Democrats Can Feel Shame

Dino Rossi has good cause to be angry about the results of the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election. And even though his lawsuit to overturn the election is unlikely to, and probably should not, overturn the results of that election, it has stirred enough filth from the bottom of the swamp to embarrass even the victors into electoral reforms. And, although those changes are very modest, had these laws been in effect in time for the 2004 election, Christine Gregoire would today be just another shabby out of work ex-attorney general, standing on a street corner holding a hand-lettered cardboard sign reading, “Will sue cigarette companies for food.”
In this last election, despotically left wing King County was the epicenter of massive incompetence, if not outright voter fraud. We had voters casting multiple ballots, felons casting ballots, ballots from Republican neighborhoods left uncounted. There were more ballots counted in King County than could be accounted for by the number of voters who entered the polling places. In a sworn statement before the court in which Rossi’s case is being heard, King County election chief Dean Logan admitted that his minions knowingly counted unverified provisional ballots. We also learned that hundreds of ballots were cast by people who were all registered at the same address, city hall.
The embarrassment of those revelations undoubtedly pressured Democrats into plugging some of the more obvious holes in the system.
In this last election, our troops overseas were disenfranchised by left leaning counties, including King County, that mailed out ballots to our soldiers too late for them to be returned in time to be counted. And, they only sent them out when they did under court order.
But, that at least has been corrected. Now, overseas ballots are given an additional three weeks for return.
Election workers are no longer permitted to “enhance” ballots that were improperly marked so that they may be counted. Gregoire profited generously from enhancement in the recounts. Voters who spoil their ballots will, from now on, be out of luck. Only counting the ballots of those who can read and follow simple instructions might have given Rossi the election.
Voting twice is now a felony. This could doubly benefit Republicans. Not only would it discourage multiple votes, but as the felon vote is so overwhelmingly Democratic, those convicted of the crime would be wiped off the voting rolls. And speaking of felons, voter registration rolls will actually be checked against Washington State Patrol criminal records so that we no longer rely upon the truthfulness of felons.
Voter registration rolls will now be checked against other states to determine if a voter is casting ballots in multiple states.
Among the sillier “reforms” is a requirement potential voter registrants be asked if they are citizens, but not asked to provide evidence of citizenship, not even a driver’s license.
Certainly, there is much that yet needs to be done. Requiring positive photo identification at registration and at the voting booth would help. As it is, anyone can claim to be me and cast a ballot in my name.
The absentee ballot rules need to be tightened considerably. Currently, anybody may request a mail-in, absentee ballot simply for convenience sake, without having to actually be out of town. Vote by mail is an irresistible invitation to fraud.
The lawsuit has actually generated some real nuggets that might come in handy for the next legislative session. Something else that we have learned from the lawsuit is that King County Election Chief, Dean Logan, does not actually know how many ballots his county printed. Without knowing that, we really don’t know if any were diverted to fraudulent uses.
Ballots should be treated exactly like freshly printed $100 bills from the federal mint and we should know exactly how many were printed, distributed and counted. And, those numbers had better match.
If someone at the mint were unable to account for $200,000, he would not be hearing an attaboy and getting a slap on the back from his boss as King County Executive Ron Sims has done repeatedly for Dean Logan.
Real progress was made in this session. Our next election, whether it’s in four years or a couple of months, will be cleaner. But more needs to be done. Every fraudulent ballot cast steals someone else’s legitimate voter.