SecState of WA issues rules on ballot accountability and reconciliation

Secretary of State Sam Reed has issued permanent rules to take the place of the emergency rules that took effect last August and required a reconciliation of ballots and voters prior to certifying a county's election returns.

At the same time, Reed issued a permanent rule to define the contents of the ballot accountability form which polling place officers must use immediately after closing the polling places to account for the number of ballots issued -- and to compare that number to the number of signatures in the poll book as required by law.

Since Dean Logan and his gang don't know the law which requires a count of the signatures in the poll book on election night by the precinct officers (or willfully choose to violate that law), some King County residents should send a copy of the new rules to King County's elections office as soon as possible. And follow that up with a daily reminder to Logan and his motley crew that they need to read the law and obey it once in a while.

And, since Bob Terwilliger of Snohomish County runs an elections office which responded to a public records disclosure request by claiming not to know of or be able to find the rules issued by the Secretary of State last August, some Snohomish County residents probably should send a copy of these permanent rules to Terwilliger. There's no telling how long it would take for them to find the rules that govern their jobs on their own.

These new rules take effect March 28, 2005.

916 illegitimate ballots cast & counted at King County polling places

Update March 23, 11:27 AM: After proofreading the "net difference" column, I found one that I had skipped. Corrections to the numbers in this entry have been made to reflect that 216 more ballots than could be accounted for were in the King County ballot boxes. That brings the total to 916.
Update March 22, 11:23PM: I proofread the "PBAV" column and found two that I had skipped. So the total in the "headline" has been changed to 915, and the numbers affected by my having skipped those two have been corrected.

The formulas in my spreadsheet now seem to produce correct totals, so I can update the numbers stated in the previous entry.

Regarding the 348 provisional ballots reported as having been inserted unlawfully into the AccuVote machines --

• 312 were included in the 664 "adjustments" reported by King County on March 11,
• 36 were not included in that total of 664 "adjustments."

As for the 664 "adjusted #" figure released by King County, 352 of those "adjustments" were in addition to the 348 provisional ballots which Logan's gang admitted in early January were unlawfully inserted into the ballot boxes via the AccuVote machines at polling places.

That's a total of 700 provisional ballots which King County's chief election officer (Dean Logan) admits were illegitimate ballots that were included in the county's vote tabulation during the last general election.

After the so-called reconciliation, Logan's gang is still left with another 216 ballots in their vote tabulation for which they don't know the source. In other words, there were 216 ballots which weren't presumably legitimate, since there is no record that they were ever issued to anyone.

That's a grand total of 700 + 216 = 916 illegitimate ballots in King County's vote tabulation according to the explanation from their chief elections officer which was issued Friday, March 11, 2004.

902 ballots unlawfully cast at the polls (and counted) in King County

Having now typed the information on the King County reconciliation summary into a spreadsheet, I can see a few odd things about their summary.

• King County's summary didn’t print the column and row labels, so it wasn’t previously apparent that they had only included 531 of the claimed 540 polling places. Once I saw the numbers for each of the lines in the spreadsheet, I could readily see that there weren't 540 polling places listed in the King County reconciliation. (I don’t yet know if they simply didn’t have as many polling places as they have claimed, or if they have omitted 9 of them from their summary of their ballot reconciliation effort.)
• There appear to have been two different groups of precincts using one polling place. Sherwood Forest School appears twice on page 67 of the summary, but it’s not a duplicate entry since there are clearly two distinctly different groups of precincts listed as using that school. Apparently, there were two different polling sites in that one building, unless there is a typographical error in their summary. (I had mistakenly skipped the second entry for Sherwood Forest School in my first time through, and didn’t catch it until I proofread my spreadsheet to see if there really were several polling places missing. That error on my part explains some of the differences in the numbers posted in this entry compared to this earlier entry.)
• By presenting in their summary the net of positive and negative numbers in their “Adjusted #” column, they had represented the total of adjustments to account for provisional ballots inserted into the AccuVote machines as 660. But, that should have been a total of 664 adjustments to account for “no label” provisional ballots that were unlawfully inserted into the AccuVote machines, and 4 single-ballot adjustments to account for times when there was a shortage of ballots in the boxes compared to people credited with voting. They had represented the 4 single-ballot adjustments as negative ones, so the net in their summary was 660.

Unlike the first time through, this time I got closer to the 348 total King County stated as the number of provisional ballots believed to have been inserted into the AccuVote machines based on reports from precinct officers. I still need to proofread the numbers, but the total I got was 346 – and that’s pretty close (making me wonder what the number would be if there weren’t at least one entire polling place and perhaps 9 entire polling places missing from their summary).

The totals now appear to be:

• 300 of the 348 previously reported provisional ballots inserted into AccuVote machines (“PBAV”) were included in the 660 (net) stated in the “Adjusted #” column;
• 34 of the 348 previously reported PBAVs were not included in the 660 (net) “Adjusted #” column; (I know: 300+34 doesn't equal the 346 that I came up with. I need to figure out why the formulas I used didn't produce two numbers that add up to 346.)
• 352 provisional ballots were inserted into AccuVote machines (reluctantly and begrudgingly reported by King County elections officials on March 11) and weren’t included in the initially reported 348.
• That totals at least 686 (and perhaps 698) provisional ballots which were unlawfully inserted into AccuVote machines on November 2, 2004 (a fact which was known to Dean Logan and his motley crew since before the initial certification of King County’s election returns on November 17).

Together with the 216 (my spreadsheet, which I still need to proofread for typos in the numbers shows 215) excess ballots for which Logan and his crew have offered no explanation, there were at least 216+686 (or 698) = 902 (or 914) ballots which were unlawfully inserted into the ballot boxes and thereafter included in the vote tabulation – by King County’s own reluctant, begrudging, and poorly explained account in their ballot reconciliation summary.

899 illegitimate ballots cast at polling places in King County

While it's not yet clear what the canvassing crew was doing in their effort to reconcile the ballot counts last November, my first attempt to count the number of illegitimate ballots reflected in the reconciliation summary shows:

• 303 of the 348 provisional ballots which were unlawfully inserted into the ballot boxes via the AccuVote machines are included in the 660 "adjustments" shown on the reconciliation summary;
• 27 of the 348 are not included in the adjustments;
• 353 of the 660 "adjustments" are provisional ballots that were unlawfully inserted into the ballot boxes, but which were not included in the 348 such ballots initially reported by King County in early January; and
• 216 ballots which are shown in the reconciliation summary as excess ballots in the "Plus/Minus" column have no known legitimate source.

That's a total of 899 ballots which were inserted into the ballot boxes unlawfully in King County during the last general election.

Another 18 are yet to be accounted for, since this first time through the summary only caught 330 of the initially reported 348. Perhaps I overlooked the other 18, or maybe they were omitted from the reconciliation summary along with the 8 precincts that used the Saint Benedict Parish Center as their polling place.

Update March 19, 10:55 AM: It appears that 12 of the 18 that ought to be in the PBAV column simply aren't there. That column seems to total only 336, not 348. I suppose I'll need to take the time to put the numbers into an Excel worksheet so I can total the categories and also more easily double-check that I haven't omitted some.

Balderdash mixed in with coded entries in the "big binder"

Parts of the reconciliation summary and notes prepared by King County to explain the contents of the “big binder” appear to be balderdash.

As a result, I haven’t made much headway on “Part II” of my attempt to figure out what the canvassing crew members did – and, in particular, to figure out whether the total number of provisional ballots run through the polling place AccuVote machines was closer to 1008 or 660.

Here’s an example of the stuff that King County calls a reconciliation of ballots – and perhaps an illustration of the reason why Dean Logan was only willing to say that there is “some overlap” in the two reported numbers of provisional ballots that were improperly run through the voting machines (348 reported in early January and 660 admitted on March 11).

For the Mirror Lake School polling place, the reconciliation summary states that there was a “Net Difference” of one more ballot in the vote tabulation process than there were ballots issued by the 6 precincts using that polling place. That one ballot cannot be explained, so it is one of the 216 ballots in the election night vote tabulation which cannot be shown to have been issued to any voter at the polls. (Those 216 ballots are clearly illegitimate ballots, since their source cannot even be identified, much less the persons who inserted them into the ballot box.)

The notes show that 3 precincts had a total of 4 “no labels,” meaning there were 4 provisional ballots which were not returned to the polling place officers in the labeled and signed envelopes provided to the voters for that purpose. Presumably, those 4 provisional ballots were unlawfully inserted into the ballot box via the AccuVote machine.

The summary states in the “PBAV” column that 3 provisional ballots were improperly inserted into the AccuVote machine, but then makes an “adjustment” of 4 ballots in the “Adjusted #” column – offsetting 4 of the 5 excess ballots in that polling place.

All 4 of the “no labels” should have been noted in the PBAV column. There is a note which states: “inspector: at least 1-2 pbs ran through AV.” The words used by the precinct inspector were “at least,” yet the PBAV column indicates that only 3 of the 4 “no labels” were run through the machine. There is no apparent reason for concluding that only 3, rather than all 4, were unlawfully inserted into the machine.

Although one of the “no labels” was omitted from the PBAV column, all 4 “no labels” were reflected in the “Adjusted #” column – reducing the “Plus/Minus” column’s number for the polling place from +5 to +1 ballot. Thus, the canvassing crew apparently concluded that all 4 provisional ballots which had not been returned to the precinct officers in signed, labeled envelopes had indeed been “PBAV” – provisional ballots inserted into the AccuVote machine.

Since the same information was used back in January as the basis for reporting that 348 provisional ballots were improperly inserted into the voting machines, that total was at least one ballot short.

For this particular polling place, the “overlap” between the 348 and 660 numbers apparently should have been complete, but it wasn’t. Someone noted only 3 of the 4 “no labels” as “PBAV,” so only 3 of the 4 were included in the 348 number reported in January. All 4 are included in the 660 number reluctantly and belatedly admitted last Friday.

Sorting out balderdash is harder than code breaking.

Breaking the big binder's code: Part I

Figuring out how King County attempted to reconcile their ballot totals is difficult, but perhaps not impossible.

This is the first part of a hypothesis that may explain what they were trying to do after election day and presumably before the county’s election returns were certified by the canvassing board on November 17, 2004. (If my hypothesis doesn't completely fall apart, then there will be at least one more part to show whether the 348 provisional ballots that King County admitted back in January were improperly cast were included in the 660 provisional ballots that King County finally admitted on March 11 were improperly cast. I hope to figure out whether their reconciliation summary shows the total of such improperly cast provisional ballots is closer to 1008 than 660.)

This first part attempts to explain the reconciliation notes and summary for the 7 precincts that used the Bothell Regional Library as their polling place. Copies of the summary and the notes were posted at Sound Politics by Stefan Sharkansky.

Two presumptions are employed in this explanation:

• People who were issued ballots, whether provisional or regular, would ordinarily cast those ballots before departing from the polling place. Absent a notation from a polling place official who noticed someone taking a ballot out of the polling place in violation of the law, it is presumed that ballots issued were cast.
• It is likely that some ballots, both regular and provisional, were issued from the wrong precinct’s stack of unused ballots to voters who had signed a poll book. Absent evidence to the contrary, it is presumed that the number of ballots issued in the polling place should balance with the number of ballots cast in the polling place – even though the numbers of ballots issued and cast in any one or more of the 7 precincts don’t balance because of the mistaken issuance of a ballot from precinct “A” when the voter had signed the poll book for precinct “B.”

The crew of elections office personnel assigned to canvass each precinct’s ballots was trying to account for the ballots that had been issued and resolve any discrepancies between the number of ballots issued and the number of ballots inserted into the AccuVote machine at each polling place and counted during the election night tabulation.

The election night machine count of ballots inserted into the AccuVote machine at the polling place and the “add-on” ballots cast on election day and included in the tabulation provided the crew with the number of ballots cast. (Provisional ballots were, in a sense, “cast,” but they should have been in envelopes so they could be processed later in much the same way that absentee ballots are processed. Properly cast provisional ballots, then, wouldn’t be included in the election night ballot and vote count.)

The information available to the crew came from the poll books, the ballot accountability forms filled out by precinct officers, the AccuVote record of the number of ballots inserted into the machine, and the tabulation of ballots and votes on election night.

At some point, the poll books were scanned using a “wand” to capture the voter identification information contained in the bar codes next to each signature of a voter who signed the poll book before being issued a regular ballot. That scanning produced a number of signatures which would be represented on the poll book cover sheet by a canvassing crew member’s note, e.g., “WANDA 171” for Bothell Precinct 01-0254 (“BOT 01-0254”). The image of that cover sheet was posted at Sound Politics by Stefan Sharkansky.

The canvassing crew counted the signatures by hand in at least some of the poll books. For example, the cover sheet for BOT 01-0254 shows a notation which says “Signature 180hc.”

That hand count of signatures included both the signatures of people who were issued regular ballots and the signatures of people who signed in the back of the poll book as required by WAC 434-253-043 before they were issued provisional ballots.

The canvassing crew determined the total number of ballots cast by adding the number of ballots scanned by the AccuVote machine and the “add-on” ballots. [“Add-on” ballots were of two types: (1) ballots inserted into the bin below the machine when the voter decided not to insert them into the machine or decided not to correct a ballot rejected by the machine; and (2) ballots which were rejected by the machine which were then inserted again into the machine at the voter’s request while a polling place officer overrode the machine’s ability to reject ballots which the machine read as containing an “over vote” (that is, more than one candidate for an office was marked by the voter) or “blank vote” (that is, no votes at all on the ballot).]

Using BOT 01-254 to illustrate, here’s how the comparison of ballots and signatures worked:

• 180 signatures were hand counted in the poll book, including 8 signatures of people who signed before being issued provisional ballots.
• 172 signatures for regular ballots were then deduced to be in the poll book (180-8=172), and the “WANDA 171” count of signatures for regular ballots was treated as an incorrect count.
• 177 ballots had been scanned and counted by the AccuVote machine.
• 2 “add-on” ballots had been tabulated on election night.
• 179 ballots was the total of votes cast and counted on election night.
• The canvassing crew member then subtracted 172 from 179 and determined that there were 7 more ballots in the election night count than there were signatures for regular ballots.
• Since only regular ballots should have been counted on election night, the crew member noted on the poll book cover “+7” for BOT 01-0254. (That same +7 appears on the reconciliation summary in the “Plus/Minus” column.)
• The crew member saw that 4 of the 8 provisional ballots which had been issued were not present, and made a note to record that fact on the poll book cover sheet: “(4 no label).” [“No label” refers to the absence of the labeled envelope which should contain the provisional ballot. The “label” was a stick-on label containing information that the voter was required to provide so that the voter’s registration status could be determined.]
• Since the election night tabulation reported the presence of 7 more ballots than the number of regular ballots issued on election day in BOT 01-0254, it is presumed that some of those 7 ballots were the “4 no label” provisional ballots – and that the other 3 ballots were mistakenly issued from the BOT 01-0254 stack of unused ballots to voters who signed the poll books of another precinct.
• Although the source of the number is not explained in the notes, the crew member put a note on the cover sheet of the BOT 01-0254 poll book indicating that 31 “no label” provisional ballots had been inserted into the AccuVote machine at the polling place.
  This number (31) was later put into the column titled “Adjusted #” for the entire polling place in the reconciliation summary prepared and released by King County on Friday, March 11.

The way in which that “Adjusted #” of 31 was figured out wasn’t explained in any narrative report that I’ve seen, so this is my attempt to explain how it was derived from the information available to the canvassing crew.

If the canvassing crew member had gone one precinct at a time, the same result could have been reached and explained in a narrative. There were 32 more ballots tabulated on election night than there were regular ballots issued at Bothell Regional Library polling place. Of those 32 improperly cast ballots, 31 were apparently provisional ballots issued at that polling place and inserted into the AccuVote machine rather than into signed and labeled envelopes for later verification of each voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot. The source of 1 of the 32 ballots cannot be explained with certainty, but it was probably an absentee ballot which someone inserted into the AccuVote machine rather than submitting the ballot in a signed envelope as required by law.

Here is a precinct by precinct explanation of how I believe the available information could be used to arrive at the conclusions reflected in the canvassing crew’s notes and the summary of their work for the polling place at the Bothell Regional Library:

• BOT 01-0253 had 3 “no label” ballots and had 3 more ballots in the count than the number of regular ballots issued. It appears, then, that all 3 of the “no label” provisional ballots were improperly inserted into the AccuVote machine. For this precinct, the “Adjusted #” to account for the presence of those 3 extra ballots should have been “-3,” leaving a zero “Net Difference.”
• BOT 01-0254 had 4 “no label” ballots and had 7 more ballots in the count than the number of regular ballots issued. It appears, then, that “-4” should have been put in the “Adjusted #” column to represent the 4 “no label” ballots which presumably were inserted into the AccuVote machine, leaving a “Net Difference” of +3 unexplained ballots for this precinct. Note that BOT 01-0259 could explain those 3 extra ballots. BOT 01-259 had 2 “no label” ballots and also had a shortage of 1 regular ballot in the count – for a total of 3 ballots that seem to have disappeared from that precinct. It is presumed that “crossover” errors resulted in the issuance of 3 ballots from the BOT 01-0254 stack of ballots to people who signed the BOT 01-0259 poll book. The “Adjusted #” column should then read, “-4-3,” leaving a “Net Difference” of zero for this precinct.
• BOT 01-0259 had 2 “no label” ballots and had 1 less ballot in the count than the number of regular ballots issued. This precinct, then, appears to have had 3 ballots disappear after issuance. It seems probable that the apparent disappearance is the result of a “crossover error” in which people signed the BOT 01-0259 poll book, but were issued ballots from the BOT 01-0254 stack of ballots. That would leave this precinct short by 3 ballots and the other precinct with an extra 3 ballots in its count – exactly what appears in the numbers. The “Adjusted #” should have been +1 to reflect the “crossover” issuance of a regular ballot from the wrong stack, leaving a “Net Difference” of zero for this precinct. [Somewhere in the notes should have been an explanation that the 2 “no label” provisional ballots noted in BOT 01-0259 had not actually disappeared, but were instead ballots taken from the BOT 01-0254 stack. The way the form is set up, those other 2 ballots wouldn’t be included in the “Adjusted #” column for BOT 01-0259, since only the apparent shortage of 1 ballot in the tabulation is being explained by the “Adjusted #” column.]
• BOT 01-0260 had 2 “no label” ballots and had 2 more ballots in the count than the number of regular ballots issued. Presumably, the 2 "no label" provisional ballots were inserted into the AccuVote machine. A “-2” should have been put in the “Adjusted #” column, making the “Net Difference” for this precinct zero.
• BOT 01-0262 had no provisional ballots which turned up missing, but did have 1 more ballot in the count than the number of regular ballots issued. There aren’t any other “no label” ballots from other precincts which could explain the presence of this extra ballot. It shows up in the summary for the polling place in the “Net Difference” column. The presence of this extra ballot cannot be explained, but it could have come from one of two sources. It could have been a ballot issued to someone at the polling place without having that person sign the poll book. I don’t know if the canvassing crew had all the unused ballots from this precinct available to them, so even if they were inclined to count those ballots to verify the number of ballots issued, I don’t know if they could have done so. Since the AccuVote machine would accept an absentee ballot coded to identify it as from BOT 01-0262, this extra ballot might have been an absentee ballot that some unknown person inserted into the AccuVote machine rather than into a sealed and signed envelope as required by law. The source of this extra ballot cannot be explained with any certainty, so it is included along with 215 other King County ballots in the “Net Difference” column of the summary.
• BOT 01-3271 had 10 “no label” ballots and 16 more ballots in the count than there were regular ballots issued. The 10 “no label” ballots could explain part of the extra ballots in the election night count, but not all 16. Note that in BOT 01-3398, there were 6 “no label” ballots that weren’t needed to explain the number of extra ballots in that precinct’s count. It appears that “crossover” errors occurred in issuing provisional ballots, so that these two precincts can balance each other out. The “Adjusted #” should be “-10-6,” based on the presumption that the 10 “no label” ballots issued by BOT 01-3271 were inserted into the machine and that the other 6 extra ballots in the election night count came from the mistaken issuance of ballots from the BOT 01-3271 stack to people who signed the poll book for BOT 01-3398. The “Net Difference” should be zero for this precinct.
• BOT 01-3398 had 10 “no label” ballots and 4 more ballots in the count than there were regular ballots issued. The 4 extra ballots in the count presumably resulted from inserting 4 of the 10 “no label” ballots into the machine – leaving 6 “no label” ballots that were signed for in this precinct’s poll book, but not apparently in the possession of the polling place officers. See above – those 6 were probably mistakenly issued from the stack of ballots coded for BOT 01-3271. The “Adjusted #” for this precinct should be “-4” based on the presumption that 4 “no label” provisional ballots were issued and improperly inserted into the AccuVote machine, leaving a “Net Difference” of zero for this precinct.

This hypothesis would explain how the numbers of ballots issued and ballots counted were reconciled, but note that ballots which were improperly inserted into the AccuVote machine rather than into signed and labeled envelopes for later verification of the voter’s eligibility to vote weren’t transformed into legitimate ballots by this process of figuring out where they came from.

What this type of reconciliation accomplishes is to provide some assurance that the presence of too many ballots in one precinct’s count or too few ballots in another precinct’s count didn’t result from forged ballots brought into the polling place and "stuffed" into the AccuVote machine or from the "ditching" of ballots. It shows that (with the exception of one ballot) the ballots cast at the polling place were apparently issued at the polling place, and that ballots cast were subsequently included in the vote tabulation.

Unfortunately, there is no indication that Dean Logan’s reports to the other canvassing board members informed them that the adjustments made during this reconciliation process only made it appear that there was a slight variance between ballots issued and ballots cast in each polling place – and they were not being informed of the magnitude of the variance between ballots legitimately cast and ballots counted.

This is what Sam Reed meant about King County

Having listened to Dean Logan as he spoke to the King County Council today, I now believe I know what Secretary of State Sam Reed meant when he said during his “live chat session”:

The Secretary of State's office always does require they balance the number of ballots cast with the number counted and rejected. That's very important for the integrity of the election, to avoid ballot box stuffing or ditching ballots. When we conduct audits, we look for that and have cited counties for that.

We are still looking at King County about that. We are looking at how serious the problems could be. Because the confusion in King County is the fact that they can't match these ballots with their voter registration list and those they've credited with voting, and that's a separate issue from the last question asked. That's what we require. What I don't know for sure is whether King County has done the first, but it sounds like they have, believe it or not. They've been able to balance the number of ballots cast in each precinct, and the total as well.

When Reed spoke of ballots “cast” balancing with ballots “counted and rejected,” he was simply referring to a process of figuring out whether ballots cast at the polls were all accounted for. He wasn’t talking about any process of figuring out whether the ballots cast at the polls could be shown to have been cast by qualified electors who had not voted more than once.

It was Reed's statement about the need “to avoid ballot box stuffing” that led me to wonder if he was talking about reconciling voters and ballots. If one doesn't look to see if the voters can be identified, it seems unlikely that one could tell if the ballot box had been “stuffed.” However, Reed seems to have meant “ballot box stuffing” only in the sense that ballots might be added to the box after the close of the polls with no record of those ballots having been issued when the polls were open.

It is apparent from the statements of Logan and the reconciliation documents his office released on Friday, March 11, that King County didn’t reconcile voters and ballots.

Instead, King County attempted to reconcile ballots issued to ballots cast and ballots cast to ballots counted.

It didn’t matter to them whether the ballots were cast lawfully.

The only thing that mattered to them was whether they could figure out where the ballots came from and whether they could account for all ballots cast.

They couldn’t figure out where 216 ballots came from. There was no record at all to indicate that those 216 had been issued at the polling places. For all anyone knows, those 216 ballots were forged copies of legitimate ballots that were brought into the polling places by unknown people and inserted into the machines. (Logan stated today that the AccuVote machines would accept absentee ballots, so long as the ballots had the correct precinct codes on them; thus it is possible that the 216 ballots were absentee ballots rather than forgeries. Nevertheless, they were not cast according to law, since no one can be identified as having inserted them into the machine.)

They deduced that 660 ballots were issued as provisional ballots but were unlawfully inserted into the voting machines at the polling places. This deduction wasn’t based on reports from polling place officials of such unlawful insertion of provisional ballots into the machines. Instead, it was deduced from the records showing that a certain number of provisional ballots had been issued but had disappeared – and that more ballots had been inserted into the one AccuVote machine at the polling place than there were regular ballots issued. Those extra ballots in the machines, then, apparently were the missing provisional ballots. (Logan stated today that only one machine was at each polling place, even when several precincts used the same polling place.)

They figured out that 348 ballots were issued as provisional ballots but were unlawfully inserted into the voting machines at the polling places. Those 348 ballots differ from the 660 only because the polling place officials reported during the canvassing period that they believed the ballots were unlawfully inserted into the machines.

The total in the King County reconciliation report is 1224 ballots which were unlawfully inserted into the AccuVote machines. (When Logan stated today that there was "some overlap" in the totals of 660 provisional ballots deduced to have been inserted and the 348 reported to have been inserted, he was apparently in error. The last page of his own reconciliation report (posted at Sound Politics) shows that those two totals are separate.)

That total wasn’t reported to the canvassing board. Instead, the board was told that there was a variance of 216 ballots that were included in the vote count in excess of the number of ballots issued at the polling places.

This “reconciliation” said nothing at all about the variance between the number of voters credited with voting and the number of ballots in the vote count.

Note that voters are credited with voting at the polling places by an entry in the poll books.

The post-certification process of updating the computerized voter registration records to include the last date on which the individual voted is not “voter crediting.”

If people can see through the disingenuous statements from King County elections officials, we might get closer to the truth. And I suspect the truth is that no one could say with reasonable certainty what the full, true and correct election returns in King County were.

Dean Logan misstated the law about "certification" of election returns

When Dean Logan was questioned today by King County Councilman Hammond about the meaning of “certification” of the election returns, Logan said that it would be a violation of state law to refuse to certify the returns by the fifteenth day after the general election.

Since Logan is a recognized expert on election laws, perhaps someone will ask him what RCW 29A.60.200 means when it says, “if they can be ascertained with reasonable certainty” –

The county canvassing board shall proceed to verify the results from the precincts and the absentee ballots. The board shall execute a certificate of the results of the primary or election signed by all members of the board or their designees. Failure to certify the returns, if they can be ascertained with reasonable certainty, is a crime under RCW 29A.84.720.

What Hammond was driving at was the difference between an election in 1999, when a man who had been in Logan’s position refused to certify election returns that couldn’t be reasonably ascertained – and when a clear written statement of the discrepancies was provided to the canvassing board.

In 2004, there were many hundreds of ballots that were improperly included in the vote counting process in King County, yet the canvassing board certified that the numbers they reported as their election returns constituted a “full, true and correct representation of the votes cast.”

Clearly, the members of the canvassing board couldn’t have ascertained the returns “with reasonable certainty.” Mr. Triplett accompanied Logan today, and stated that the total numbers of ballots exceeded the number of voters by approximately 1200 at the polling places and by approximately 400 in the absentee voting. That’s too big a discrepancy for them to ignore.

They might not have known of the magnitude of the discrepancy between the number of legal votes and the number of votes counted. It seems clear that Logan didn’t even disclose to the other members of the canvassing board the full extent of the discrepancy between the number of ballots included in the counting of votes and the number of qualified electors who cast ballots in the election. When asked by Hammond whether Logan’s office prepared any report resembling the one done for that 1999 election, Logan said unequivocally that they had not.

Secret ballots in Washington law

I wonder why this law doesn't seem to be mentioned by anyone who talks about the possible need to prove for which candidate a vote was cast in the contested gubernatorial election:

WASHINGTON VOTERS' RIGHTS

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. The rights of Washington voters are protected by its Constitution and laws and include the following fundamental rights:
(1) The right of qualified voters to vote at all elections;
(2) The right of absolute secrecy of the vote. No voter may be required to disclose political faith or adherence in order to vote;
(3) The right to cast a vote for any candidate for each office without any limitation based on party preference or affiliation, of either the voter or the candidate.

That is in Initiative 872, approved by the voters November 2, 2004, and effective December 2, 2004. It is Chapter 2, section 3 of the Session Laws of 2005.

It is codified at RCW 29A.04.206.

How could the petitioners be required to prove for whom questioned ballots were cast in the contested election? Requiring an answer to that question would violate the "right of absolute secrecy of the vote" guaranteed by the people to themselves when they approved I-872.

I wonder if Rossi's lawyers have factored this into their strategy. I don't recall seeing it mentioned by anyone in briefs or in reports about the oral arguments or in "sound bites" in the news.

King County didn't reconcile ballots and voters

King County did nothing resembling a bona fide reconciliation of their ballots and voters prior to certifying their election returns on November 17 (and their subsequent recounts).

Today at Sound Politics Stefan Sharkansky posted copies of the files he received from King County which explain what they did.

The explanation of their reconciliation process demonstrates that any explanation at all for the discrepancy between the number of signatures in the poll book and the number of ballots inserted into the AccuVote machines at the polling places was accepted as a good enough explanation.

Take the example given on page 3 of that 5 page explanation in which the polling place at Bothell Regional Library was found to have 32 more ballots inserted into the AccuVote machines than there were signatures in the poll books. Since no precinct officer reported having seen provisional ballots inserted improperly into the AccuVote machines, the election office employee who canvassed that precinct’s records didn’t note the discrepancy as resulting from “PBAV” or “provisional ballots run through AccuVote.” Instead, the canvasser came to that same conclusion but noted it as 31 “no label” ballots – meaning that there were no provisional ballot envelopes with the stick-on labels containing voter identification information, but nevertheless that had to be where the extra “voterless ballots” came from.

Ironically, if the election office employee doing that canvassing had been more careful, the “variance” between the number of signatures and the number of ballots counted might have been reported as zero rather than one. For Bothell Precinct 01-0254, which used that library polling place, the cover sheet with the canvasser’s notes has been posted at Sound Politics. [Update 3:52 PM -- After looking again, I'm not sure I understand what the canvasser was doing. There were 179 ballots counted on election night -- 177 went into the AccuVote machine at the polling place, and 2 were "add-ons." There were 171 signatures in the poll book. That leaves 8 more ballots than voters, yet the canvasser surmised that only 4 provisional ballots were improperly inserted into the AccuVote machine. It seems that 8 were improperly inserted into the machine at the polling place. Perhaps the canvasser guessed wrong in concluding that only 4 "no label" provisional ballots were improperly inserted into the AccuVote machine. Either that or some other problem with the records at that polling place exists. If only 8 provisional ballots were issued, and if 4 of them were properly sealed into envelopes, then the canvasser's surmise that 4 were improperly put into the AccuVote machine makes sense. Where, then, did the other 4 ballots that were included in the 179 election night count come from? I have put this note in brackets and left my original thoughts alone, since I really don't know what the canvasser was doing with the available numbers -- nothing adds up the way the canvasser indicated it does.] The cover sheet shows that the canvasser found 179 ballots had been cast, but only 171 signatures were recorded in the poll book (“WANDA 171”). The canvasser apparently should have noted +8 for the variance in that precinct, but noted only “+7.” Then, instead of making an “adjustment” to subtract 31 from the total 32 “variance” to arrive at a net “variance” of one for the polling place, the canvasser could have subtracted 32 to arrive at a “variance” of zero.

Of course, the variance between the number of signatures in the poll books and the number of ballots was still 32, but no such variance was reported to the canvassing board.

Instead, the canvassing board was told (to the extent that they read any of the stuff made available to them) that the “variance” for the precincts using the Bothell Regional Library polling place was only one more ballot than the number of voters who signed the poll book.

That is worse than no reconciliation at all, because the canvassing board members would have been misled about the true magnitude of the discrepancy. They would have believed that the number of illegitimate ballots that appeared in the vote count under irregular circumstances (that is, in violation of the laws intended to ensure that our elections are decided by the legal votes cast by eligible voters who vote only once) was much smaller than it actually was.

The “reconciliation” done by King County in essence accepted as sufficient any seemingly plausible explanation for the presence of illegitimate ballots, then “adjusted” their report so that it didn’t show any problem at all with those illegitimate ballots.

The courts are supposed to presume that election officers and canvassing boards do their jobs in a careful and lawful fashion, but what are the courts supposed to do when it is obvious that the election officers didn’t do their jobs carefully, and the canvassing board members (other than, presumably, Dean Logan) were kept in the dark about the magnitude of the problem?

The canvassing board was required to certify that the county’s election returns were a “full, true and correct representation of the votes cast." In a sense, they did – except that the illegitimate nature of many of those votes was hidden from them. In short, their election returns weren’t a “true” statement of the legal votes cast.

It is no wonder, then, that there is a large discrepancy in the number of ballots cast and counted and the number of voters known to have participated in the election. When that discrepancy was first noticed at the end of December by Stefan Sharkansky, the official party line in response was that the process of updating voter registration records to show the date of the last election in which voters participated wasn't supposed to show a match between voters and ballots.

Now, the original records are finally beginning to see the light of day, and it appears that the discrepancy is real -- and that the reason the updating of voter records after the election showed a discrepancy is because there was a discrepancy.

More puzzle pieces divulged by King County elections office

Now that King County is beginning to release public records that show some of what they did during their canvassing of the votes in the last general election, perhaps some things will become a little more clear.

At Sound Politics, Stefan Sharkansky posted digital images of a poll book cover sheet and a ballot accountability report from two different Bothell precincts. (Unfortunately, he didn't post both these documents from the same precinct, so some of the entries on them are as yet undecipherable. With both from one precinct, it may be possible to understand what was being done for what reasons and at what time.)

While it’s too early to say for sure what these two documents say about the numbers of ballots and eligible voters who cast ballots at the polling place, it is possible to say with reasonable certainty that King County’s precinct election officers did not comply with RCW 29A.44.280.

The image of the ballot accountability form used for Bothell Precinct 01-3271 shows no place for the precinct officers to record the number of signatures in the poll book and compare that number to the number of ballots issued.

This means there is no documentary evidence showing that anyone counted the signatures in those poll books as required by state law on election night after closing the polling places.

Instead, the precinct officers relied on their ballot stub numbers to determine how many ballots had been issued. The ballot accountability form simply directed them to look to see what number was on the first ballot in the stack of unused ballots.

On election night, then, the precinct election officers simply looked to see if the number of ballots no longer in the stack (assuming they had been kept in numerical order) matched the total number of spoiled ballots, regular ballots inserted into the voting machine and provisional ballots sealed into envelopes later verification. This process might tell you whether you had lost some ballots, but it wouldn't tell you whether the voters who received each of those ballots could be identified.

Sometime later, King County elections office personnel apparently did make some effort to determine how many signatures were in the poll books. The image of the cover sheet on the poll book for Bothell Precinct 01-0254 shows an area in the lower right-hand side that is labeled “For Office Use Only” and that contains some handwritten information about numbers of ballots and signatures.

According to a blog called HorsesAss.org, King County did the required reconciliation of signatures in poll books and ballots issued at polling places. Indeed, David (“Goldy”) Goldstein seems to be the first person to reveal to the “blogosphere” the presence of a “big binder” that contains ballot reconciliation information. (To Goldy’s credit, it only took a little push to get him to stop parroting the party line for a moment and go looking for evidence that the signatures and ballots might reconcile. With his left-wing “credentials” he was pretty quickly able to find out more about King County’s canvassing process.)

Goldy quoted a portion of an e-mail from Dean Logan which indicates that there was some sort of reconciliation effort, but notice that the “20+ canvassing crew members” were described as working with the data from the poll workers – which, as noted above, didn’t include a count of the signatures in the poll books:

Regarding the precinct/poll site reconciliation process, this is one of the upfront processes I have spoken about. We employ a canvassing crew that goes through the reconciliation worksheets in the poll books and compares the data to the precinct/poll site vote totals after Election Day. The 20+ canvassing crew members compare the totals generated from the vote tabulation system to the data provided by the poll workers. Where there is a discrepancy noted in this process, we “zero out” the vote totals for that location, retrieve the ballots (from sealed containers secured by the poll workers at the closing of the polls) and re-run those precincts. The crews worked 10-hour days, seven days a week in this effort.

Additionally, a notebook is maintained that tracks the count of signatures in the poll books, number of provisional ballots cast/submitted, number of absentee ballots returned at the polls, etc.

Note also that the last part of this quoted statement from Logan does mention “the count of signatures in the poll books” – and the information is apparently in that “big binder.”

The cover sheet for Bothell Precinct 01-0254 contains one handwritten notation which recorded the result of scanning bar codes next to signatures in the poll book: “WANDA 171.” This means (based on the “WANDA” terminology which appears to be in common use to refer to the “wand” that is used to scan bar codes) that someone scanned the bar codes and found that the book contained 171 signatures.

So, it’s obvious that someone sometime scanned those bar codes in the poll book – but didn’t include in the notation on the poll book cover sheet the date the bar codes were scanned.

Perhaps the “big binder” will indicate whether King County knew, or could have known with reasonable effort, what discrepancies existed at the precinct or polling place level between the numbers of signatures in polling books and the number of ballots cast and counted. Then, we might get to the next question before the election contest finally is decided in court: What was disclosed to the canvassing board members before they certified the election returns as "a full, true, and correct representation of the votes cast" in the election?

Two more pieces to the puzzle in King County

Perhaps there are two other pieces to the puzzle discussed earlier regarding the initial certification of King County’s election returns on November 17 – the actual number of regular absentee ballots that were found to be valid and the number of Federal Write-in Absentee Ballots (“FWABs”) that were valid.

At Sound Politics, Stefan Sharkansky has posted a digital image of a “Mail Ballot Report” he obtained from King County. It purportedly is a copy of a report submitted to the canvassing board on November 17 as part of their final documentation prior to certifying their returns.

In this report, the number of absentee ballots that were accepted as valid is stated to have been 564,222.

Since this report appears to track pretty well with the “audit trail” requirements for absentee ballots stated in WAC 434-240-270, this total of 564,222 ought to be the number of absentee ballots which had been issued by King County and then returned by eligible voters in time to be counted.

This “Mail Ballot Report” wouldn’t have included the FWABs received by King County, since those ballots aren’t issued by the county elections office. (They are used by registered overseas voters who request absentee ballots but don’t receive their requested absentee ballots in time to vote with them.)

Suppose that the 1,081 FWABs King County found to be valid are added to the 564,222 regular absentee ballots noted in that “Mail Ballot Report.”

Then, the total number of ballots in the initial canvassing and certification of King County’s election returns would be:

564,222 regular absentee ballots,
1,081 FWABs,
305,380 ballots cast at polling places, and
27,641 provisional ballots for a total of
898,324 ballots accepted as valid and counted

That’s only 86 more ballots than the total of 898,238 King County reported.

I wonder if there is any explanation for that 86-ballot difference in their initial election returns.

The difference is a lot less than the 1,074 ballot “shortage” that I came up with before, but it’s still not a perfect reconciliation.

Do the ballot numbers add up in King County?

I wonder if we will ever find out what the true, complete and accurate vote counts for King County were.

Just poking around in their data for the initial ballot canvassing and initial certification of the county’s 2004 general election returns, I found that I couldn’t get their numbers to add up.

Is this November 3, 2004, statement by Logan’s office simply wrong?

Final results from the polls indicate 305,380 voters cast ballots at the polls; however, the majority of ballots cast in King County will to come by mail. Of the 646,537 absentee ballots issued, 400,507, or 62 percent, have been returned.

The reported total of 305,380 ballots cast at the polling places doesn’t seem to add up correctly with the totals reported for provisional ballots and absentee ballots.

The number of absentee ballots was reported as 566,291 on November 15, 16, and 18, 2004.

The number of provisional ballots cast was reported as 31,545 on November 17 – along with a reported total of 27,641 provisional ballots which were accepted as having been cast by eligible voters.

305,380 ballots at polling places,
27,641 provisional ballots accepted as valid, and
566,291 absentee ballots accepted as valid, add up to
899,312 total ballots as of Nov. 17, 2004, when the county's election returns were certified.

Yet the reported total ballot count was 898,238, which is 1,074 less than the total of the three kinds of ballots. [Update March 7, 11:50 AM: The same 898,238 ballot count for the initial certification of election returns on November 17 was reported to the Secretary of State.]

Why can’t I make the numbers add up for the initial election returns from King County?

Am I missing something?

SSB 5499 amendments galore

Update March 9, 4:30 PM: According to today's report of Senate floor activity, the amendment offered by Sen. Benton (S2113.2) was "pulled" yesterday, March 8. So, unless there is some other amendment which would require a reconciliation of voters and ballots before a county's election returns are certified, it appears nothing is pending which would change the meaningless post-certification report in SSB 5499, section 17.

Update March 5, 1:35 PM: This entry posted by Matt Rosenberg at Sound Politics indicates that the sponsor of this particular amendment isn't someone who could win support for his amendment even if it had no flaws. Senator Benton seems to be jockeying to be nominated for the first annual Izzen T. Hollowe Memorial Prize.

Well, the Republicans have gone hog-wild offering amendments to SSB 5499.

So far as I can tell, only one would have any impact on section 17.

In an amendment offered by Senator Benton, there is a requirement to reconcile the numbers of voters and ballots:

"NEW SECTION. Sec. 13 A new section is added to chapter 29A.60 RCW to read as follows: Before a county auditor may make a final certification of election returns, the county auditor shall reconcile by precinct the number of ballots counted from the precinct and the number of voters credited with having cast a counted ballot. The number of ballots counted and the number of voters who cast those ballots will always be equal in a properly administered election. The county auditor shall report by precinct any variance between the number of ballots and the number of voters. If the total number of ballots without voters, or voters without ballots, exceeds the winning margin in an election or primary, the election or primary as to that position is void. No certificate of election may be issued. A revote for that position must be held within sixty days."

Unfortunately, this amendment isn't likely to attract much support, since it has fatal flaws.

First, county auditors do not "make a final certification of election returns." The county canvassing boards have the responsibility and authority to certify the official election returns.

Second, the reasons for a mismatch of the numbers of voters and ballots ought to be considered by the canvassing boards before they certify their official returns, but this amendment would simply mandate that the election be declared void no matter what the reasons. It may be that there is no good reason which would make the election results acceptable despite a mismatch and no acceptable remedy short of invalidating the election, but the decision ought to be left to the canvassing boards and the person or entity authorized to issue a certificate of election.

Finally, having a "revote for that position...within sixty days" is not constitutional in the case of a gubernatorial election -- and perhaps not for other offices, although I haven't researched them.

Besides, when would the sixty-day period begin? I know people don't seem to like what our constitution says about the election returns for state executive offices, but it requires that the returns be delivered to the speaker of the house to be opened, published and declared. Is that act of the speaker of the house the thing that starts the sixty-day period?

It seems that the Republicans are no better than the Democrats at reading the constitution they swore to uphold.

Senators, please amend SSB 5499 section 17

Substitute Senate Bill 5499 was reported out of the Senate Government Operations & Elections Committee on February 17 and referred to the Rules Committee.

No floor amendment is yet pending, but there needs to be one.

Calling all Republican senators: Is there one of you who can see and act upon the need to amend section 17 of SSB 5499?

SSB 5499 may be in the group of bills which will be brought to the floor for a vote “soon” according to The Seattle Times:

A package of bills expected to go to the Senate floor soon would hold the primary a month earlier so counties would have more time to get out general-election ballots.

It also would impose statewide standards for handling ballots, require first-time voters to produce identification at the polls, require regular audits of county election departments and require a paper trail for touch-screen voting machines such as those used in Snohomish and Yakima counties.

Another Senate bill would make it easier for counties to choose to conduct their elections entirely by mail.

SSB 5499 contains a new section which does nothing to ensure proper certification of election returns.

The new section would require a report long after certification of election returns – and long after the time for filing an election contest has passed.

This new section’s report is not just worthless, it is an apparently cynical effort to make it appear that election laws are being reformed when in fact they are not.

County canvassing boards are supposed to certify the accuracy of the auditor’s abstract of votes, meaning that the vote totals being reported are true and accurate statements of the numbers of legitimate votes cast and counted.

This new section in SSB 5499 needs to be amended by changing the beginning phrase, “No later than thirty days after final certification,” to this phrase: “Prior to certification of the official election returns by the canvassing board.”

NEW SECTION. Sec. 17 A new section is added to chapter 29A.60 RCW to read as follows: No later than thirty days after final certification, the county auditor shall prepare and make publicly available at the auditor's office or on the auditor's web site, an election reconciliation report that discloses, at a minimum, the following information: The number of ballots counted; the number of voters credited with voting; the number of provisional ballots issued; the number of provisional ballots counted; the number of provisional ballots rejected; the number of absentee ballots issued; the number of absentee ballots counted; the number of absentee ballots rejected; the number of federal write-in ballots counted; the number of ballots sent to overseas voters and the number of such ballots that were counted; and any other information the auditor determines to be necessary to the process of reconciling the number of votes counted with the number of voters credited with voting.

The counties are already required to credit voters with having participated in the election before the counties certify their official election returns.

They have no way of preventing people from voting more than once in an election unless they credit voters with having participated; so the requirement is not only a legal requirement, it is a requirement based in necessity and common sense.

The thing that is missing from the counties’ election returns is a public statement which would reveal material discrepancies which the counties have up to now ignored or hidden.

Here is where the law now says voters must be credited with having voted prior to the certification of the official election returns:

At the polling places, it’s in the poll books as required by RCW 29A.44.231.

For absentee ballots, it’s in the computerized voter registration database as required by RCW 29A.60.180.

Unfortunately, RCW 29A.60.230 doesn’t now require that the official election returns state the number of voters credited with voting. Instead the returns contain a virtually meaningless number – the number of registered voters in the county.

There is never a turnout of all the registered voters, so it means nothing to be told that the number of ballots is less than the number of registered voters.

What we need to know is whether there are more ballots on which the votes were counted than there were voters known to have cast ballots.

Since the counties are already required by law to credit voters with voting before certifying their returns, reform the law to require that the counties include the number of voters credited with voting in their official returns.

A certificate of election might still be issued despite material discrepancies in the official election returns, but at least we would all have a chance to know what discrepancies are being ignored in the issuance of such a certificate of election.

Election Reform Task Force report to be released tomorrow

Update March 3: The report is now available, but is not actually worth reading. Unfortunately, I couldn't know that without first wasting the time to read it.

According to The Sun, the Associated Press was able to get a copy of the Election Reform Task Force report.

Tomorrow, Gregoire the Pretender is scheduled to hold a press conference at which I suppose the rest of us will get a chance to hear the words of wisdom from on high.

Poor little old King County may have had some mean things said about them in the report:

King County was singled out in the report as needing to improve its election system. The report said that residents across the state expressed concern about the county’s election system.

"Regardless of whether the concerns are real or perceived, the elected and appointed officials in King County must immediately make it a top priority to establish and fund an elections system that meets the standards expected by the citizens across Washington State," the report read.

Reed cited a lack of proper work space and concerns over the accountability of some of the staff in reporting mistakes and errors.

"We didn’t find the level of problems that we found in any other counties that we did in King County," he said.

King County elections officials had not yet seen the report Wednesday and did not have an immediate response.

No matter what is said in the report about King County, it will roll off them like water off a duck's back.

What really matters is whether the reforms include a requirement that all county canvassing boards state plainly and publicly the number of "voterless ballots" and "ballotless voters" reflected in their records -- and that they state this important information as a part of their official election returns.

We need to know how badly they are doing their jobs every time, not just when there is a tiny margin of apparent victory.

Note to Election Reform Task Force: It's March 1st

The so-called Election Reform Task Force was supposed to submit a report to Gregoire no later than March 1, 2005.

Perhaps the opinion piece from Secretary of State Sam Reed in today's Seattle Times resembles the task force's report.

If so, they shouldn't have bothered.

There is no mention of requiring county canvassing boards to report loudly, publicly and plainly the number of voters who participated and the number of ballots that appeared in the stacks of ballots on which votes were counted -- prior to certifying their returns.

There is no mention of any effort to decide a contested election before putting any candidate in office.

There is no mention of a reliable way to prove a voter's identity when voting by mail, nor any requirement to prove identity when voting in person.

In other words, there is no mention of anything that would tend to restore confidence in the integrity of our elections.