Did you see this from Sharkansky? Tens of thousands of deceased and duplicate voters found
January 26, 2006
This might be some of what the Secretary of State's Office didn't want me to discover in the statewide database before they could put their own spin on it: "11,500 Dead Washingtonians Still Registered To Vote"
The sweep this month also found 36,000 voters who appear to be registered in two counties.
It sound like they're making progress on cleaning up the voter rolls. And that's good. Will they investigate further to determine how many of these dead people voted from the grave and how many of the multiply registered voters have voted more than once? Please, no wagering.
UPDATE: The source for the numbers of 11,500 deceased and 36,000 duplicates is the KOMO article that I linked above. The Secretary of State's website has a press release today reporting
10,000 potential duplicate registrations for active voters and 7,000 for inactive voters.
and
nearly 2,000 deceased voters.
No explanation yet for the discrepancy with the KOMO report.
UPDATE 2: Thanks the reader who suggested this related article in the Everett Herald.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 26, 2006 02:37 PM | Email This
soundpolitics.com
Comments on Entry:
Tens of thousands of deceased and duplicate voters found, authored by Stefan Sharkansky
My guess is 11. And all of them were close relatives of the deceased.
Gerald
Posted by Gerald at January 26, 2006 02:50 PM
OOOh!! Oooh!!
Can I play??
That'd be "What is MANY more than the margin of victory, Alex!!"
:~)
Posted by Brian C at January 26, 2006 03:05 PM
Doesn't this completely undermine the argument that voter registration issues are a King County or a democractic issue?
Posted by Claire at January 26, 2006 03:06 PM
My guess is around 11,000. And before they died they signed that they voted for Dino. So CG won by 11,129
Posted by fred at January 26, 2006 03:06 PM
This report was carefully phased as to imply that absolutely none of the dead or double registered voters voted illegally. Thank God none of them did! We might not have been able to determine who our gov was.
Posted by Jeffro at January 26, 2006 03:07 PM
If the figures of 11,500 deceased registered voters still on the books plus the 36,000 double-registered voters prove to be accurate, then we have at least 47,500 excess voter registrations.
With 3.5 million total registered voters in the state, that means the current database is approximately 98.6% accurate - a figure that any bank would be proud of.
Posted by Gary at January 26, 2006 03:08 PM
I talked to one of the dead voters. She said she didn't even have to show I.D., much less having to show she was alive.
But, she voted for Rossi. Don't tell the Democrats or they will demand a recount.
Posted by swatter at January 26, 2006 03:18 PM
Claire: Doesn't this completely undermine the argument that voter registration issues are a King County or a democractic issue?
1) we don't know yet where these dead and doubly registered voters are registered and which auditors have the sloppiest rolls.
2) I don't who is making the argument that sloppy voter rolls are exclusively a King County or Democrat problem. I've focused most of my attention on King County because that's where I live. But I'm also happy to publicize election problems in other counties without regards to partisanship, and for that matter in the (Republican) Secretary of State's office.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 26, 2006 03:18 PM
Again, let me remind you that none of the dead voters or double registered voters voted illegally. 47,500 total and not a one voted illegally.
What is the penalty for a dead voter voting illegally?
Posted by Jeffro at January 26, 2006 03:19 PM
My guess is that KC was so arrogant in believing that Gregoire was going to trounce Rossi in the 2004 election that they ran a really sloppy vote count. Then, lo and behold, Rossi actually came out on top, statewide!
That caught KC with their pants down. But they were quick to recover by first NOT certifying the results as other counties had. Then, they scoured everywhere for those votes they may have idly just left hanging around rather than counting. The first round-up of ignored votes wasn't enough: they had to find more. They did, and how exactly they did that is still a "mystery" today.
The 2004 election was so tainted by the inept and lazy, unprofessional behvior of KC elections people that an entire new election for governor should have been called. There's a chance the wrong person is sitting down in the governor's mansion in Olympia. The really only true way to ascertain who won the election is to have a re-vote.
Posted by Libertarian at January 26, 2006 03:24 PM
Libertarian: Too bad the re-vote won't happen unitl November of 2008. We've got another three years of her highness, Queen Chrissie to endure!
Posted by Yossarian at January 26, 2006 03:26 PM
The Everett Herald article is more comprehensive than the KOMO article.
Posted by mlc at January 26, 2006 03:38 PM
And given the record of government and its inability to do anything efficiently or completely, what is an acceptable factor to apply to these numbers to estimate the real size of the problem?
1.1?
1.5?
2?
5?
Posted by MJC at January 26, 2006 04:00 PM
I am almost reminded of the whole "city burned while Nero Fiddled" scene with regards to this finding of problems with the voter rolls. Since the 2004 election all we were told by everyone inside the various state auditors offices and inside a number of the county auditors offices was that there was no problem and if there was a problem only a minor statistical minority were illegally regerstered or voting. Well now the truth is sort of out there and the problem is bigger then most seem to want to admit. I mean come on 11.5k of dead citzens are still registered to vote? I really don't care which way they would of voted, but I just wonder how long some of these people were still registered to vote from when they died. There is no excuse to have this many people still on the voters rolls. This is sloppiness to the nth degree and in some counties they should of cleaned house and cleaned up thier paperwork the first 3 times issues like this popped up since the 2000 election.
The only thing that I can say is if you check all over the nation there are similar problems with voter registration in nearly every state of the union. However, most of the media doesn't care unless it prevents a law or politician that they care about from being elected.
Posted by Charles at January 26, 2006 04:04 PM
WHEN MY GRAND MOTHER PASSED ON...
SHE WAS CREMATED AND WE GOT HER A NEW DOMICILE AT THE LOCAL U.P.S. STORE...IT IS ONLY $25.00 A YEAR, A.A.R.P.CAN STILL ASK FOR DONATIONS, WE CAN SEE HER 24/7/365 AND SHE CAN STILL VOTE.
THE COST OF A GRAVE SITE AND COFFIN WERE OVER $10,000... SO @ $25.00 PER YEAR IT WOULD TAKE 400 YEARS TO BRAKE EVEN...SUCH A GOOD DEAL!!!
Posted by TACOMA PHLASH at January 26, 2006 04:27 PM
Phlash - That is a great idea! Now you really can pass along a legacy from generation to generation ;'}
A shrewd person could start a very profitable cottage industry here. And obviously the dems don't care...
Hmmm!
Posted by alphabet soup at January 26, 2006 04:36 PM
How many of them voted last time around?
Posted by Al at January 26, 2006 06:11 PM |
