GOP Dirty Tricks in Seattle
We don't cover Washington State news here at BlueOregon much, but there are some dirty tricks happening up there that are worth paying attention to -- at least, because they might be headed to Oregon next year.
In a few days, Washington voters will be voting on ballot measures and local offices - including King County Executive. So, the King County GOP is trying to toss a bunch of voters off the rolls.
From a very well-written and sourced diary over at DailyKos:
Just days before this Tuesday's general election, thousands of voters have received letters in the mail informing them that their right to vote is being challenged by the Republican Party of King County. It's an outrageous attempt to harass and intimidate King County voters from going to the polls or mailing in their absentee ballots. The Republicans are filing these challenges now in the hopes of influencing this year's race for King County Executive, which pits progressive Democrat Ron Sims (the incumbent) against Republican challenger David Irons.King County Republican Vice Chairman Lori Sotelo recently filed challenges to nearly 2,000 voters within the county, claiming that she had "personal knowledge or belief" that those voters did not live at their registered addresses.
Apparently, some 60 of the voters live in a single legit apartment building - and hundreds more live in bona fide houses, apartments, and other residences.
It appears that having claimed to have 'personal knowledge' (and having failed to actually have knowledge) Sotelo may be prosecuted for hundreds of charges of perjury. Either that, or a massive class action civil rights claim. Details at NWProgressive's diary at DailyKos.
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Nov. 06, 2005
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Nov 6, '05
Come on. You wouldn't find it at all a bad deal for all voters if there were apartments receiving 60 ballots in Oregon's vote by mail system?
Voter integrity is a two way street,if these voters consistently vote abentee in Washington then this should be investigated. The democratic party should be saying they will do anything within their power to ensure the integrity of the system is upheld.
Voting is a right that should be jealously guarded. Ensuring that there is no tampering is honorable not intimidation. Intimidation is when a corrupt political machine uses ballot box with illegal schemes to grab power and then to hold.
4:44 p.m.
Nov 6, '05
Dare, you really seemed to have skipped over the article and right on to the comment box. This has nothing to do with absentee balloting. The KCGOP simply looked up MailBoxesEtc. and storage facility addresses, then looked to see if anyone had a matching or very similar address. That's not preventing fraud, that's sloppy work at best, intimidation at worst (especially given the locus of the vast majaority of those addresses, in Democratic precincts).
The 60 doesn't refer to ballots, but 60 individual voters whose registrations were challenged as invalid...yet they all live in a longstanding residential complex. Thus they are in fact valid, and if anyone had bothered to drive by, they'd easily have surmised that fact.
As Kari notes, the Vice Chair of KCGOP is looking at perjury charges, because she signed forms for challenges she did not have personal knowledge of--and that's illegal.
7:34 p.m.
Nov 6, '05
Dare, it's like you didn't even read the initial post. "60 of the voters live in a single legit apartment building"
60 real humans, registered as legit voters, living in one building. Somewhere in the King GOP database that building was misclassified as a storage facility - so they challenged those voters. Too bad for the vice-chair, she signed off on "personal knowledge" of the bad registrations "under penalty of perjury."
[Admin note: While I write some of the unsigned BlueOregon items, I don't write them all. I wrote this one, but don't always assume that. We have a number of co-editors.]
Nov 6, '05
Maybe Democrats should actually visit locations and then do challenges based on what they saw with their own eyes.
A local candidate filed (on Sec. of State site) and the "candidate detail" listed an address which didn't sound right. I Googled it and also looked in the phone book. The address did not match the zip code. Maybe it was a typo, but that doesn't speak well for whoever prepared the filing. The address the candidate listed was an office building of some kind outside the district filed in, and in between a local school and local grocery store (looked them up in the phone book to make sure of the addresses).
So I sent that information in an email to a friend who is running in that district.
THAT is personal knowledge--knowing the zipcode and address didn't match, knowing that stretch of road containing the school and store.
Hearsay can get all kinds of people into trouble, from Al French the Swifty to Dennis Richardson insulting Stand for Children.
http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/05/representative_.html
As the old song goes, "when will they ever learn?"
Nov 11, '05
I was one of the challenged voters. I have lived in my home for 13 years and always vote. It is and was a BIG deal. When I arrived to vote I was flagged and redirected to a special area to get my provisional ballet. The head of the elections for my voting area has known me for about 25 years and she can attest under "penalty of perjury" that I live where I live. Lori can't. Right now, my vote won't make a difference to the election. I effectively have not voted until I appear at the hearing. That's real democracy folks. 10% error rate 3 days before the election is bullshit.
Nov 11, '05