by Charles
Yesterday, Judge John Bridges made his ruling, upholding the November 2004 election for Washington State governor. In a nutshell, Bridges set a high bar for overturning an election (too high in my opinion) and the Republicans fell short, the standard being "clear and convincing evidence" that the plaintiff had more total votes. He reserved some harsh criticism for King County, but left it to the voters of King County to demand change in their elections office.
In a news conference yesterday afternoon, Dino Rossi ended the contest. While stating that the "partisan makeup" of the the Democrat-majority State Supreme Court was one reason to forego appeal, I don’t believe they would have overturned Bridges in either case (yes, I’m speculating here). As for changing the law on illegal votes, there is no incentive for a Democratic-controlled legislature to change a law which helped usher their candidate to victory.
If the Democrats won’t change the law, then my hope is that a group can put together an initiative, simply stating that if the number of illegal votes exceeds the margin of victory, then there must be a re-vote, with the cost of the new election borne proportionally by the counties responsible for those illegal votes. Such a measure would increase accountability and give counties a huge incentive to get their rolls right and get their ballot-counting right. The ultimate objective is to better ensure that elections give a clear and accurate reading of the will of the people.
Win or lose, I’m glad the trial happened. Without it, we would not have known the extent of the incompetence in King County, and such a public embarrassment will spur changes. Ron Sims (the county executive) and Dean Logan (the elections supervisor) have cartons of eggs on their faces. Sims will forever regret this quote: "We had an accuracy rate any bank would envy," and his political opponents will mercilessly replay that sound bite. The integrity of voter rolls and ballots should be sacrosanct, and any efforts to move up to that ideal can’t be a bad thing.
Rossi left his future plans open, but he is the Republicans’ best shot at unseating Maria Cantwell in the 2006 US Senate race. We’ll see if it happens, but my guess is that he’ll take the plunge. Rossi is an up and coming guy. A good friend of mine met with him last month and came away "smitten", reinforcing my view that this will not be the last we hear of Dino Rossi.
If the Democrats won’t change the law, then my hope is that a group can put together an initiative, simply stating that if the number of illegal votes exceeds the margin of victory, then there must be a re-vote, with the cost of the new election borne proportionally by the counties responsible for those illegal votes.
Add “and if the number of uncounted ballots exceeds the margin of victory” and you have a reason for revoting the Florida election in November 2000. Care to add that as an update, either for or against?
Of course not – that’s old news – get over it. 9/11 changed everything, except for the fact that the Clenis was EVULLLL and that St. Nixon was hounded out of office by agents of Pol Pot, in a plot to destroy Sacred Israel.
Ummm…hopefully having invented time travel first. Although after having invented time travel, first losed some meaning.
loses, even. Sheesh.
I don’t think Jes is calling for a revote of 2000 /now/, Slart–just pointing out Charles’ double standard.
I have no problem with Charles’ proposed legislation. In fact, a lot of my expectations for reform, both locally and nationally, go even further.
As for changing the law on illegal votes, there is no incentive for a Democratic-controlled legislature to change a law which helped usher their candidate to victory.
Projecting much? My irony meter can’t take too many more posts like this.
Well, I didn’t want to get into the issue of uncounted ballots and Florida/2000, because uncounted ballots are something Jesurgislac and I haven’t discussed (in my recollection), although we have batted the issue of undervotes and overvotes around quite a bit.
Also, Charles’ desire to change the law now, so that it’d be in effect for future elections, is in no way a double-standard. Because the law of Florida in 2000 (and still, as far as I’m aware) doesn’t include such provisions. A discussion of whether it ought to is certainly fair game.
Catsy: I don’t think Jes is calling for a revote of 2000 /now/, Slart–just pointing out Charles’ double standard.
Correct.
We desperately need common well firmulated standards for voting. The problem of felons voting is real, but so is the problem of excessive lines at polling stations, non-transparent voting procedures (Diebold, anyone?), and poorly worked out recount procedures.
The best system is almost certainly hand marked, hand counted paper ballots, ideally placed in transparent ballot boxes, with the distribution, transportation, and counting overseen by representatives from all interested parties. In practice we USAmericans are so in love with machines that the best we can reasonably hope to implement is voter verifiable machine ballots (i.e. a printout of each ballot to be use in the event of a disputed election). It’s more expensive than the hand marked method but at least it delivers the same level of reliability.
This doesn’t address the illegal vote issue, unfortunately. That is best addressed by moving the responsibility for verifying voter eligibility to an independent nonpartisan office with open procedures and an audit trail that can be examined in the event of a dispute.
The great danger is that Dems look to the Ohio improprieties and use that as justification for committing improprieties of their own, while the Reps look to Washington and use that as justification for their own shennanigans. Everyone loses. In the ideal world both sides look at the problems and realize that making the election system as fraud (and incompetence) resistant as possible is in the best interests of everyone.
Don’t hold your breath.
I’m inclined to adopt optical-scan ballots and some sort of mandatorily unconfusing ballot layout. That’s the easy part. The design and execution of comprehensive laws that dictate how elections must be done are still up to the individual states. And from what I’ve seen, Congress can’t do a thing about that short of amending the Constitution, which of course Congress cannot do (alone) in the first place.
Wash. Governor’s 2004 Win Stands
A judge in Washington state upheld last fall’s gubernatorial election and rejected a Republican suit
I’m inclined to adopt optical-scan ballots and some sort of mandatorily unconfusing ballot layout.
ITA. As I’ve said ad nauseum, we’ve got both the technology and the money to create ballots for which there would be no confusion (barring egregiously overwrought initiative states like California) either in the count or the recount; there’s no reason we can’t, or shouldn’t, adopt it in time for 2008.
if the number of illegal votes exceeds the margin of victory, then there must be a re-vote
That would mean any candidate who was clearly trailing in the polls on election day could force a do-over (and extend the election period in the hopes of gaining more votes) simply by submitting a large enough number of fraudulent votes.
We never expect our elections to be perfect, we just expect them to give a clear answer; a result is acceptable even if the irregularity level is high, as long as it’s unambiguous. You have to tie re-votes to a plausible claim that the outcome of the election was affected by irregularities – of whatever kind – not just the fact that there were irregularities. Making that determination requires comparing the disputed votes for and against each candidate with the margin of victory, and making that determination requires evaluating the votes to determine which actually were illegal or miscounted. Which means that we need a procedure more or less identical to the one we have now.
“Ummm…hopefully having invented time travel first.”
I’m so reminded of the time I invented time travel, but then went back and talked myself out of it.
(Thanks, that’s a twenty-word sf story, except in the other universe where it’s true.)
Ouch, Gary. I think I sprained an evident-paradox-handling routine.
Add “and if the number of uncounted ballots exceeds the margin of victory” and you have a reason for revoting the Florida election in November 2000.
It always has to go back to Florida with you, doesn’t it, Jes? The single standard that I stand by is the rule of law: The Supreme Court ruled such in 2000 and Bridges ruled such yesterday. Unlike you as it relates to Bush, I accepted Gregoire as my governor when she was certified by the WA SecState, and she remains my governor now. It’s too bad, really, that you’re unable to let go and move on. Whatever reforms in Florida after 2000 to improve the integrity of voter rolls and the accuracy of ballot counting and ballot readability, I’m all in favor of.
That would mean any candidate who was clearly trailing in the polls on election day could force a do-over (and extend the election period in the hopes of gaining more votes) simply by submitting a large enough number of fraudulent votes.
Then such a candidate should arrested for committing a felony, Kevin.
(Thanks, that’s a twenty-word sf story, except in the other universe where it’s true.)
Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it can’t be sf. Call that Godel’s Narrative Incompleteness Theorem.
Time Travelers Strictly Cash is already taken, alas.
Unlike you as it relates to Bush, I accepted Gregoire as my governor when she was certified by the WA SecState, and she remains my governor now.
I’m fairly certain that Jesurgislac would have accepted neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore (nor John Kerry) as her President.
What I find fascinating about this (and Florida 2000, and possibly Ohio 2004) is that every time we put an election system under the microscope, we find a lot of problems. Some sloppiness, some shenanigans, some outright fraud.
I don’t think that this is just because we’re only examining certain highly-charged close races. I strongly suspect that almost all elections would look this bad under this level of scrutiny.
My favorite elections quick-fix is to mandate hand-recounts in, say, 5% of precints, in all elections. Pick at random, and just verify that the system is doing something reasonable.
Phil: I’m fairly certain that Jesurgislac would have accepted neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore (nor John Kerry) as her President.
Also correct!
But I did accept Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair, in turn, as Prime Minister.
…and we’re only seeing the badness because we’re examining certain highly-charged, close races.
Screwed-up elections aren’t a new thing in Florida; they’ve been around since Florida was a predominantly Democratic state (you only have to go back a decade or so to get there). Google on “Carl Hiaasen mayor” (sans quotes) and see what you get.
Random spot audits are fine, and desirable, but I don’t think they’re the cure for things like ballot forgery.
Oh, and for a reasonably accurate picture of corruption in politics here in sunny Florida, just read anything Hiaasen has ever written. Kick Ass, in particular, I highly recommend. It’s a collection of his Miami Herald columns, and the man simply knows where the dirt is, and how to sweep it all back out from under the rug.
Hiassen is hilarious, and angry too. Great stuff.
As for revotes, it’s a nice idea, but what happens when the revote is close and again there are illegal or disputed votes? It’s not that unlikely. A close election is likely to be close in the revote, and if the system is shoddy there will still be problems.
While I heartily endorse efforts to make vote-counting more accurate, I’m not convinced having revotes is a great idea except in very unusual cases. One thing that seems needed is a better set of procedures for recounts and audits. I haven’t followed the WA situation closely, but these thing always seem to follow somewhat ad hoc processes, with lots of litigation and argument about how to proceed. Surely, even without wondrous technology, we can figure out a way to conduct elections that allows for a careful recheck in the case of close results.
Bridges set a high bar for overturning an election (too high in my opinion) and the Republicans fell short, the standard being “clear and convincing evidence” that the plaintiff had more total votes.
This is a cheap shot — why don’t you just eat crow about how wrong your views have been about this. From the linked article:
He [Judge Bridges]added that even if the standard of proof were lowered to a “preponderance” of the evidence, Republicans would lose.
Uh, you mean he applied the law (clear and convincing evidence standard), rather than bending it to favor Republicans which you seem to prefer, which didn’t make any difference anyway in his decision?
And what did the judge say about your pet fraud theory:
“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 … to suggest that the errors resulted from partisan bias.”
A clue from a lawyer — when the judge rules “there is no evidence” it means your case really stunk.
I am glad that you hedged by not joining Rossi in his cheap shot about the Democrats on the Washington Supreme Court. After all, Rossi forum-shopped by filing in Chelan County in order to get the most conservative Republican judge possible in a safe Republican rural county. Having lost in that friendly forum, he was an ass to then claim that the appeal was hopeless because of political makeup of the Washington Supreme Court.
Random spot audits are fine, and desirable, but I don’t think they’re the cure for things like ballot forgery.
Has there been any proof, or accusations even, of ballot forgery? I realize that one should attempt to deal with all eventualities, but positing problems that haven’t yet occurred is a recipe for no change.
This is a cheap shot — why don’t you just eat crow about how wrong your views have been about this.
What cheap shot? He did set a high bar and the Republicans didn’t have the evidence to satisfy him. You’re reaching, dm. Get reasonable.
And what did the judge say about your pet fraud theory
You should revisit my “pet fraud theory” before you start distorting my positions. King County election officials deliberately falsified the Mail Ballot Report. While that meet the generic definition of fraud (which is why I inserted a generic definition in my post), I didn’t proffer an opinion on the legal definition and the seven criteria that must be met.
I don’t know what you mean by Bridge’s setting a “high bar.”
He allowed enormous latitude and deference to the GOP in testimony and documentary evidence. He knew the odds were his decision would be appealed whichever way it went, and he was dotting every i and crossing every t.
The high bar consisted of the seven points to prove fraud. Those seven points aren’t some judicial whim; they’re what the law defines as proof of fraud. If the GOP couldn’t make the grade, that’s not Bridges’ fault. “Election fraud” as a legal charge is a legal term, with legal definitions.
The GOP knew ahead of time it lacked proof of fraud; so it argued for a finding of fraud anyway, by setting the bar at the vernacular definition rather than the legal one. (Just like RW fundies use a vernacular definition of “theory” rather than the scientific one, in order to attack the theory of evolution.)
The GOP’s reasoning works just fine, apparently, for rhetorical purposes, though. Its spokespersons and supporters are still calling the election fraudulent, and intend to use that as a hammer throughout Gov. Gregoire’s term.
What cheap shot?
You are too smart to play the “I don’t get it” card.
The judge made it explicitly clear that the proof presented by Rossi did not satisfy even a “propenderance of evidence” standard.
So the fact that the judge also correctly noted that the applicable standard of proof was “clear and convincing” was not relevant in making his decision. He ruled that the evidence also did not satisfy a preponderance of evidence standard.
This point is made clear in the linked article, which I presume you read.
So the cheap shot is your focus in the post that the “high bar,” too high in your opinion, had something to do with why Rossi lost.
Except it didn’t, as was obviouis from reading the linked article.
The point is that Rossi’s case stunk, and the conservative Republican judge explicitly ruled that it was meritless, even under the lower evidentiary standard that you think should be applicable.
You may cling to the fantasy that the case failed because it was so difficult to win this type of case — the reality is that the conservative Republican judge judge made it clear that the case failed to meet even a preponderance of the evidence standard.
Get over it.
No, but it was mentioned as a technique for ensuring a recount, under Charles’ proposed new rules. Upthread, that is.
No, but it was mentioned as a technique for ensuring a recount, under Charles’ proposed new rules.
I”m a bit confused. What was pointed out was that Chas notion of a law triggering a recount based on the difference in votes rather than the standard that it has to be shown the problems in the ballot probably go the opposite of the will of the people is fatally flawed, in that the person losing would be encouraged to simply try and generate enough fradulent or even questionable votes in order to buy more time. I think this means that your objection to Nathan‘s quick fix would only be valid if a law similar to what Chas suggests is enacted. In fact, this underlines why the WA law is written the way it is, that one has to prove that the problematic votes would have served to tip the election, which the judge did not accept as being possible.
The sad thing is that I think we’ve only scratched the surface in terms of how elections can be manipulated and I feel certain we are going to have people hired to cast fradulent votes for the opposition candidate in order to generate the same kind of scenario that we had with some of the races in this cycle.
What was pointed out was that Chas notion of a law triggering a recount based on the difference in votes rather than the standard that it has to be shown the problems in the ballot probably go the opposite of the will of the people is fatally flawed,
Geez, that sentence made sense when I wrote it. Let’s try again
Chas seems to want a new law because the bar for demanding a revote is too high and (I think) advocates an objective numeric standard. But this would encourage candidates to simply aim for that number. The current law not only punishes ballot fraud, but also tries to make it moot even if it does work.
Still not very good, but I’m in the office switching between English and Japanese.
Slart, I’m not sure Congress is helpless. Hopeless, though, is another matter . . .
This post diminhses my respect for this blog.
David, go back further and read the posts criticizing Amnesty International, and Paul Kruman. Note the author. Read the other posts. Note their authors.
I think that the conclusion will be obvious.
David, go back further and read the posts criticizing Amnesty International, and Paul Kruman. Note the author. Read the other posts. Note their authors.
I think that the conclusion will be obvious.
You are too smart to play the “I don’t get it” card.
I’m not. I’m saying you’re full of it with the “cheap shot” business. You’re misreading me yet again, dm, and it’s getting really old. Bridges chose the level of evidence necessary to trigger an overturned election, and the threshhold was high. To him, it didn’t matter how many illegal votes there were. There could have been 20,000 or 200,000 illegal votes and it wouldn’t have mattered. Bridges could have ruled that, with North Carolina precedent backing him up, because “lost” votes exceeded the margin of victory, a re-vote would be necessary. He didn’t, thus my statement.
Chas seems to want a new law because the bar for demanding a revote is too high and (I think) advocates an objective numeric standard. But this would encourage candidates to simply aim for that number.
That would pre-suppose, LJ, that a candidate would already know the margin of victory before the election and engineer enough votes to cloud the results. Sounds fairly implausible to me. Vote fraud is already a felony, and anyone who does this to trigger a re-vote would be disqualified and jailed.
To him, it didn’t matter how many illegal votes there were. There could have been 20,000 or 200,000 illegal votes and it wouldn’t have mattered.
I’ll admit I’ve only cursorily glanced at the decision, but on what grounds do you make this claim?
You’re misreading me yet again, dm, and it’s getting really old.
More dodge ball from the salient point. Your post claimed that the case was allegedly lost due to an overly high standard of proof. That was a cheap shot by you, since it was clear from the article you linked in the post that the case failed without regard to the standard of proof employed by the judge.
I have made this point twice in explaining what was cheap about your post, and you have twice simply ignored my point. You have no business pretending that Rossi’s challenge was somehow unfairly turned away because of an excessive high standard of proof, and that is clearly what you wrote. Own up to it.
Now I hear about some other point never mentioned before about “number of illegal votes in relation to the margin of victory” was what you were writing about.
Then, you repeat the sin with this made up “fact”:
To him[Judge Bridger], it didn’t matter how many illegal votes there were. There could have been 20,000 or 200,000 illegal votes and it wouldn’t have mattered.
What is getting old is a habit of using phony spin to gloss your false point (i.e., the Republicans allegedly fell short because of an overly high standard of proof). Except they didn’t since the judge expressly ruled that their evidence failed to prove the case by a simple preponderance of evidence.
And your link about precedent does not work, but I seriously doubt that it holds that a revote should be ordered if the number of “illegal” votes is in excess of the winning margin. Most states require the challenger to prove that the voting irregularities would have made a difference in the outcome — not that the challenger gets a revote simply by showing improper votes in excess of the margin. Bridges was applying settled law in Washington and elsewhere, and held that Rossi failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the improper felon votes made a difference in the outcome (he also held that to win, Rossi had to prove his point by clear and convincing evidence, but he ruled that the actual proof failed to even pass the preponderance standard).
That would pre-suppose, LJ, that a candidate would already know the margin of victory before the election and engineer enough votes to cloud the results.
I wasn’t the one who argued it, so I don’t want to put words in Kevin T. Keith‘s comment, but his point is a good one. If your law merely triggers a recount for the mere presence of fradulent ballots without an examination of general trends and whether they would have altered the election, you have created the mother of all backdoors. Hey, I’m a fringe candidate with 5% of the vote, there are fradulent votes, I demand another election! As someone pointed out on another thread, there is an unavoidable level of error in any human enterprise and elections are no different. That you cannot accept that in this case is telling.
As someone pointed out on another thread, there is an unavoidable level of error in any human enterprise and elections are no different.
I was one of those; I also remarked that what we need nowadays is a notion of an electoral “tie” and a notion (and codification) of what to do when it happens.
And yes, I have a lot of ideas on the subject, and no, they all suck.
That you cannot accept that in this case is telling.
What I’m saying is that there is a distinction between illegal votes (which is what I’m dealing with) and fraudulent ones (which is already codified). The law on vote fraud is already established and the penalties are severe.