Snowjob!
Sound Politics
Last Friday when King County reported an unexplained discrepancy of 1,217 more ballots counted than identified voters, they also made this statement:
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This number is consistent with historic reconciliation rates for King County. In 2000 this number was 1,230.
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First of all, as reported later, the 1,217 number turned out to be incorrect and the actual number of unexplained ballots is closer to 1,800 (add to that the explained discrepancy of 348 unverified provisionals and the real number of voterless ballots is closer to 2,150).
But the bombshell revelation here is that the 2000 number of 1,230 does not in any way validate the claim that even 1,217 voterless ballots is in line with historical reconciliation rates. I have it on very good authority from long time observers of King County elections that the 1,230 represents an excess of voters over ballots. This excess is attributable to so-called "courtesy credits" to voters who attempted to vote, but whose votes were not counted due to either voter error or county error. These credits are simply a notation in the registration record crediting the voter with having voted. (it's apparently important to some who, for example, run for office and like to demonstrate that they have a long record of civic participation and voting).
They do not affect the actual vote count.
These credits are not normally extended until after the period for filing an election contest is over. The actual historical reconciliation discrepancy before the courtesy credits is typically on the order of magnitude of one or two dozen votes in the entire county. A discrepancy of 2,150, 1,800 or even 1,200 is an exceptionally large discrepancy for which no plausible explanation has been given.
To somehow claim that a shortfall of even 1,200 (let alone 1,800) voters pre-courtesy-credit is in any way comparable to a post-credit excess of 1,200 is as much of a snowjob as anything I've heard lately.
At what point do we stop calling it "clerical errors" and start calling it fraud?
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky
soundpolitics.com |
