What chance is there for reform?
Note how Ron Sims describes his goal – restoring faith in the process. “Faith”: “unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence.”
Not a chance, Ron. So long as the process in King County is under the control of people who don’t obey the law, there can be no unquestioning belief in your purportedly certified election results.
Why does Sims want a "show and tell" meeting with Judge Bridges? Are there no voters in King County who are interested in being shown that their elections personnel do the job required of them by law?
Note that Senator Prentice has the usual blindly partisan view of things. She is clearly incapable of grasping why it is wrong to install a person in the governor’s office based on official canvass reports that are unworthy of belief. All that matters is who "wins" according to the vote totals.
Genteel Sam Reed hopes for a “civics lesson.” For whom?
Election reforms next, now that flaws exposed?
By REBECCA COOK, Associated Press WriterJune 11, 2005
SEATTLE
According to the official record, 1,678 people voted illegally in Washington's 2004 election.No one knows for sure who cast those votes or which candidates benefited. A judge decided the fact that the number of illegal votes dwarfs Gov. Christine Gregoire's 133-vote margin of victory doesn't merit ordering a new election.
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"Do we have something to prove? Yes," said King County Executive Ron Sims. "We have to restore the people's faith in the integrity of the election process."
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"The evidence here suggests that the problems require more than just constructing new buildings and hiring more staff," Bridges said in his ruling.
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"I actually agree with that statement," Sims said, saying the larger building and additional staff are two parts of a much larger change. "One day, I want to go to Wenatchee and talk to Judge Bridges, and say: Tell me whether or not we have met the judicial standard you established. I want to look in his face and see in his eyes he is satisfied."
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"They still think they won," said Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton. "I'm not going to make it so the loser wins and the winner loses."
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Public confidence in elections is at low tide now, Secretary of State Sam Reed acknowledged, but he hopes that will change.
"I'm hoping in the long run it will be a great civics lesson," Reed said. "They are going to see some reform, and hopefully that's going to restore their trust and confidence."
posted by Micajah | 11:29 AM
3 Comments:
Sure, it would be effective to win by an overwhelming margin, but that doesn't seem to be the scenario we face in the near future. In the precinct where I live, the vote was split between G and R almost exactly -- G got one more vote than R. Statewide, the result was similar.
One party hasn't been in power in this state for decades. This is the first time since 1994 that the D's have held majorities in both houses of the legislature and had their candidate in the governor's office.
Statewide, the R's can put up a pretty good fight, so long as they have viable candidates.
It's in King County that the problems lie -- and that county doesn't show any signs of moving toward the center any time soon.
Proving election fraud isn't easy. Not often will the culprits be caught redhanded.
But we should at least be able to apply enough pressure to get them to obey the laws that establish the procedure for verifying election returns.
As for the two major King County newspapers, the P-I seems to be the more consistently leftist paper; and it's the one that is in the greater financial bind. I would think it's better to support The Seattle Times, unless they move back to the left. Then, people who are inclined to read something before acting solely on prejudice or instinct might be influenced by the dominant paper.
How would you expect to move people toward your position without the news media? Few people go to speeches and rallies. It's only through the news media that you can talk to more than the people standing near you.
The TV and radio news outlets probably have more influence than newspapers, but I cannot imagine that many businessmen would shun them when it comes to buying advertising. It seems better to treat them the same as I suggest treating the papers: Patronize the ones that are generally farther from the left end of the ideological spectrum.
Over time, ratings and readership numbers matter to them.
It's often a mess. I'm glad Churchill said this:
Speech on the House of Commons in the House of Commons, October 28, 1942
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe… No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
When I get really disgusted (as has happened a couple of times during and after the election contest), I think of Churchill's statement and remember that there aren't any better alternatives.
"As for the two major King County newspapers, the P-I seems to be the more consistently leftist paper; and it's the one that is in the greater financial bind. I would think it's better to support The Seattle Times, unless they move back to the left. Then, people who are inclined to read something before acting solely on prejudice or instinct might be influenced by the dominant paper."
I'm sure glad I've got the Tacoma News Tribune. The Times is pretty good, but even there the leftist bias shines through a little too often for my taste. The TNT has always seemed more even-handed to me.
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