election kerfuffle; I mean silent. Now Carolyn Edmonds states that she is "committed to ensuring a secure, trusted, accountable elections system" and has invited Dean Logan and the League...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 10, 2005 06:11 PM
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation has sent this letter to Attorney General Gonzales asking for a DoJ investigation into King County Elections. The EFF also sent this e-mail to Norm Maleng requesting a state investigation: We are requesting that you request...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 8, 2005 04:59 PM
When I saw the quotes at Orbusmax from this Robert Jamieson column, I thought it was an all out attack on those who want an accurate vote tally in King County. And it is, as you can see from the...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 8, 2005 07:31 AM
Now that King County Elections has confirmed that the reconciliation reports it gave to the canvassing board were fake, it's time to press on to get the rest of the absentee ballot documentation that should explain the discrepancy of nearly...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 7, 2005 05:37 PM
King County Councilman Steve Hammond has written a letter to Dean Logan calling on him to issue an updated Mail Ballot Report that correctly reconciles all absentee ballots returned, counted and rejected. Such a report would be very interesting indeed....
Posted in Sound Politics on April 7, 2005 01:48 PM
In today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Gorton rips county election officials". But Conny thinks they're fabulous: support for [Dean Logan] came yesterday from Conny McCormack, his counterpart in Los Angeles County, Calif., who has worked with Logan in national organizations of election...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 7, 2005 01:11 PM
In the face of widespread irregularities, Democrats want illegal votes found through Dino Rossi's contested gubernatorial election lawsuit to be deducted from Rossi or current Governor Christine Gregoire based on an impossible-to-administer, after-the-fact determination regarding for which candidate each illegal...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 6, 2005 11:38 AM
We now have recent on-the-record statements from both Ron Sims and Dean Logan which pretty much commit them both to Logan's resignation. From this morning's Seattle Times article about the latest mess in King County Elections: Sims, who has generally...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 6, 2005 10:24 AM
This morning's Seattle Times editorial -- "A nasty turn in election challenge" -- criticizes Martin Ringhofer for challenging hundreds of voter registrations of people with foreign-sounding names, under the theory that some of them might not be citizens. Ringhofer's scheme...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 5, 2005 09:06 AM
Friday's e-mail from King County attorney Don Porter about the allegedly uncounted absentee ballots effectively admits that somebody on Dean Logan's staff must have committed fraud. Check out the Mail Ballot Report that was presented to the canvassing board prior...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 4, 2005 04:04 PM
The following e-mail was sent by King County attorney Donald Porter to attorneys for the parties in the election contest on Friday afternoon once the story of the new absentee ballots leaked out. The most interesting and disturbing item here...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 4, 2005 12:31 PM
King County Councilman Steve Hammond today called on Dean Logan to resign. Now that two members of the Council (that I know about) have publicly demanded Logan's resignation and more are sure to follow, Executive Ron Sims is going into...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 4, 2005 12:12 PM
King County Councilman Reagan Dunn has called on Dean Logan to resign....
Posted in Sound Politics on April 4, 2005 12:00 AM
That's the principal conclusion I drew from last night's town meeting with Councilwoman Julia Patterson, Secretary of State Sam Reed, and King County election director, Dean Logan. Not every kind of fraud, but some kinds....
Posted in Sound Politics on April 1, 2005 05:03 PM
I'm working my way through my videotape of last night's Julia Patterson Election Reform Town Hall Meeting in Kent, featuring Sam Reed and Dean Logan. Jim Miller now has a longer analysis posted. I'll just transcribe interesting quotes in real...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 1, 2005 01:58 PM
According to Dean Logan of the King County Elections Department some 700 missing ballots from the 2004 Governor's Election were found in the belly of a shark that was caught in Elliott Bay close to polling places. Logan stated, "While...
Posted in Sound Politics on April 1, 2005 11:49 AM
I don't know how many more smoking guns we need to show that King County officials certified the election even though they had to have known that something was seriously wrong. But here's another smoking gun. From a set of...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 30, 2005 02:02 PM
Dean Logan wrote this letter in response to King County Council Republicans' criticism of Ron Sims "State of the County" speech. His main points seem to be that (1) he really wants a new building for the elections department, and...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 30, 2005 12:35 PM
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported last week that The results of the Nov. 2 election in Milwaukee, now the subject of an investigation into possible voter fraud, were certified without any double-checking of the totals by the city or county panels...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 30, 2005 11:49 AM
State law (RCW 29A.84.010) seems to make clear that county election officials have an obligation to report fraudulent registration and voting irregularities to the county prosecutor "without delay". Nevertheless, King County Elections doesn't seem to follow this law. It's consistent...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 30, 2005 10:44 AM
The big event this week is King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson's town hall meeting with Dean Logan and Sam Reed this Thursday 7:00-9:00 p.m., Kent City Hall, 220 4th Ave S. I'll be there. Please e-mail me if you plan...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 28, 2005 11:52 PM
In spite of all the troubling irregularities that keep surfacing about King County's handling of the November election, I've been reluctant to allege that county officials committed fraud. Certainly I've never seen evidence of, say, actual ballot stuffing. But in...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 28, 2005 12:05 PM
State GOP Chairman Chris Vance just posted the following comment on an earlier post regarding today's court hearing: The judge set the depositions [of Dean Logan and Bill Huennekens] for the week of April 18. He will hold a...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 25, 2005 12:19 PM
There's a hearing (by conference call) in the election contest today where Judge Bridges is considering briefs on the schedule for deposing Dean Logan and Bill Huennekens. Some briefs that were filed for today's hearing (links at the end of...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 25, 2005 11:04 AM
Dean Logan and most of the Democrats on the King County Council (e.g.: Julia Patterson) have been saying things to the effect that anybody who fills out a voter registration form has to be accepted as a registered voter, with...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 24, 2005 11:28 AM
King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson is holding an "Election Reform Town Hall Meeting" featuring herself, Dean Logan and Secretary of State Sam Reed.Thursday, March 31 7:00-9:00 p.m. Kent City Hall, 220 4th Ave S.“The integrity of the elections process is...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 24, 2005 10:08 AM
Here is another tale in "front end election security", as per Dean Logan State election laws address ballot security and accountability on the front end of the elections process - at the polls, in ballot counting centers and throughout the...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 22, 2005 11:30 AM
Today we inaugurate an ongoing series where we'll be posting some of the dumb e-mails that elected officials send to their constituents. (We've posted a few such e-mails in the past. This howler from Rep. Jeanne Darneille is a classic)...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 21, 2005 04:54 PM
County auditors from around the state are again circling the wagons and, quite frankly, lying to the public in a shameless attempt to defend the mistakes made by King County Elections. This letter [look what my new scanner can do,...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 20, 2005 06:04 PM
My report on this morning's hearing in the case of Sharkansky v. Reed --...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 18, 2005 06:50 PM
Here are some files from the King County archives that illustrate how different the situation with provisional ballots was in 2004 vs. the 3 general elections before Dean Logan came on board. 1) "Special Ballot Summary Reports" (provisional ballots used...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 17, 2005 01:01 AM
As best as I can tell, the number of unverified provisional ballots that went through the Accuvote machines in King County was about 927. I gather this from going through the Binder source documents and the companion "Notes file", which...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 16, 2005 12:30 PM
Dean Logan, Sam Reed and our other underperforming election officials have been telling us for months now that the ballot/voter discrepancy shouldn't matter. There is no need to have accounting checks in place to ensure integrity because (from Logan's...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 16, 2005 11:44 AM
Dean Logan just issued a ruling on the voter registration challenge of Dr. Daniel Sosin of Atlanta, Georgia. Logan's ruling is here. The punchline: While the Challenger demonstrated that the Challenged Voter owns property in Atlanta, Georgia where he is...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 15, 2005 03:59 PM
Here are the highlights from yesterday's County Council meeting featuring Dean Logan. * A Republican Councilmember speaking with me afterwords, called the meeting "orchestrated". Chairman Larry Phillips front-loaded the agenda with the less controversial issues, postponing the ballot/voter discrepancy to...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 15, 2005 11:48 AM
Dean Logan will appear before the King County Council at 9:30am. I'll be there. You can also watch the proceedings on King County TV...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 14, 2005 09:13 AM
Dean Logan's appearance before the King County Council "Committee-of-the-Whole" (COW) has been rescheduled to Monday, March 14 Time: 9:30am Location: King County Council Chambers Room 1001 King County Courthouse, 516 Third Ave., Seattle....
Posted in Sound Politics on March 9, 2005 10:24 PM
The Secretary of State's office has publicly expressed dismay about what it says is incorrect information that has been aired about the election, including, in particular, what it characterizes as unproven claims about non-citizen voters. Now that I've seen what...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 9, 2005 11:27 AM
King County Elections sent me a formal response to my public disclosure request late Monday afternoon. Some of the documents I requested will be available today. But the county says it will continue to conceal the most important information, the...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 8, 2005 12:12 AM
Today's update on King County's magical binder of precinct-by-precinct reconciliation worksheets, which the lunatic-fringe blogs tell us are "sitting down there at KC Elections for anybody to inspect". The punchline is: the lunatic-fringe bloggers are living in a sick fantasy...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 7, 2005 12:37 PM
Monday's King County Council "Committee-of-the-whole" meeting where Dean Logan was to have been questioned by the Councilmembers has been cancelled. Meanwhile, the notorious binder containing precinct-by-precinct reconciliation reports wasn't released this week either. I'm sure there's a very good reason...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 4, 2005 04:21 PM
I've revised my analysis of the King County vote discrepancy, based on some slightly improved source data files. The differences from my earlier analysis are minor, but this does represent the best analysis based on the data that King...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 4, 2005 12:16 PM
I contacted the Secretary of State's office to ask for comment now that King County has acknowledged that crediting is an integral part of the ballot counting process and not just a post-certification file-maintenance procedure that is unrelated to ballot-counting,...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 2, 2005 01:40 PM
Now that King County has acknowledged that crediting is an essential part of the ballot-counting process and by implication that its explanation of the 1,800+ discrepancy between ballots and voters is no longer operative, let's see how the story about...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 2, 2005 12:00 PM
King County Councilmember Steve Hammond informs me that Dean Logan will be appearing before the King County Council next Monday, to answer questions from the Council about the 2004 Election. Councilmember Hammond would appreciate receiving suggestions for questions from Sound...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 2, 2005 11:03 AM
King County Elections now acknowledges that crediting voters was an integral part of the ballot counting process after the November 2004 election, for both absentee and polling place voters. This acknowledgement is huge. It implicitly confirms that the discrepancy of...
Posted in Sound Politics on March 1, 2005 10:50 AM
One of the more excitable lunatic-fringe bloggers reported this weekend that "KC Elections reconciled results. (So there)" Said blogger bases his giddy report on a conversation with the spokeswoman for King County Elections. However, it appears that our good friend's...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 22, 2005 02:42 PM
The Attorney General, representing the Secretary of State, has filed a response to my lawsuit [large PDF] to compel disclosure of voter birthdates....
Posted in Sound Politics on February 21, 2005 01:11 PM
Here's my trip report from this morning's hearing to challenge the King County voter registration of Atlanta physician Daniel M. Sosin. The punchline: there is no punchline yet. Dean Logan promised a written ruling within a few days. The following...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 18, 2005 01:45 PM
I filed a formal challenge to the voter registration of Dr. Daniel Sosin, the Atlanta, GA resident who continues to vote absentee in Seattle 12 years after he left town. A formal challenge hearing will be held before King County...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 16, 2005 12:33 PM
My highlights from this morning's King County Council meeting, where Dean Logan and Kurt Triplett (Ron Sims' chief of staff) presented their 2004 election report. The first two hours were a complete waste of time. The meeting started 15 minutes...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 14, 2005 11:56 PM
Dean Logan will be presenting his election report to the King County Council on Monday, Feb. 14, 9:30 a.m., 10th Floor, King County Courthouse, 3rd and James. Predictions: Julia Patterson, Dwight Pelz and Larry Phillips will praise Dean Logan for...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 13, 2005 10:52 PM
I attended this morning's press conference with King County Executive Ron Sims and Elections Director Dean Logan. It was an attempt at whitewash and it backfired. Big time. Another nail in the coffin not only of this disastrous election but...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 9, 2005 12:08 PM
A couple of stories I've been pursuing are picking up traction in the big media. Today's Seattle Times article "Official disputes gubernatorial vote-tally assertion" David Irons, R-Sammamish, said yesterday that in the 2000 general election the discrepancy between the numbers...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 9, 2005 12:47 AM
Sims, Logan to discuss 2004 King County Elections Report King County Executive Ron Sims and Director of Records, Elections and Licensing Services Dean Logan will hold a news conference tomorrow to discuss the 2004 King County Elections Report. This report...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 8, 2005 09:25 PM
One of the issues in the election contest is that it's too late to throw out hundreds of illegal votes that were cast because of the section of the contest law which states that "Illegal votes do not include votes...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 7, 2005 11:05 AM
I've received new information to confirm that King County's large discrepancy between ballots counted and voters counted is an outsized anomaly. As I reported earlier, King County's discrepancy of miscounted ballots, (considering both voterless ballots and ballotless voters) --...
Posted in Sound Politics on February 3, 2005 03:14 PM
Today's Seattle Times reports on Thursday night's town hall meeting with King County Elections Director Dean Logan. As noted in the article, I challenged Logan's assertion that 1,800 ballots were miscounted, and pointed out that that was only the net...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 28, 2005 01:10 AM
Re: yesterday's op-ed praising Dean Logan "King County voters in good hands" by Yakima County Auditor Corky Mattingly. Corky Mattingly originally intended for a version of this op-ed to be signed by all 38 of Dean Logan's peers who are...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 26, 2005 10:15 AM
The voter database seems to be a bit of a hit. Cool! I just rolled out an enhancement: It's now possible to lookup voters by name! -- Coming soon: I'll be adding data for Jefferson, Grays Harbor and Yakima counties....
Posted in Sound Politics on January 26, 2005 12:59 AM
Sound Politics has now posted a limited beta version online voter database. This quote was the final motivation for me to put some of the voter data online -- King County elections czar Dean Logan: “Both state and federal laws...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 25, 2005 10:48 AM
Speaking of Dean Logan, he'll be the featured speaker at a town hall meeting this Thursday organized by King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson: To discuss needed election reform, please attend my town meeting with Dean Logan, Director of King County...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 25, 2005 10:02 AM
Yakima County Auditor Corky Mattingly reassures us in today's Seattle Times that "King County voters in good hands" In King County, while the elections officer is not elected, the current occupant of the office, [Dean] Logan, is one of the...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 25, 2005 09:38 AM
The same Seattle Times article on felons voting referenced below by Stefan and Jim contains this choice passage: The Times surveyed 21 of Washington's 39 counties about their procedures for tracking felons, and in most of those counties, officials don't...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 23, 2005 12:12 PM
Secretary of State Sam Reed has appointed an election reform advisory board: An Advisory Board charged with distributing federal funds to Washington counties to pay for election reforms will meet this week. Members of the board appointed by the Secretary:...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 23, 2005 10:27 AM
The King County elections office, the Democratic Party, Secretary of State Sam Reed, and the lazy and credulous wing of the local media establishment have been feeding us the pabulum that King County's discrepancy of thousands more ballots than voters...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 17, 2005 01:37 PM
This can't be good for Governor-for-the-time-being Gregoire. Robert Mak's Sunday newsmagazine this week was titled "What went wrong?". Neither Dean Logan nor Sam Reed seem to have much confidence in their work product: Mak: "Do you think we really know...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 17, 2005 12:51 AM
I'm writing this post to both correct a factual error in this afternoon's Snowjob! post and to provide more detailed evidence that King County is pulling a snowjob. Rewind: Last Friday when King County reported an unexplained discrepancy of...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 13, 2005 11:30 PM
That's the claim made, again and again, by supporters of Washington state's "governor", Christine Gregoire. (They also say, again and again, that Washington's laws provide for a manual recount — which is not in dispute.) They make this claim in...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 13, 2005 04:55 PM
It's all slipping away from the King County elections department, and you read about it here first, thanks to ace Sound Politics data-miner Stefan Sharkansky. The latest crushing revelation of institutional incompetence is the admission, reported to newspaper readers here...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 11, 2005 09:50 AM
One of the fascinating subplots of this whole election mess that was forgotten as quickly as it surfaced was the 22 magical mystery absentee ballots that were discovered in a King County ballot box towards the end of the manual...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 9, 2005 11:22 PM
A Sunday editorial in The Tacoma News Tribune says the unchecked provisional ballots, in particular, are legitimate cause for Republican Dino Rossi's legal challenge of Democrat Christine Gregoire's 129-vote victory in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election. ....the counting of unscreened...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 9, 2005 03:31 PM
It should have occurred to me late last night when I first read it, but Dean Logan's "explanation" of the thousands of discrepancies between the voter list and the precinct canvass is as good as a signed confession of massive...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 6, 2005 04:08 PM
The AP's Rebecca Cook reports on Chris Vance' press conference earlier today Hundreds of provisional ballots may have been counted on Election Day without being verified, state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said today. ... Vance said the admission by...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 5, 2005 11:29 PM
Holding my nose, I just visited a place that I just about swore I would never go: Seattle "Indymedia." [Shudder] Why? Well, John Carlson's show (KVI) had a late caller named Roy reading from an email Christine Gregoire had sent...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 5, 2005 07:55 PM
It's not just King County. The Washington GOP announced yesterday that several of the largest counties have huge unexplained discrepancies, for a total of 8,400 more ballots than voters. The response from election officials is "Don't worry, be happy. We...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 4, 2005 11:50 AM
How many local journalists deserve them for their coverage of the disputed Gregoire-Rossi gubernatorial election? Not many, at least not many that I have seen. Maybe I am too harsh a grader. I would fail any journalist who says "count...
Posted in Sound Politics on January 3, 2005 04:40 PM
December 2004 Dec. 1: Democratic National Committee (Gregoire) sends out “Action Alert” with poor math: “Only 42 votes separate my Republican opponent and me. That's a difference of 0.0014 percent. The error for voting machines is somewhere between...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 31, 2004 11:59 PM
Nothing. At least nothing in public at this time. His Christmas message already said all that needs to be said: “I know many Washingtonians are hoping this will end soon, but I’m also sure that people across this state want...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 25, 2004 10:53 PM
When we think of the Ukraine County Elections office, we think of the recent fiasco involving the 400 rejected provisional ballots corrected by weeping Democratic party officials, the 717 surgically enhanced haruspex ballots and the 336 magical mystery ballots that...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 19, 2004 12:25 PM
Which official has lost most in this series of blunders (on the best interpretation) by the King County elections office? The head of King County elections, Dean Logan, right? Logan was brought in to reform the office. Suppose that someone...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 18, 2004 03:40 PM
As I noted yesterday in response to Dean Logan's surreal non-explanation of the 573 magical mystery ballots: It makes you wonder what other idiotic procedures they have in place, and what other errors they're making and not discovering, or discovering...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 17, 2004 02:23 PM
Yesterday, suspecting that the re-recount in King County had become a universal joke, I tried out just the punch line at a local Safeway and a local McDonald's. In each case, I just said, with no set up line, that...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 17, 2004 07:03 AM
The Washington State Republican Party says that the Ukraine County Democrats are changing the rules: This morning the King County Elections Department announced to ballot counters that it is changing the rules it had previously set on counting votes. King...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 16, 2004 03:30 PM
All right, I am being sarcastic, but consider some recent history. Nearly all of the problems in Florida during the 2000 election occurred in counties with Democratic election boards, counties with long histories of mismanagement and fraud. And now we...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 14, 2004 11:53 AM
The State Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this afternoon at 1:30 in the Democrats' suit to change the rules for manual recounts. The Olympian reports that the oral arguments will be covered live via TVW, Channel 23, and by...
Posted in Sound Politics on December 13, 2004 10:52 AM
The SoundPolitics.com Timeline of Events in the Washington Governor's Race Compiled by Brian Crouch November 2004 Nov. 2: Election Day. Gregoire leads by 7,000, less than 0.6% votes -- with about 88% counted. Many combat troops ballots were...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 30, 2004 11:59 PM
The Rossi campaign released the following statement late yesterday in response to the Democrats' shenanigans As you know, Dino won the recount for the governor’s race on Wednesday, but Christine Gregoire is not willing to accept the results. While we’re...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 27, 2004 12:04 PM
King County Elections Director Dean Logan appears to think poorly of a likely request by failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire to demand a hand recount. Gregoire lost by 42 votes to Republican Dino Rossi after a machine recount was...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 25, 2004 11:17 AM
Washington State Republican Party chairman Chris Vance issued a press release earlier today alleging "four glaring examples of problems [calling] into question the way the [King County] Elections Department is run". 1. Ballots clearly marked for Dino Rossi are not...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 21, 2004 03:23 PM
This is getting ridiculous. The press on our gubernatorial election is embarrassing. What is this with the "finding" of more ballots? Are they stuck in O'Hare International Airport? Are they hidden in bodily orifices? Are they under someone's toupee? Please...
Posted in Sound Politics on November 16, 2004 01:51 PM