The Senescent Man

The Rossi - Gregoire race in Washington state is getting hairier and hairier. Here's an up to the minute update from Sound Politics:

The Washington State Republican Party says that the Ukraine County Democrats are changing the rules:

This morning the King County Elections Department announced to ballot counters that it is changing the rules it had previously set on counting votes. King County’s established guidelines had said that if there were marks in the bubbles for both Rossi and Gregoire, the vote would be considered an “over vote” and would not be counted because the voter had voted for both candidates. Now, however, the Elections Department is going to send these ballots to the Democrat-dominated canvassing board for review.

The WSRP release links to a graphic from the Ukraine County elections training manual that illustrates what an overvote is. Nevertheless, the plain standards in the manual are being thrown out the window in favor of the "human judgment" of Ukraine County's Democrat-dominated canvassing board. State GOP chairman Chris Vance wonders whether the Democrats might be changing the rules now because Rossi appeared to be gaining in the recount....

...[And the] explanation for the 573 magical mystery ballots[?] Please put down your beverage.

1) These are all validly registered voters.

2) For some reason, and Logan could not say what that reason is, these validly registered voters' signatures were not in the computer database where the signatures are supposed to be kept. But he believes their original signatures would be in the paper files.

3) About 100 of these voters were sent letters informing them that their signatures were not up-to-date in the database, asking them to update their signatures. However, there were not supposed to be any consequences for a voter who failed to update their signature. The letters were sent only to "expedite the process" and prevent the county workers from having to look for the voters' signatures in the paper files.

4) Even if such a voter failed to update their signature, they were sent a ballot anyway, without ever being told (until six weeks after the election, and only then by serendipity) that their ballot would not be accepted because the database did not contain their signature.

Got it?

It makes you wonder what other idiotic procedures they have in place, and what other errors they're making and not discovering, or discovering and not reporting.

The Senescent poll monitor will keep you posted,...