For those of you who missed today's appearance by Dean Logan and Kurt Triplett before the KC "Committee of the Whole," it was mostly a measured affair--but with a few interesting points of contention. My overall opinion on the proceedings: whatever flaws may have been discovered, most are either not the primary fault of King, or are simply problems that some have with the current state of Washington's legislative policy.
Logan probably knew he needed to be on his game; this time he had only data summaries and no published narrative to follow and refer to if the questioning got heavy. And it certainly did, from the usual suspects. Other Councilmembers were manifestly quiet; I don't agree with that either. Maybe some folks can get all the information they need by listening to other people's questions, but even if I didn't think there was fraud or official incompetence, I'd still ask questions about procedure and how outcomes are evaluated. On that score I think some were silent or noninquisitive in order to provide partisan cover for Logan and Triplett.
I caught most of the audio and smatterings of the video, but either way it was clear Logan was up for the meeting. I tuned in as the discussion turned to ballot enhancing and the idea of voter intent laws in general. Logan was prompted to offer support for those laws, and he came on strong--saying he was "proud of our laws," and that "the purpose is to determine the will of the majority, and not the ability of citizens to follow instructions."
This precipitated an internecine dustup started by Kathy Lambert, who related a citizen's complaint that if they couldn't fill out the ballot to be read by machine, it shouldn't count. It's certainly fair enough to pass on the voter sentiment, and I'm willing to take it somewhat seriously on merit as well--but then Lambert ruined her point by dragging contract law into things. Mess up a signature, lose your loan! You can't say you didn't care to follow the rules when you're caught speeding! We all have to follow the rules or pay the consequences!
Logan started to answer, but Carolyn Edmonds cut him off and began to bark at Lambert instead. She correctly noted that rather than a case of not following rules (meaning laws, based on Lambert's discussion of 'contract law'), it's one of not following instructions--a different matter. She cited the legacy of competency rules for voting, and the unfamiliarity with electronic voting that older or immigrant citizens may have. Dwight Pelz took up the cudgel and hammered Lambert with it along the same lines. Neither drove it home, but the recognition of federal voting rights and improved voter access via HAVA was also part of their rebuttal. This was the one time Logan was really saved by an attack from Council. I don't think he needed it, but the sharp rebukes certainly distracted the focus from him for the moment.
Reagan Dunn turned toward felon voters and asserted, as he did in February, that surely the statutes allow the Elections Division to reject registrations they believe come from ex-felons, without being notified by the courts. Logan was ready for that; he offered to provide Dunn with the divsion's legal counsel pointing him to the opposite conclusion. That took most of the steam out of Dunn; he apparently did not spend the intervening month seeking to back up his claim as Logan did.
He tried to probe on the poor connections between federal and state courts on felon notification, and did what several Councilmembers seemed interested in doing: throwing out a fairly blithe suggestion posed as a "why can't we just do X to solve this?" question. Couldn't we just see if we can tap into the FBI's databases and pull our felons out? he asked. Logan was quite sure the FBI was not interested in letting King Elections rummage about, he said with a smile. He did note that King does get irregular but periodic notices from the Secretary of State's office.
Lambert tried the state version of the game, wondering, "Couldn't we just see the court files read-only? Just read-only?" Another zippy idea was having someone get the papers every day and check off the names of the dead from the obituaries. Perhaps Council meetings are the time to throw unfettered suggestion bomblets at bureaucrats as a way to finding answers; I'm not sure it's good time spent. Both Lambert and Dunn pressed on why more aggressive pre-registration validation of voters could not be done. Logan was firm in his reliance on what he sees as state and federal law: if they swear they can vote, you let them. Repeatedly, some Councilmembers droned on about how untoward the laws and procedures were, which left him only to suggest that perhaps the Legislature would be a good contact for that kind of complaint.
Julia Patterson did a little editorializing. Using the hoohah over the WSRP-released felon voter list totaling over 1,100 names, and then the subsequent discovery of incorrect inclusions on the list, she provided an example of why pre-reg checks may not be that great an idea for all of the overlimit fish caught in the net. This went over Lambert's head entirely, and her very next question to Logan was why Pierce did so much better at preventing felon votes, and King had over 1,000. What were they doing right? she asked. Did you call them and find out?
Logan seemed embarrassed to have to point out that Lambert was using the same WSRP list Patterson had identified as flawed, and that even by WSRP's reckoning, King had fewer than 900 felons credited with voting. As for Pierce, they had indeed talked. Logan's report was a vague "they're similar."
The discussion then moved to provisional balloting. Here Logan offered specific, damning testimony against willfull fraud, concluding that sites with high numbers of provisionals were not concentrated in any way, but randomly dispersed. There was nothing at all to support the allegation of fraudulent intent. Undaunted, Dunn brought out his Sound Politics web runoffs (I assume), and dove into Bothell Regional Library, site of 31 apparently mishandled provisional ballots (Logan later cops to this). After being briefly corrected that canvassing crew workers made the notations on the pollbook and not poll workers, Dunn doggedly aimed to finish his list of egregious (and apparently dispersed) examples of mishandling:
- Central Lutheran 15 provisionals misfed
- Cougar Ridge, 6
- Meany Middle, "some" (?)
- Bryan Elementary, 11
- (inaudible to me), 36
Logan responded by directing Dunn to the reconciliation summary, showing the adjusted difference total as 660. Logan also noted that the 348 are at least in some cases overlapping, so the two cannot be added. He also mentioned a provisional pilot project during the following round of wacky solutions tossed out by members; performed in Februrary, it was news to me and they said no more about it. Lambert hadn't yest said anything really foolish on this topic, but eventually she came through: why are there just so MANY of these darn provisionals? Her questions started to become more and more Church Lady-rhetorical, but Logan played along. Record turnout? Lots of polling places? Polling places with multiple sites? Nationwide trend and consciousness of provisionals? None of the innocent excuses seemed to placate her, but perhaps cowed by her earlier beatdown, she didn't press.
The ballot discrepancies were the last topic, and Steve Hammond took the reins. He seemed to have done some kind of actual homework unlike Lambert and Dunn, and presented what he called a 1999 discrepancy report, and also a King County "special ballot summary," special ballots being the previous name for provisionals. Logan acknowledged having seen the latter type of document, and also related as an aside how ballots that used to be called "questioned," and then "special," had become "provisional." Clearly the perspective on contingent validation of votes has come a long way.
Hammond didn't care about electoral history in that sense; he wanted to talk about what superb levels of detail existed to reconcile the count of a 1999 election and locale which he never identified. Apparently the canvassing board in this case, unable to fully reconcile their figures, sought to hold off on certification because of the lack of surety about the results. This is about the only substantive larger point made the entire time I was listening, and it's an important one: what functions and authorities do the canvassing boards have, in declaring their jurisdiction's count suspect?
Logan's response is a rather wan "well, that's when the courts come in," but he's right. The election code for Washington is written to speed the process through from pollnight to certification, such that elections are presumed honest and orderly unless evidence is brought forth otherwise, and that human error is sought to be ever better controlled in the future but viewed as inevitable in the present.
At this point Logan mentions that he has no known policy reference to the 1999 report Hammond is using, and that it's a little silly to refer to practices apparently not even in use when Logan took office, as "traditional." The questions about error tolerance and dilligence in rectifying them might have been warranted, but Dunn's example problematically exists in the context of a set of procedures King was apparently not bound to follow in 2004. Seeking to dispel a sense of hidden mystery about them, Logan responds that the certification results were always "there" and available, and that the canvassing board knew of the issues when they certified.
Hammond apparently saw blood, because then he tried to zing Logan for the "issues." He told Logan that maybe he should be getting with prior incumbents in his job, and asking their advice on how they used to do it in the old days, when elections ran clean and clear as Rainier glacier water. Logan remembered his job interview however, and shut Hammond up quickly by saying when he was hired, he was told that his predecessor had done a terrible job and that's why they were bringing in Logan. That was the end of Hammond's gambit.
Patterson summed up her participation in the proceedings--which consisted mostly of references to sources of information we shouldn't be paying attention to--by railing against talk radio: how they lied about fraud, how they lied about King County, and how they had damaged the process and unfairly targeted the voters' sense of confidence in the elections. Getting in the last word for all of us, Hammond replied, "Well thanks for listening." He was speaking about talk radio, but maybe he was referring to his own fulminations as well.
Update 10AM 3/15--
The PI's Gregory Roberts explains the February provisional pilot this morning:
The county changed its procedures for special tax elections in Auburn and Enumclaw in February, requiring poll workers to modify provisional ballots so machines would reject them. No reports were received of provisionals improperly handled, Logan said.
--TJ
"[Hammond] told Logan that maybe he should be getting with his priors in the job, and ask their advice on how they used to do it in the old days, when elections ran clean and clear as Rainier glacier water."
Did Hammond actually say "clean and clear as Rainier glacier water?" How long since he's looked at the outflow of a glacier, utterly opaque with silt?
Posted by: wes | March 15, 2005 at 08:27
wes--
no, that would be my lyrical coloring. And it may start out silty, but by the time it makes it down the mountain...you get the picture.
Posted by: Torridjoe | March 15, 2005 at 09:08
Very thorough recap TJ. Thanks. It doesn't appear that any of this will have much baring on matters, which is what one would suspect. The Seattle Times paints a similar picture of a more toned down meeting, which in light of past posturing is welcome indeed.
Posted by: Daniel K. | March 15, 2005 at 10:27