[Vision2020] Wayne's election comment
Art Deco
deco at moscow.com
Thu Mar 9 12:28:09 PST 2006
Kit,
Thank you for posting the information below. I appreciate the risk-taking
in posting your research. I am disappointed that no public official has yet
to respond, save Stephanie Kalasz, Moscow City Clerk, who certified the
election and who replied off list questioning my allegations. I responded
off list and received an assurance of further a follow-up although the
nature of that follow-up was not described.
I hope the information that you have graciously provided will motivate the
Latah County Commissioners and the Moscow City Council to rigorously
investigate, fix the problems they find, and provide voters with a system
that ensures that each voter's vote is correctly sensed and tallied -- an
indispensable, essential part of the democratic process.
I again encourage Don Coombs to provide the information we discussed in the
previous posts. Perhaps it will add to the eye-opening information that Kit
has provided.
Does anyone wonder why the flaws of this election have neither been reported
nor commented upon by the Daily News and LMT? Isn't the press supposed to
be the guardians of the democratic process?
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craine Kit" <kcraine at verizon.net>
To: "Art Deco" <deco at moscow.com>
Cc: "Dickinson John" <johnd at moscow.com>; "Vision 2020"
<vision2020 at moscow.com>; "Tom Stroschein" <tstroschein at latah.id.us>; "Pall
Linda" <lpall at moscow.com>; "Robert Stout" <bstout at ci.moscow.id.us>; "Ament
Aaron" <aaronament at moscow.com>; "Chaney Nancy" <nchaney at moscow.com>;
"Lambert Bill" <blambert at ci.moscow.id.us>; "Weber John"
<jweber at ci.moscow.id.us>; "Paul Kimmell" <pkimmell at latah.id.us>; "Jack
Nelson" <jnelson at latah.id.us>
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 11:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Wayne's election comment
> As one who paid very close attention to the last election, I can
> definitely state that the election went seriously awry and the only
> people who seemed to have noticed--or cared--were a small number of
> voters who felt they were cheated.
>
> I do not believe the irregularities which affected the outcome were
> intentional. They were the result of a large field of candidates and
> inexperienced organizer.
>
> There was a known flaw in the ballots for the 4-year race. The names in
> the booklet and the chads on ballot card could easily be misaligned. This
> was discovered by voters who used the machines in City Hall during the
> absentee period, checked their ballot, and discovered their choice was
> recorded wrong. There were enough spoiled ballots that the City reprinted
> them for the general election. This, they felt, solved the problem.
>
> Given an analysis of the numbers (shown below) and the reports of
> individual experiences that I heard after the election, the City’s
> assumption may not have been correct.
>
> What disturbed me, and others, was that there were signs something was
> wrong during the vote count, but the people who were responsible for
> ensuring the election was fair--including the City Council--
> failed to investigate. Instead, the results were certified without
> question.
>
> Even the Lapwai election officials--with their city government in total
> disarray--noticed there was something wrong with their numbers and
> resolved the issues before they certified the results. Moscow's failure
> to do so is the issue we should be discussing.
>
> I struggled for the entire appeals period over how to respond to the
> outcome of the election. For a number of reasons--including not wanting
> to be labeled as a whiny Al Gore--I decided there was no point in
> publicly raising what would become a very contentious issue. There is no
> way to determine who actually won the third 4-year seat and the turmoil
> that were result from trying would do nothing to move this community
> forward.
>
> Instead, I privately suggested to the incoming administration that it
> conduct an open, public investigation of the election and taking steps to
> correct any discovered problems. Perhaps, now that the new Mayor and
> Council are settled into their offices, it is time to do that.
>
> Kit Craine
>
>
>
> RED FLAGS AND QUESTIONS
>
> 1) The alignment problem was discovered by voters who checked their
> ballots during absentee voting at City Hall. According to Stephanie
> Kalasz (on Wednesday November 2nd, 2005), approximately 160 votes were
> cast before the problem was noticed.
>
> That is:
>
> -- 3.95% of the ballots cast in a race with 0.57% difference between 3rd
> & 5th place.
> -- 5.4 times the number of votes between 3rd & 4th place. -- 5.4 times
> the votes between "Carscallen" and "Craine"--adjacent names on the list.
> Question: What happened to those ballots? Were they counted or thrown
> out?
>
> 2) A number of voters checked their ballots, found the wrong chad had
> been punched out, turned in the ballot, and received a new one. The
> number of ballots that were spoiled and replaced was not included in the
> results that were released to the public.
>
> Question: How many ballots were spoiled?
>
> 3) One person reported to me that she filed a written complaint at the
> polls. Others (experienced voters) reported that they had to ask election
> officials for help inserting the ballot in the slot and/or checking it.
>
> Question: How many complaints were there? How many voters reported
> confusion or needed help?
>
>
> 4) The votes that were publicly reported show a very close race for the
> third, fourth, and fifth finishers for the 4-year position. Three hundred
> six (306) ballots were overvotes in this race--ten times the difference
> in between 3rd & 4th and 4th & 5th places.
>
>
> MARGINS
> Place..............Votes..............% per Seat
> 3rd to 4th.........30.......................0.29
> 4th to 5th.........29.......................0.28
> 3rd to 5th.........59.......................0.57
>
> Question: Is there any pattern to the overvotes? Which precincts were
> they in? How many involved the third, fourth, and fifth place finishers?
>
> 5) The number of overvotes for this race were dramatically more than for
> the other two races. While one might expect a few more overvotes when the
> instructions to are to vote for three rather than one, eight to
> twenty-five times as many is cause for concern.
>
> OVERVOTES
> Race.....Overvotes.....% of Ballots Cast.....Seats.....% per Seat
> 4-Year......
> 306.....................7.54.................3..............2.52
> 2-Year........
> 12.....................0.30.................1..............0.30
> Mayor..........
> 4.....................0.10.................1..............0.10
> Question: See 4.
>
> 6) There were a large number of undervotes. Although these can be
> explained by people voting for fewer than three candidates, more than a
> third of the possible votes were in this category. That seems a little
> extreme.
>
> UNDERVOTES
> Race.....Overvotes.....% of Ballots Cast.....Seats.....% per Seat
> 4-Year.....
> 1495...................36.87.................3............12.29
> 2-Year.......
> 243.....................5.99.................1..............5.99
> Mayor.........
> 97.....................2.39.................1..............2.39
>
> Question: Were any of the undervotes due to a punch that did not displace
> a Chad?
>
> Kit Craine
>
> On Mar 9, 2006, at 9:49 AM, Art Deco wrote:
>
>> James, et al,
>>
>> There are other subscribers on this list who could give a less terse,
>> more informative analysis of the problems of the last City of Moscow
>> election than I briefly posted. I talked to at least two of them last
>> night. Their words would carry much more weight than mine, hence I
>> encourage them or others with the details to post.
>>
>> This information about the egregious defects in the last city election
>> is not a deep "state" secret although some of those involved might wish
>> it to be.
>>
>> The voting system needs to be fixed so that mistakes, cheating, and/ or
>> disenfranchisement have a much, much lower probability of occurring.
>> The place to start is on the local level. I hope the Moscow City
>> Council and the Latah County Commissioners have enough faith in the
>> democratic process to invest the time, effort, and resources to attempt
>> to provide for their constituents a near-to- perfect-as-possible voting
>> system. Soon.
>>
>> Without each voter's vote counting exactly as they intended, it is a
>> hypocritical farce to talk about choice and the democratic process. If
>> the numbers in the original post below are not a wake- up call, I am
>> afraid that the battle is already lost to apathy.
>>
>>
>> Wayne A. Fox
>> 1009 Karen Lane
>> PO Box 9421
>> Moscow, ID 83843
>>
>> (208) 882-7975
>> waf at moscow.com
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Reynolds"
>> <chapandmaize at hotmail.com>
>> To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 8:11 AM
>> Subject: [Vision2020] Wayne's election comment
>>
>>
>>> Morning Wayne,
>>>
>>> Could you elaborate on your accusation about the elections for Moscow
>>> City Council members being tainted? Do you think there was a deliberate
>>> attempt at fixing the results. I agree if we can't trust our local
>>> election results then that should be our first priority rather than
>>> fretting about the National elections.
>>>
>>> If we find someone cheating on the local level we could perhaps find a
>>> quick remedy.
>>>
>>> James Reynolds
>>> Moscow
>>>
>> ___________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> bbonte at moscow.com:
>>
>> Why even talk about fairness in national elections?
>>
>> In the last City of Moscow election between 360 and 520 ballots were
>> allegedly not even counted. Many that were counted were allegedly
>> miscounted. In my opinion, seats on the city council were stolen from
>> Craine and Carscallen.
>>
>> Until the sleepy electorate awakens and very loudly insists that systems
>> are
>> put into place to insure that every voter's vote is correctly sensed and
>> correctly tallied, it is foolish and hypocritical to speak of the "will
>> of
>> the people."
>>
>> If we can't insure fair, accurate elections on the local level, what
>> chance
>> is there of ever achieving them on the state and national level?
>>
>> A mourner of democracy lost,
>>
>> Wayne A. Fox
>> 1009 Karen Lane
>> PO Box 9421
>> Moscow, ID 83843
>>
>> (208) 882-7975
>> waf at moscow.com
>>
>> _____________________________________________________
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>
>
> _____________________________________________________
> List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the
> communities of the Palouse since 1994. http://www.fsr.net
> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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