Sims defends King County vote as 99.98% accurate (Seattle P-I)

[icymist]

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Sims defends King County vote as 99.98% accurate

By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

King County Executive Ron Sims forcefully defended the accuracy of the county's beleaguered 2004 general election operation yesterday and said it was "clear we do not need radical reform; we need thoughtful, reasonable changes" in the system.

In the wake of revelations of illegal votes by dead voters and felons and mistaken counting of unverified provisional ballots, and with the close governor's election now mired in litigation, King County's elections operation continued ballooning into an ever-bigger, partisan football.

County Council Republicans held a news conference to call for greater citizen oversight of the elections system, a suggestion quickly endorsed by the Democratic executive and his elections director, Dean Logan. But the Republicans could offer no specific criticisms of Sims or of a new report by Logan analyzing election problems and recommending reforms.

<snip>

Logan's report acknowledged his department's mistakes, among them that 348 provisional ballots were mistakenly tabulated without those voters' registrations being verified, 735 absentee ballots erroneously were not counted initially and 22 ballots were left in the base units of voting equipment and not found until later, invalidating 20 of them.

But despite GOP complaints that some military ballots were issued late, Logan said all military and overseas ballots were mailed on time by Oct. 8. And he said that of the more than 15,000 military, overseas and out-of-state ballots issued, only 16 came back too late to be counted.

County Council Chairman Larry Phillips, D-Seattle, said the report thoroughly debunked state GOP Chairman "Chris Vance and the Republican hysteria machine (that) went crazy over the military ballots." Like Sims and Logan, Phillips endorsed reconstituting the election oversight committee.

More:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/211469_elections10.html

[hippywife]

1. self delete

[Helga Scow Stern]

2. This is a creepy pattern....

pick on those who actually do a good, fair honest job in their jobs overseeing elections (if they're Dems), and reward those who hide the votes, like LA's Conny McCormack.

[central scrutinizer]

3. shouldn't the Sims be defending

other cartoon characters like Sponge Bob and Twinky Winky, instead of getting involved in this?

[BanzaiBonnie]

4. Washington SOS Sam Reed

will be in Vancouver, Washington tonight accepting commentary and suggestions from citizens about what to do now. What kind of voting system suggestions should we give them?

[Az_lefty]

5. I wish the National election was %99.98 accurate. eom

[maxsolomon]

6. the "Republican Hysteria Machine"!

thank you Larry Phillips for naming the beast.

and Chris Vance: SUCK IT.