Forcing Elections Supervisor to protect voter identity
Forcing Elections Supervisor to protect voter identity
Is the Herald in denial? Nothing in Friday’s or today’s Herald on the screwup of ballots by the Whatcom County Auditor. For a few hours Friday their website had a very small post which minimized the s
Is the Herald in denial? Nothing in Friday's or today's Herald on the screwup of ballots by the Whatcom County Auditor. For a few hours Friday their website had a very small post which minimized the seriousness of 9,211 ballots being mailed without any barcodes on them. The Auditor notified the Herald and other news media on Thursday - plenty of time for Friday's newspaper. But the editors choose to not print anything about this. Below was all they posted Fri morn. By the way, the barcodes were not 'misprinted'. They were missing.
On Friday afternoon, even this small notice online was deleted by the Herald editors. Today - Saturday - they printed nothing in the newspaper and posted nothing online. To the Herald, this is not news.
Yet on Friday afternoon, the Herald along with other news media, received notices from the Auditor's office that the error was much more serious. The Secretary of State got involved big time on Friday, virtually forcing Elections Supervisor Pete Griffin to revise his casual plan into a more structured plan that will protect voter identity. Late Friday afternoon the Auditor, Shirley Forslof, scheduled a special meeting of the Canvassing Board for 8:45 am Monday morning to review this plan on how to handle these 9,211 ballots that are missing barcodes. Yes, I will be there and will post here.
Let us hope the Herald wakes up in time for Sunday's paper. But keep in mind that except for some citizen activists - led by Marian Beddill - and support from this website, there would be no revised procedures, no involvement by the Secretary of State and no safeguard of voter privacy and ballot integrity. Pete Griffin was just going to have staff open envelopes and write numbers on ballots without proper controls. Pete Griffin got in his opinion of our involvement when he had to send out revised procedures Friday evening - he made them locked pdf files that we cannot print nor even copy the text off. Nice touch, Pete. There is more to this story and you can read Marian's post on the Black Box Voting website.
For voters with the defective ballots, fill them out as normal and mail them in as normal. The Auditor's office has the ability to process these with safeguards to your privacy and to make sure every vote is counted properly. And several citizens will be monitoring this process to make sure they do.
On Friday afternoon, even this small notice online was deleted by the Herald editors. Today - Saturday - they printed nothing in the newspaper and posted nothing online. To the Herald, this is not news.
Yet on Friday afternoon, the Herald along with other news media, received notices from the Auditor's office that the error was much more serious. The Secretary of State got involved big time on Friday, virtually forcing Elections Supervisor Pete Griffin to revise his casual plan into a more structured plan that will protect voter identity. Late Friday afternoon the Auditor, Shirley Forslof, scheduled a special meeting of the Canvassing Board for 8:45 am Monday morning to review this plan on how to handle these 9,211 ballots that are missing barcodes. Yes, I will be there and will post here.
Let us hope the Herald wakes up in time for Sunday's paper. But keep in mind that except for some citizen activists - led by Marian Beddill - and support from this website, there would be no revised procedures, no involvement by the Secretary of State and no safeguard of voter privacy and ballot integrity. Pete Griffin was just going to have staff open envelopes and write numbers on ballots without proper controls. Pete Griffin got in his opinion of our involvement when he had to send out revised procedures Friday evening - he made them locked pdf files that we cannot print nor even copy the text off. Nice touch, Pete. There is more to this story and you can read Marian's post on the Black Box Voting website.
For voters with the defective ballots, fill them out as normal and mail them in as normal. The Auditor's office has the ability to process these with safeguards to your privacy and to make sure every vote is counted properly. And several citizens will be monitoring this process to make sure they do.
