Heads up in Snohomish County, WA

[eridani]

From local email--the fuckers aren't going to obey the paper ballot law that was passed last session!

From B Moran--
The Snohomish County Council had a hearing on vote-by-mail today, with public comment. The County Executive Democrat Aaron Reardon wants to put vote-by-mail on the ballot in November, becuase the Republican controlled Council voted it down 3-2 along party lines (3 repubs) earlier
this year.

From M B--
Now would be a good time to fire up a LTE to the Everett Herald and other local newspapers endorsing vote-by-mail.

Whatcom has done this, as have 29 other counties.

But do note that with VBM, the traditional polling places are no longer needed. Whatcom has replaced them with about seven "Ballot Drop-Off Sites", most at Libraries and Fire Stations in the cities. Those sites will be staffed with a pair, and will do little more than watch, answer questions, and bring in the ballot-boxes after 8:00 PM.

Snohomish may have started too late this year to get VBM approved and implemented.

From John Gideon—
"Sideshow Bob" is pushing all Vote-By-Mail but the republican dominated county council wants to keep the machines even though they will cost over $1M this year to make them compliant and over another $1M next year to make them compliant and for storage.

By the way, I sent a blast to some state legislators and that got a response from a pissed-off Republican state representative who responded back to all of the addressees, including three members of the press. He essentially said that if Terwilliger did what the article said, he would be liable for indictment for violation of a Class C Felony and could be removed from office.

However, this is not over yet. I spent a lot of time in Olympia earlier this year lobbying the legislature and testifying before committees in favor of the vvpat bill. I don't want to see someone decide they are going to ignore the law.

From L K--
I spoke today at County Council regarding Black Box Voting. I testified that I worked at the Masonic Hall in Snohomish and witnessed abuse by the poll judge which was documented with witnesses and that she was barred by the Board of Elections from any future election. I also pointed out that there have been many studies of the 04 election showing inconsistency in exit polls in every single county that used the voting machines. I also testified that an election official in Cayhouga county was indicted for a $10,000 bribe from Diebold in his office to get him to purchase BBV machines and that 2 Cayhouga county officials were just indicted for fraud in the election recount. I pointed out that the election turning out as it did was 65 million to 1 odds. I recommended all mail voting with open public viewing of the tabulation. Of course I am sure these F##kers thought I was a conspiracy theorist but I intend to follow up with actual documentation of the study done as well as the articles about the indictments. Someone from the Freedom Foundation (republican think tank) was making a plea that all mail ballots would be too easy to commit fraud. I was thinking that a good way to combat that is to only allow registration at post offices, libraries, DOL etc. where a certified person could take ID along with the application. That should keep anyone from just applying in a fake name right? Anyway, I will continue to monitor the situation as well

From J C--
Grays Harbor County is having their first all vote-by-mail election this fall. When the county held a public hearing on this issue, the only people who opposed this move were the local Republicans. The Repug county chair didn't speak but was observed coaching those who did. There were about 8-9 of them. Our county is very rural and some precincts were already all absentee voting precincts. Something like 65% of all voters, in fact, were already voting by absentee ballots.

So these facts prompted the county commissioners to ask those speaking against vote-by-mail if any of them were voting by absentee ballots. All but one of them were. Funny how the convenience of voting this way is OK for them but not everybody else. Hypocrites!

One of the other reasons why the county voted to go all vote-by-mail was because of the cost-savings. In a time when the county budgets are so tight, this is a good way to be good stewards of public funds.

If I understand it correctly, there will be places for people to drop of their ballots in person if they don't trust the mail. These will be spread throughout the county. And these locations will also have the types of voting machines that those with disabilities can use. If anyone wants to vote in person, even those without disabilities, they will still be allowed to come in in-person and vote on these machines.

Good luck on fighting this battle in Snohomish County!


John Gideon—
I am presently scheduled to be on the Thom Hartmann Show this coming Friday, 16 Sept. (Mexican Independence Day) at 10:30AM Pac Time. I will also be on the following Thursday, 22 Sept. (Autumn Begins) at 10:00AM Pac Time. The subject, I think, will be what has been happening in the world of elections news and what will be coming up in the future.

[RallyInDC]

1. i'm on it. its time to print out the info from the diebold whistleblower

and force them to de-certify all this garbage due to violating HAVA.

see the new topic.