Washington Recount (Update)
The inevitable has apparently happened. Because King County was the last county to finalize their hand recount, the Democrats knew precisely how many votes they would need to overcome Dino Rossi's margin of victory, and they have managed to find almost precisely the right number of votes, yielding (supposedly) an 8-vote victory for Christine Gregoire. Litigation will ensue, with Democrats claiming the supposed high ground because Gregoire was in the lead after the supposedly more accurate hand recount.
I am not going to dwell on my previous posts' point that none of these recounts (or the original count, for that matter) are "accurate." Machines aren't that accurate, the people feeding the ballots into the machines aren't that accurate, and people doing hand recounts are never going to be accurate to within a handful of votes out of 2.9 million cast. As I've said before, it can't happen, and forget about the politics or "voter fraud" -- it can't happen as a matter of mathematics, physics, biology, whatever. Not on this planet, not with human beings running things.
No, the important point is... how do we fix our political system so that these types of shenannigans don't happen again? We probably can't -- again, the human factor will mean that the best laid plans of mice and men etc. etc. -- but here's one solution that will solve the specific problem that Washington faced and Republicans faced in Illinois in the 1960 election between JFK and Nixon. The specific problem is that when politicians are permitted to "hold out" precincts or counties until all the other precincts or counties have reported, they will be in a position to know how many votes they need to win, and the "moral hazard" of that situation means that interested parties who want to win will either commit fraud (find ballots, create ballots, lie about the ballots that exist), or else will unwittingly slant their judgments about what counts as a vote (hanging chads, etc.). The specific solution is that all counties should be required to report at the same time on the same day. That way, none of the counties or precincts will "know" what number of votes their side needs to win. Alternatively, it could be a requirement that the tallies for counties that report early will be kept secret (you could hire an accounting firm like the Oscars do). Still another alternative that isn't as good: you could have a random selection of the order in which counties will report.
I think the Washington governor's election is being stolen. But I also think that the result was inevitable once it became obvious that King County would be permitted to report last. Letting a Democratic County report last in a hand recount in a close election where the election officials (Democratic) know how many votes they need to win is like leaving your front door open with a neon sign flashing in your window saying "WE'RE LEAVING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS... PLEASE ROB US!" Human beings being what they are, it was all predictable.
I am not going to dwell on my previous posts' point that none of these recounts (or the original count, for that matter) are "accurate." Machines aren't that accurate, the people feeding the ballots into the machines aren't that accurate, and people doing hand recounts are never going to be accurate to within a handful of votes out of 2.9 million cast. As I've said before, it can't happen, and forget about the politics or "voter fraud" -- it can't happen as a matter of mathematics, physics, biology, whatever. Not on this planet, not with human beings running things.
No, the important point is... how do we fix our political system so that these types of shenannigans don't happen again? We probably can't -- again, the human factor will mean that the best laid plans of mice and men etc. etc. -- but here's one solution that will solve the specific problem that Washington faced and Republicans faced in Illinois in the 1960 election between JFK and Nixon. The specific problem is that when politicians are permitted to "hold out" precincts or counties until all the other precincts or counties have reported, they will be in a position to know how many votes they need to win, and the "moral hazard" of that situation means that interested parties who want to win will either commit fraud (find ballots, create ballots, lie about the ballots that exist), or else will unwittingly slant their judgments about what counts as a vote (hanging chads, etc.). The specific solution is that all counties should be required to report at the same time on the same day. That way, none of the counties or precincts will "know" what number of votes their side needs to win. Alternatively, it could be a requirement that the tallies for counties that report early will be kept secret (you could hire an accounting firm like the Oscars do). Still another alternative that isn't as good: you could have a random selection of the order in which counties will report.
I think the Washington governor's election is being stolen. But I also think that the result was inevitable once it became obvious that King County would be permitted to report last. Letting a Democratic County report last in a hand recount in a close election where the election officials (Democratic) know how many votes they need to win is like leaving your front door open with a neon sign flashing in your window saying "WE'RE LEAVING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS... PLEASE ROB US!" Human beings being what they are, it was all predictable.
posted by PDB at 7:02 AM
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