Monday, June 13, 2005

Absentee Absent Ballots ...

So what are the odds of 3 absentee ballots in the same precinct being lost? Pretty high, if you live here in King County, Washington.

How about the odds of those 3 coming from the same street?
... What if you knew they all 3 came from the same house?

Disenfranchised voters revealed

King County has steadfastly refused to release the names of the now 96 absentee voters whose ballots were not counted last November. But I now have some names. Based on best available information from other King County documents, this weekend I determined with reasonable certainty the names of 30 of the disenfranchised voters. I've also narrowed down most of the others to a field of 272. This spreadsheet lists the names. The ones that are apparent matches are at the top of the page, highlighted in yellow, with "matching" in the status column. The others are marked "possible". (Details on how I came up with these names and on King County's refusal to confirm them in the extended entry)

Among the apparently disenfranchised voters are all three voters in the Stansbury family of Bellevue -- Todd and Wendy Stansbury, who are Republican activists, and their son, Lance Corporal Kenneth Stansbury. Lance Corporal Stansbury was on active duty in Iraq last fall. He flew home at his parents' expense so he could make sure he cast his ballot in time to be counted. County records show that the Stansburys' ballots arrived on time and that they were credited with voting. Pending King County's release of the full list of uncounted ballots, we're left to conclude from the available evidence that the Stansburys' ballots were not counted. I happened to meet Wendy Stansbury at the county Republican convention on Saturday and had the unfortunate duty to inform her of her family's apparent disenfranchisement. Needless to say, she was upset by this news. She also recognized another name on the list, Janet Moore of Newcastle, who Wendy says is a Republican PCO in the 41st district.

(from SoundPolitics.com)

Due to the short time between the primary in September and the general election, many people were concerned about the ability of the absentee ballots to be mailed in a timely fashion.

So the Stansbury family had their son's ballot mailed to their house in Bellevue. They then bought a plane ticket to fly their son to Washington, where they sat together and filled out their absentee ballots, including votes for Dino Rossi for Governor. Now they know that their ballots are among the 96 that are known not to have been counted.

... Once again proving that we simply do not know the true results of the November election.