Cleaning up our act

[SuperScout]

ATTORNEY GENERAL ABBOTT OBTAINS VOTER FRAUD INDICTMENTS IN TWO COUNTIES

Hardeman County commissioner, Beeville woman indicted for mail-in ballot violations


AUSTIN - Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today announced his office?s first indictments for alleged voter fraud in Texas, returned in separate cases by grand juries in Hardeman and Bee counties.

"My office takes seriously the one-person, one-vote philosophy that has been the backbone of this country throughout its history," said Attorney General Abbott. "When the activities of even one person would undermine the electoral process, we will hold that person accountable."

Hardeman County Precinct 1 Commissioner Johnny Akers, 58, was indicted late Thursday on six counts of election fraud in Quanah. The Texas Election Code violations involve alleged unlawful methods for returning completed ballots during early voting by mail. During the April 2004 primary runoff and November 2004 general elections, the indictment alleges, Akers personally handled or mailed ballots for six persons unrelated to him over several days, a Class B misdemeanor punishable by a jail term of up to six months and a fine of up to $2,000 on each count.

On May 27, Beeville resident Melva Kay Ponce, 53, was indicted in Bee County on a charge of illegal voting. She allegedly posed as her deceased mother during early mail-in voting in the November 2004 election. Illegal voting is a third-degree felony punishable by two to10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

Ponce mailed an application for a mail ballot to the Bee County Clerk?s office for her mother, Dominga Ponce, on Oct. 15, 2004, when her mother was still alive. Her mother died of natural causes on Oct. 20, and two days later the clerk?s office mailed a ballot addressed to Dominga Ponce. Despite her mother?s death, Melva Kay Ponce filled out the absentee ballot in her mother?s name. She then mailed the completed ballot back to the clerk.

The Bee County Voter Registrar, Andrea Gibbud, contacted the Bee County Sheriff?s Office about the suspicious ballot, knowing Ponce?s mother had died before the ballot could have been completed and returned.

The Attorney General?s Office investigated the allegations of election fraud at the request of the Texas Secretary of State?s Office.

[sfc_darrel]

Dead voted in governor's race
King County investigating 'ghost voter' cases

By PHUONG CAT LE AND MICHELLE NICOLOSI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS

At least eight people who died well before the November general election were credited with voting in King County, raising new questions about the integrity of the vote total in the narrow governor's race, a Seattle Post-Intelligencer review has found.

The evidence of votes from dead people is the latest example of flaws in an election already rocked by misplaced votes and allegations that there were thousands more votes counted than actual voters.

County officials say they are investigating the cases pointed out by the P-I. "These are not indications of fraud," said Bill Huennekens, King County's elections supervisor. "Fraud is a concerted effort to change an election."

The P-I review found eight people who died weeks before absentee ballots were mailed out, between Oct. 13 and 15, but were credited with voting in King County. Among them was an 81-year-old Seattle woman who died in August but is recorded as having voted at the polls.

The state is required by law to send monthly lists of the deceased to county auditors so they can purge those names from their voter rolls. But those lists are sent only every few months. That means thousands of deceased voters may have been sent absentee ballots.

"If we don't receive a notice that they're dead, then we have no way of taking them off the rolls," said Dean Logan, the county's elections director. Relatives of the deceased can and do cancel some registrations, he said.

Doris McFarland said she voted for her husband, Earl, who died Oct. 7.

"I called up the elections board and said, 'Can I do it because he wanted me to vote?' " the Duvall woman said. "The person ... said, 'Well, who would know?' I said, 'I don't want to do anything that is wrong.' "

Huennekens disputed that election workers would say such a thing.

McFarland said she signed her husband's name and mailed in his ballot, along with her own. She said she had power of attorney for her 92-year-old husband, who was blind.

"If I did something that wasn't right, you can just throw that ballot out," McFarland said last night.

Huennekens said one of the P-I's eight cases involved an administrative error that showed a deceased person as voting and would be corrected. In four cases, the signatures on the ballot matched. Huennekens said officials needed further information or could not track down enough information on the other cases.

Election officials said that if cases merit potential fraud, they would forward them on for prosecution.

King County keeps a voter list as a record of who voted in elections and to establish requirements for levies and bonds, Logan said.

The preliminary voter list shows that Mary Coffey mailed in a ballot. But the 51-year-old Seattle woman died about two weeks before absentee ballots were mailed.

"She couldn't have (voted). She died on Sept. 29," said her husband, Michael Coffey. He added that he voted by mail, but destroyed his wife's ballot when it arrived in the mail.

"I don't see how she could have voted. It doesn't make sense. There has to be some kind of error that happened."

Election officials were still looking into what happened in her case.

Bob Holmgren said yesterday that he voted on behalf of his late wife, Charlette Holmgren, who died Sept. 29. The West Seattle man filled out his own ballot and hers, and signed both of them.

"Her vote was important to her," Holmgren said. "She was very strongly against Governor-elect Gregoire." Election officials said all signatures on absentee ballots were doubled-checked against the signature on record.

"Our system of allowing people to vote absentee and never checking anything is designed for voter convenience at the expense of security," said Chris Vance, chairman of the state Republican Party.

He said the GOP has found cases of dead people casting ballots, and it plans to challenge the race results.

Votes from the 2004 election have been heavily scrutinized . With Democrat Christine Gregoire set to take office on Wednesday, Republicans are searching for ways to contest the election and force a revote.

Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, said, "We're very satisfied with the results of this election. It's the most closely examined election in our state's history."

James M. Courneya of Auburn died three months before the election. But the King County voter list shows that he voted absentee.

"He couldn't have. He died Aug. 7," said his wife, Anna Courneya, who resides at the same address as her late husband. She said her husband didn't receive a ballot but she did. She voted absentee but the King County voters list doesn't register her vote, only his.

Huennekens said Anna Courneya voted using her husband's ballot, and because she didn't cast a separate one, that ballot was valid.

The state Health Department sends out lists of the deceased "every two to three months," not every month as the law states, said Jennifer Tebaldi, who helps oversee the department's vital statistics operation.

"We have an informal understanding with the counties that we send it when there's a bulk of information to send."

County auditors received lists of the deceased from the state three times last year -- on Jan. 28, May 5 and Nov. 1, a day before the election. Most of the names they received in May were of people who died in 2003, because of a lag of four to six months in collecting and sending data.

Secretary of State Sam Reed said a statewide voter database, expected in 2006, would improve the process.

He said he hasn't seen the problem of dead people voting occur in Washington. Voter fraud is a serious crime that may be punished with up to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine, he said.

"We do not expect people to sit down and vote a ballot just because it happens to arrive in their homes," Reed said. "Double-checks are in place."

Rosalie B. Simpson, 81, died of a massive heart attack Aug. 4, but voter rolls show she voted at the polls.

If a voter dies after having voted, it's still perfectly legal, Logan said.

Owen Skau of Federal Way made his choices before he died last October, said his wife, Maya.

"He filled it out," she said. "He always voted. ... He filled out his vote before he fell and had a heart attack. But he had it filled out. I went ahead and mailed it in."

Other voting problems may also be raised. Timothy Harris, general counsel for the Building Industry Association of Washington, which is preparing a court challenge of the governor's race, said his group has documented about 50 felons who did not have their voting rights restored but voted in Pierce County.

[sfc_darrel]

Rossi given fresh hope as 'mystery voters' grow
GOP calls on counties to explain a discrepancy of nearly 8,500

By CHRIS McGANN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT

Thousands of "mystery voters" in the counties of King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and Kitsap appear to be Republican Dino Rossi's best prospect for challenging the legitimacy of the closest and most contentious gubernatorial election in the state's history.

The state Republican Party yesterday called on county election officials to explain what the GOP says is a nearly 8,500-vote discrepancy between county vote tallies and the number of people credited with actually voting in the election.

"People ask me what would fraud look like? It would look like this," said state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance.

County auditors and election officials say Republicans have based their conclusions on there being many more votes than voters on preliminary lists, and they say much of the deviation would be accounted for as voter lists are updated.

But they do not dispute that the numbers don't add up.

And most agree they never will.

"At the end of this, it's never going to match one to one given the volume," said Dean Logan, elections director of King County, which counted about 900,000 votes.

The current number is "larger than I'm comfortable with," Logan said. But based on historical data, he expects the reconciled lists to include 1,000 to 1,500 more votes than voters accounted for even after the lists are reconciled.

Logan said those unaccounted-for votes would likely be from military voters who cast federal write-in ballots and the 76 people in King County who participate in the Address Confidentiality Program.



"I think this is sort of the issue du jour," Logan said. "There has been no evidence of any voter fraud. The differences on the lists are not, in and of themselves, indication that there was."

Vance said that's outrageous.

"You simply can't have more votes counted than you have voters," Vance said. "The counties have to come up with a plausible explanation for this and if they don't this election is invalid on its face."

And Secretary of State Sam Reed again said that this issue could be used to contest the election.

Throughout the process, both parties have scrutinized even the smallest inconsistencies.

Democrat Christine Gregoire became governor-elect when a hand recount of nearly 2.9 million votes put her ahead of Rossi by 129 votes. Rossi had come out 261 votes ahead after the first machine count and 42 votes ahead after the mandatory mechanical recount.

Last week Republicans demanded that King County explain how its tally of votes counted exceeded the number of people listed as voting by 3,539. This week they found similar disparities in other populous counties.

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said he thinks that 553 of the 1,005 vote-to-voter discrepancy there will be accounted for when the list of inactive voters -- those who have not participated in recent elections -- is reconciled with those who did in fact turn out in November.

But he has no plans to try to account for 452 extra poll, absentee and provisional votes.

"It would be a huge task," Kimsey said. "You are looking through 121,679 absentee ballots, affidavit envelopes and through poll books where 50,598 voters cast their ballots.

"The controls that are in place in the election process ensure that only registered voters are going to receive a ballot. While I understand the concern that comes from seeing two different numbers, the controls are at the front end."

Republicans contend that serious questions arise when results are certified before the voter lists are reconciled with the number of votes counted.

The counties say they don't because law does not require it.

Reed said that in each election, counties have a statutory requirement to record the names of all voters who cast ballots. He said that reconciling that list with the list of votes cast is an important quality-control measure.

Significant discrepancies could be of grave concern, he said.

"This is an issue that could potentially be used to contest the election," Reed said. "You'd have to make the point to the judge that it actually made a difference."

Carolyn Diepenbrock, Snohomish County elections manager, said the deviation in her lists is 388, not the more than 1,700 as the Republican's contend.

"We believe that the majority of those 388 are poll voters who signed in the poll book but actually voted a provisional ballot," Diepenbrock said.

She said the county would likely be able to update records as early as tomorrow.

King County officials said they would release completed lists Friday.

Pat McCarthy, Pierce County auditor, said she couldn't say how much the two lists deviated but she knows it's by less than the 1,640 Republicans contend.

She said that if the number were that big "it would have been a problem."

Rossi's spokeswoman Mary Lane said there's no excuse for certifying the election before these lists are reconciled. Otherwise, "we can't be certain that the number they certified is valid," Lane said.

"If someone wanted to commit voter fraud, this is one of the ways they could do it. When you have a number this huge, in an election this close, we need to have the answers and the counties need to provide those answers -- and the onus is on them right now."

One high-profile Republican, former Gov. Dan Evans, joined the chorus calling for a new election with an online essay published Friday.

"Democracy may be messy, but its principles are why it still serves us best," Evans wrote for the Web site www.revotewa.com. "If we screw up the implementation, let's go back to the principles. The voters' will is paramount."

He proposed a special election next month. Yesterday, Evans said his appetite for a revote depends heavily on how King County answers questions about the 3,500-vote difference between voter rolls and certified ballots.

"If they can explain that and there are no other significant errors, in spite of the fact of a close election, it's time to say 'OK, we'll accept it,' " Evans said.

[sfc_darrel]

Judge Will Rule on Wash. Gov. Election Monday

Friday, June 3, 2005
WENATCHEE, Wash. -- A judge said he would rule Monday on whether the 2004 gubernatorial election should be nullified.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges' announcement came Thursday, as Democrats were nearing the end of their defense of the disputed election, which Democrat Christine Gregoire won by just 129 votes.

On Friday, lawyers for the Democrats planned to rest their case, GOP attorneys planned to question three rebuttal witnesses, and then both sides planned to make their closing arguments.
Republicans challenging Gregoire's victory have focused on errors in the Democratic stronghold of King County, the state's most populous and home to about a third of the total votes statewide. They contend the errors indicate fraud and want the election overturned to allow a new contest between Gregoire and Republican candidate Dino Rossi.

Democrats have countered that any election errors in King County were inadvertent and innocent, and that similar mistakes happened in other counties, including those that favored Rossi.

On Thursday, King County election operations supervisor Linda Sanchez testified about discrepancies between the number of ballots counted and the number of people listed as voting in some precincts,

"Are these kinds of errors unique to King County?" Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton asked.

"No, I'm sure they are not," Sanchez said.

But GOP attorney Rob Maguire pointed out that Sanchez told her supervisors she was concerned the number of discrepancies were "outside her tolerance zone" when she was working on reconciling the results after Election Day. Republicans say King County counted 875 more votes than the number of people credited with voting.

"You said yesterday that any irregularity is a concern," Maguire said.

"That's true," Sanchez said.

"One is a concern, right?" Maguire asked.

"Well, we'd love to be perfect," Sanchez said.

Sanchez testified she did not know for sure what caused the difference between votes cast and voters credited.

? 2005 The Associated Press

[Seascamp]

I read an article recently that pointed out that some 20,000 duplicate votes were found in Ohio and Florida for both the 2000 and 2002 elections. That would seem to pop Algore?s ?woe is me? balloon right smartly I?d say.

Scamp

[BLUEHAWK]

Ahem... to take first steps in resolving these difficult and pernicious outrages against the body politic, we might reconsider...

Abolish:
- Electoral College
- Gerrymandering (aka "redistricting" or "reapportionment")
- Closed Primaries
- Sovereign Immunity

[Jerry D]

And to add to Bluehawks list Lets get rid of voteing the week before election day aka early voting , which leads to many ballots being invalid do to the voter dieing before midnight election day.