Thursday, April 07, 2005

Washington election fraud update

While I haven't written about it lately, the controversy continues over the election results for Governor here in the state of Washington. But I found it interesting this morning to find that former Senator Slade Gordon is calling for a criminal probe...


Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton yesterday joined the call for a criminal investigation of King County's handling of the November election, even as county officials acknowledged a breakdown in the process for accounting for absentee ballots.

Gorton, appearing at a news conference with state Republican Chairman Chris Vance, said the U.S. Department of Justice or some other agency should conduct an investigation. He said he didn't know if any criminal acts were committed in the county's failure to count 93 valid absentee ballots in the tight governor's election in November.

The mistake could have been fraud or "colossal incompetence," he said.


The whole article is worth reading, as it lists many of the issues that have been uncovered over the last few months.

Taken as individual acts, each of the problems uncovered might be viewed in either the light of fraud, or simple incompetence. At one time, I felt that was immaterial, but I've become certain that each spot act is part of the larger picture, and fraud and incompetence are going hand in hand here, it seems to me.

Regardless, this is further proof that as citizens of the state, we had better take steps to get it right. As of this moment, I have no confidence in the election system in the state, and most especially, here in King County.

I did have to laugh at this paragraph :

King County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat, dismissed Gorton's call for an investigation as "pure partisanship."
Heh ... If that isn't a case of the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is!!

This is just one small slice of the political circus here, but there is some good news. As reported by Stefan Sharkansky at Sound Politics, the trial date for the legal challenge has been set for May 23.

I meant to post an update on Bryan Suits, local radio host on KVI, and a recent returnee from Iraq where he served with the Washington National Guard. So I found it interesting when I read that his absentee ballot is one of those NOT counted in this election. As Shark says, That was the wrong ballot to "misplace"!