Washington State: GOP begins its election contest case
The Spokane Spokesman-Review reports: Washington Republicans began painting a picture this morning of two different ways the 2004 election was run.
One way was the efficient and well-managed approach in Chelan County, personified by its Auditor Evelyn Arnold. Here in Chelan County, she said, every absentee ballot is counted by hand, and a single lost ballot can be missed in the accounting system and found by a search.
The other way is the system in King County, which lawyers for the GOP have previously described as rife with “bungling bureaucrats.” Those lawyers are attempting to personify that system by Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens, who was asked a series of questions about ballot problems ranging from felons who voted and tallies that don’t match. ...
But under cross-examination from Jenny Durkan, an attorney for the state Democratic Party, Arnold said that while her computer system was similar to King County’s, the scale is far different. It has slightly more than 29,000 ballots, mostly voted by mail, and only seven poll sites. King County has more than 646,000 voters, and more than 500 poll sites.
The more poll sites a county has, the more potential for problems, Arnold agreed.
Even in a small county like Chelan, elections officials weren’t aware that some felons had registered to vote even though they did not have their rights restored, she added. -- GOP: Elections rife with 'bungling bureaucrats'