Rossi on the Rocks? Say "Yes!"

Who would have thought that Washington state politics could be so interesting? John Fund at the Wall Street Journal has a good overview of the goings-on in the Washington governor's race. Don't Count Rossi Out: A stolen election in Washington state? Not if bloggers can help it.

Much of the evidence uncovered on King County's flouting of election laws first appeared on Soundpolitics.com, a blog run by computer consultant Stefan Sharkansky. A former liberal who worked for Michael Dukakis in 1988, Mr. Sharkansky calls himself a "9/11 conservative mugged by reality." He uses his knowledge of statistics and probability to illustrate how unlikely some of the reported vote count changes are. He also uncovered the fact that in Precinct 1823 in downtown Seattle, 527, or 70%, of the 763 registered voters used 500 Fourth Avenue--the King County administration building--as their residential address. A full 61% of the precinct's voters only registered in the last year, and nearly all of them "live" at 500 Fourth Avenue. By contrast, only 13% of all of King County voters registered in 2004.

Not all of the voters at the county building are homeless or hard to find. A noted local judge and her husband have been registered at the county building for years. When I called her to ask why, she became flustered and said it was because of security concerns, specifically because "the Mexican mafia are out to get me." When I pointed out that her home address and phone number were easily found on the Internet and in property records, she ended the conversation by refusing to answer a question about whether she had improperly voted for state legislative candidates who would represent the county building but not her residence.

Problems with the Mexican mafia notwithstanding, it whole situation does seem a little ridiculous. It is difficult to call a system that allows for such anomalies "transparent" as such. As it exists today it seems possible to commit massive fraud in Washington with no one being the wiser.

Now, I don't have a dog in this fight, and Lord knows that when Rossi was beating Christine Gregoire you had Dems complaining about irregularities cutting the other direction. So what matter most to me is not the outcome as much as the process that is followed. What gets to me is how many people just shrug their shoulders and say "Well, that's just the way politics happen."

No, it isn't. There is a reason that we establish a set of laws that govern elections. If you follow an established process established before the fact you at least have a chance to minimize all of the shenanigans. Treating every election recount in an ad hoc fashion just encourages every side to do whatever they can get away with. Then you will have one side or the other taking pens to alter ("enhance") ballots, or mixing in unverified provisional ballots, or whatever else comes to mind.

It is the feeblest sort of sophistry to claim that it really doesn't matter since both sides engage in this sort of activity. A plurality of voters in this country do not identify themselves with either of the parties. Their interest as voters is not satisfied by one side or the other "winning" by any means necessary. The only way voting means anything is if the process is open and fair. By that standard, no matter who takes the oath of office not a single voter in Washington cast a meaningful ballot.