Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Cinderella Gregoire

Poor Christine Gregoire. She didn't get her "Cinderella moment." She didn't get to bask in the glory of her victory as governor; she didn't get to wear the princess gown. It just wasn't fair.

Tacoma News Tribune

Maybe it's because she lost the election - November 17, 2004 Sound Politics. And she lost the recount - November 24, 2004 Sound Politics.

But then Ron Sims kept finding more ballots. Even national media were asking about the questionable ballot counting. November 29, 2004 Sound Politics. (Unfortunately the link to the original Wall Street Journal article doesn't work eight years later.) Once Gregoire was ahead they quit counting. There were 10,000 ballots "discovered" and other discrepancies. Sound Politics And Democrats were allowed to take ballots away from the secure counting facility to go to voters' homes for new signatures. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Among the findings in the election post-mortem was that there was not complete accounting for the ballots. Polling places received a bunch of ballots and turned in those voted, plus blanks, but didn't make sure every ballot was accounted for! You know, missing a few ballots in this precinct and a few in that one… Adds up.

Stefan Sharkansky, the boss here at Sound Politics, did yeoman work analyzing the vote count inside and out. He did much more analysis than the paid news media - all of them together.

4 comments:

Patrick McArdle said...

Thanks for leaving at least one comment forum open -- for now. You guys over at Sound Politics have been closing a lot of comment threads since the recent elections. I'm sure that's just a co-incidence.

Anyway, I'm very glad to see you're still deeply hurting from the 2004 (!) elections. Your bitter little rant somehow missed a few obvious facts, such as what happened to all of the claims you made when they were tried in open court. As you may know, the results were not exactly good for your assertions. Let's look at a few, shall we?

You asserted:

There were 10,000 ballots "discovered" and other discrepancies. Sound Politics And Democrats were allowed to take ballots away from the secure counting facility to go to voters' homes for new signatures. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Judge Bridges ruled:

"Specifically with reference to King County, there is no evidence that the significant errors which occurred resulted from intentional misconduct or someone's desire to manipulate the election. There is no evidence that anybody associated with any of the candidates in the governor's race had anything to do with causing the errors. There is no evidence that has been produced in this Court to suggest that the errors resulted from partisan bias. During the 2004 general election, the various polling sites across the State were populated by inspectors, judges, Accuvote judges, observers, attorneys and the media. No testimony has been placed before the Court to suggest fraud or intentional misconduct. Election officials attempted to perform their responsibilities in a fair and impartial manner. There is no evidence before the Court to question ballot security as to those ballots actually counted."

You asserted:

Among the findings in the election post-mortem was that there was not complete accounting for the ballots. Polling places received a bunch of ballots and turned in those voted, plus blanks, but didn't make sure every ballot was accounted for! You know, missing a few ballots in this precinct and a few in that one… Adds up.

Judge Bridges ruled:

"While there is evidence of irregularity, as there appears to be in every election, based on the testimony of various county election officials, there is no substantial evidence by clear and convincing evidence that improper conduct or irregularity procured Ms. Gregoire's election to the Office of Governor."

The truth just keeps on hurting, does it not? And all you can claim in recompense is that you losers were inexcusably rude to the winner:

"She didn't get to bask in the glory of her victory as governor..."

Even though she'd been certified the victor by a Republican Secretary of State, and then re-certified by a Republican Judge in a Republican county, you guys still utterly lacked even the slightest hint of class needed to recognize these realities. A pity the succeeding eight years did nothing to help you.

Reality, how does it work?

Patrick McArdle
tensor@speakeasy.org

Anonymous said...

Wow, Patrick, you've paraded your naiveté as one would a poodle in Kirkland. A friend who chose the legal profession once remarked: "When you run out of money you run out of justice." Shall we look at how Chrissy has spent our money, left us in debt, curried favor with Unions and most recently called again for more taxes? Geeesh buddy, her election was fraud, and all the principles quickly snuck out of town to DC leaving only the leering picture of a black man on County vehicles. There are many good reasons to divorce King County from the rest of the State and certainly one of them is to promote the integrity of the electoral process.

xjd7410@gmail.com said...
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caiyan said...
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