The Binary Circumstance

State Republicans asked King County for a list of all the people who voted in the last election and got a list with 3,500 less names than the number of votes that King County counted.

In all, King County tallied 899,199 votes on Nov. 2, while the preliminary list the county gave Republicans and others who had requested it credited only 895,660 people with voting.

"If they never explain this adequately, that’s a huge bombshell in this race," state GOP Chairman Chris Vance said.

Gregoire’s spokesman Morton Brilliant said Republicans were acting like children watching a batch of cookies baking, reaching in too early, then complaining that they’re still gooey.

How poetic.

While we’re on the subject of sticky fingers reaching too early, I’d like to point out a few more problems with this race.

As I noted in my previous post, Gregoire’s final margin of victory in the manual recount was 129 votes, less than half of Rossi’s original margin of victory.

Rossi won two out of three counts and Gregoire won one.  Her margin of victory was also less than Rossi’s average margin for the first two counts.  Rossi’s average margin of victory was 150.5 [(261+42)/2=151.5].  129 is less than 150.5 by 15%.

Not only did Rossi win two out of three counts, his margin of victory was higher than Gregoire’s one win.

To a rational mind, Rossi would have to be the winner because he won on more counts and by a larger average margin.

But alas, our legal system is not rational and our laws are not based on science. 

The law is written in such a way that if Gregoire won the manual recount by as little as one vote she would have to be declared the winner even if Rossi had a much larger margin of victory in the previous two counts.

That’s what happened in this race.  Gregoire’s lead in the manual recount was 15% less than Rossi’s average lead from the first two counts, yet she was still certified as the winner.

It does not make sense that a candidate who won by a higher average margin on two counts should lose to a candidate who won by a smaller margin on one count.

It’s easy to see how an election could be corrupted when all the losing party has to do is raise enough money to pay for a manual recount and then figure out a way to come up with just enough votes to come out one vote ahead.  That one vote would win them the election, even though the other candidate had won two tallies by a larger margin, as Dino Rossi did.

That one vote would also entitle them to get their money back and stick the taxpayers with the bill for the recount.

Just the fact that getting so few extra votes can win the highest office in the state and also get a refund on the cost of the recount is a HUGE incentive to pull strings where necessary to come up with those few extra votes.

For that reason and that reason alone, the Republicans are justified in taking a very close look at what happened in heavily Democratic King County.

Now I’m not saying that Gregoire and the Democrats stole the election, I’m just saying that I think it would probably be an easy thing to do in an election that was this close.  The fact is, they would only have to fabricate a few votes to do it.

Just a few extra votes and with one recount you can beat a candidate who beat you twice by a larger average margin and get your money back.

It’s easy to imagine any politicians, but specifically the Democrats in this case, in the back rooms whispering to each other, "Just a few extra votes."  They whisper to their loyalists in the county election department and to their friends who are judges ruling on ballot issues, "Just a few extra votes and the office, the power, and the money are all ours."

How many power-hungry politicians would not salivate in the presence of such a delicious temptation, the opportunity to flip an election for the highest office in the state with a handful of ballots, get your party’s money back and make history at the same time?  I dare say there are none.

Dino Rossi has challenged Christine Gregoire to a runoff election.  She has refused.

Given the bizarre circumstances of the governor’s race, I don’t find Rossi’s request unreasonable.  After all, using Christine Gregoire’s logic before she pulled ahead in the race, the election is still a tie.

I sent the following letter to the editor of the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Dear Editor:

Christine Gregoire is a hypocrite.

When Dino Rossi won the first vote count by 261 votes, she screamed, "It’s a tie."

When Rossi won the second vote by 42, she screamed even louder, "It’s a tie."

In the manual recount, when she was ahead by 10 votes before King County starting finding new ballots to count, she didn’t call it a tie, she said, "I’m the winner."

Now that she’s won by 129 votes, which is half of Rossi’s original margin of victory, she still says "I’m the winner."  How come it’s not a tie anymore?

If a 261 vote lead was a tie, then why isn’t a 129 vote lead a closer tie?

As for the cost, she had no problem forcing the taxpayers to pay for a sloppy manual recount.  Since when has any politician been sincerely concerned about forcing taxpayers to spend money on things they don’t need or want?

Yes, there should be a runoff election and King County should pay for it.  It was their  negligence and repeated "mistakes" that have called the legitimacy of this election into question.

Why does it feel like I’m living in the Ukraine?

Chip Gibbons

The death toll from the Indian Ocean quake and tsunami continues to rise.  From this MSNBC article is seems likely that it will easily top 100,000.

A U.N. official cited by Reuters said the toll from the Indonesia region of Aceh could alone reach 50,000-80,000.

"My mother, no word! My sisters, brothers, aunt, uncle, grandmother, no word!" yelled a woman at a makeshift morgue in Lhokseumawe, Indonesia. "Where are they? Where are they? I don’t know where to start looking."

Sri Lanka on Wednesday listed more than 21,700 people dead, and India reported more than 12,000 dead.

Thailand put its toll at more than 1,500. A total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.

The article has a fantastic animation that shows how the tsunami started at the epicenter of the 9.0 quake and moved over 3,000 miles across the Indian ocean to impact so many countries.

It is also expected that rotting bodies floating in the water will lead to diseases that will kill many more people.

Robert Bazell, NBC’s chief science correspondent, said the health risk for survivors is twofold.

“There is a shortage of clean water and an enormous amount of water left behind. That’s a recipe for disaster from diseases such as cholera and typhoid, which are spread by fecal material that gets into the water,??? he said. “Also, millions are homeless in a very wet situation; that’s a huge potential for the spread of respiratory diseases and other lesser-known diseases which can kill people, especially children.???

Meanwhile, the man-made disaster of the war in Iraq, took at least 29 more lives in addition to the tens of thousands that have already been lost.

A powerful explosion in a house in west Baghdad killed at least 29 people and wounded 18, police said Wednesday. They said the attack was an ambush staged by insurgents.

Police patrols were en route to a raid in Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood late Tuesday after an anonymous call tipped them about a suspected militant hideout in the neighborhood, an official in Ghazaliya police station said.

While Martha Stewart spends time in jail for lying about a "crime" for which she was never charged, recently ousted Fannie Mae executives Franklin Raines and Timothy Howard are getting serverance packages that will keep them rich for the rest of their lives.

Fannie Mae yesterday released details of the severance package for Franklin Raines and said the former chairman and chief executive would continue to receive a salary until mid-2005 despite being ousted amid an accounting scandal at the mortgage finance provider.

Mr Raines has told Fannie Mae that his retirement from the company is not effective until June 2005, entitling him to some $600,000 in salary in the next six months. He will also receive almost 2m vested stock options, $116,300 per month in pension payments for life, $8.7m in deferred compensation and lifetime medical and dental insurance. The figures were revealed in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It is unclear whether Mr Raines, who has already left the company, will receive a cash bonus for 2004. Fannie Mae said it was considering the impact of its pending financial statement, which could be in the order of $9bn, on executive bonuses.

[…]

In a sign that Fannie Mae and its regulator could have a battle on their hands over the payment of Mr Raines’s benefits, the company yesterday said it would consider its "legal and contractual obligations" on payment of compensation and benefits to its former CEO as well as Timothy Howard, the former chief financial officer, who resigned last week.

Mr Howard has also been allowed to retire, and will get about $84,000 in pay through January 2005 as well as stock options, monthly retirement payments worth $36,071 and other benefits. He will continue on the board until the end of January.

While the SEC was vigorously pursuing Martha Stewart for a transaction that made her $40,000 and did not defraud her stockholders or anybody else, Fannie Mae was using creative accounting to hide as much as $9 billion in losses according to regulators.  This allowed them to keep their shares artificially inflated and as well as the executive bonuses.