GOP Seeks Criminal Records (WA Gov Race)

[merwin]

GOP seeks criminal records
By David Postman
Seattle Times chief political reporter

OLYMPIA — Republicans want a copy of the state's criminal-records database to compare it with the names of the nearly 3 million people who voted in the governor's race, as party attorneys search for felons who cast illegal ballots.

Yesterday, attorneys for Dino Rossi and the Republican Party asked the State Patrol for an electronic copy of that database, the Washington State Identification System. The list contains more than 1.2 million records. Republicans are hoping to do a quicker and less expensive search than what is available to the general public.

The records include names, birth dates, charges and outcomes of the cases, including felonies and some misdemeanors. Republicans are looking for felons because felons are not allowed to vote unless their voting rights have been restored.

The move is part of Rossi's legal challenge to the election of Democrat Christine Gregoire, who was sworn in as governor Wednesday. Rossi, who lost the final recount by 129 votes, filed suit last week in Chelan County Superior Court asking that the election be thrown out and a new one held.
...


Now can they do that legally?

[rsmith6621]

1. It Is Just Plain Fun To

Watch ROSSI and the state REPUGS make asses out of themselves....


I wonder if they are aware that FELONs are also REPUGS to.

[Ganja Ninja]

12. and there's no way you can tell how someone voted from ...

a felons list or even if they voted at all.

They are a desperate bunch aren't they.

[louis-t]

21. They'd try to deduct any felons who voted

from Dem count. That is the only reason they could possibly have for wanting a list.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

37. all in order to make a "re-vote" case

if anyone will listen to them.

[ps1074]

26. It's not about that

It's not about the governorship anymore. They want to portrait themselves and Rossi as victims... The good guys that got cheated... So next time Rossi runs (2006 senate race) they will remind the voters in WA that they were cheated last time and he deserves the senate seat.

[mutus_frutex]

2. Such hypocrites..

What I wonder is: Where are the Democrats? Why aren't they pouncing the WA Republicans and showing their hypocrisy? Politicians in this country can be so lame...

[claudiajean]

3. Yes. In Washington State they can.

Criminal Records are an open public record, as is Voter Registration.

The only item that is at issue is whether the GOP can have them in a super-fast-tracked fashion, and whether the Washington State patrol is required to provide the records electronically, rather than on hard copy, which is the standard format.

I dislike the GOP, but this will be an interesting test of Washington's public information sunshine laws.

[merwin]

11. If hard copy is the normal method, then I sure hope tthey provide

hard copy to them :-) Sounds like something that a judge here might do.

[davidinalameda]

4. why didn't they do this while Rossi had the lead

just wondering

or even before the election was held

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[fob]

15. Huh? Didn't Dino Lossiman have a 42 vote lead at one point?

Why didn't he say AT THAT TIME, "Look with an election this close I don't want to win through fraudulent votes. I request a closer look at the public records and any votes by someone inelligible should be stricken. If that causes me to lose then so be it, but at least the winner will have the integrity of the election to support their victory"

No one had to "expect" it to be that close, it already WAS that close.

[keopeli]

29. Sorry, rbpierce, you're incorrect.

Everyone expected the race to be this close just as soon as the first count came in. The right to challenge individual votes expires in the interest of fairness. There are other ways to challenge an election once the counting has been done.

[iamjoy]

5. Amazing....

First they wanted a revote. Humphff. Wonder how many Republicans would have supported a revote after the 2000 disaster in Florida. Now, they want to purge felons after the fact? Well, let's just do that in all races across the country.

Democrats point to what happened in 2000 Florida & 2004 Ohio and say that we need election reform, even if we don't expect to overturn the results.

Republicans just want to overturn the results of what happened in Washington State gov. election but not reform.

Interesting...

[Ready4Change]

6. Sour grapes.

Isn't that what Repubs called Democratic objections to Ohio in Congress last week?

[Name removed]

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[gratuitous]

14. But their deadline for challenging individual voters has passed

And right now, they're throwing the political version of a football Hail Mary pass, hoping to gin up enough public support for a "do over" vote that is sanctioned neither by the law nor precedent.

It is rather humorous to watch outmaneuvered Republicans flail away for a change. They would have had a LOT more credibility if they'd been pursuing these remedies in a timely manner after the preliminary count favored their guy. To try these things now looks like the sour grapes that it is. The clock has run out, there are no flags on the field, the referees have left the field, and the trophy has been awarded. See ya next time, Republicans!

[TahitiNut]

20. Isn't it convenient that they only discovered their complaints ...

... after the manual recount? They didn't discover them before the election. They didn't discover them after the initial returns. They didn't discover them after the machine recount.

Sooooo convenient. Never mind that all their "complaints" have to do with who was able to vote and not who was disenfranchised. Fuck 'em. They had four years to invest their efforts in a fair and just process instead of obstruct and seek ways to privately profit from such efforts. Fuck 'em. They have a Governor far more considerate of everyone's rights and needs than they'd otherwise have. Fuck 'em.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

31. "They have some valid complaints."

Seems reasonable to me. Disclaimer: I'm not a WA resident.

Pass the Kool-Aid, please.

[jasop]

35. The Democrats have WAY more "Valid complaints"

about the national election. So why is it only valid, or a concern when its Republicans making the claims? I really want to know why.

[merwin]

38. It's because of the percentage of difference. If Gregoire had won by

like 10,000 votes, this wouldn't be an issue

[BR_Parkway]

36. But how are they going to tell if some of these folks voted?

Match up the actual poll books? I would laugh my ass off if it caught up with more R than D folks. And for the next couple of years, the ReThugs have this list to play with?

Any mention of the cost to be paid for providing this material? I remember having to pay to have a recount (even though there was supposed to be a refund)

[skypilot]

13. A bit off topic.

This has been bothering me for awhile now, but isn't that an incorrect usage of the phrase "sour grapes"? As I've always understood it "sour grapes" is when someone justifies giving up on trying to attain something, or tries to alleviate his sense of defeat, by claiming that the "prize" probably wasn't all that great or worth having to begin with. The Repubs have been throwing around the words "sour grapes" to try to further humiliate Dems and if I'm correct, they've been misusing the phrase. I just don't want to see Dems picking up the Repubs misuse of language.

[KayLaw]

17. Yes

You're right.

[skypilot]

23. Thanks.

This has been really bothering me because I've heard a number of Democrats say that John Kerry shouldn't do or say anything to contest the election results because he'd be accused of "sour grapes". It bothered me so much because I suspected that this was a misusage and, more importantly, it was something that had been picked up by Democrats from the disingenuous, language-mangling Republicans. Can't have that.

[TankLV]

43. Aesop's fables.

Involved a wolf trying to jump to get some grapes on a vine that were too high.

Good catch.

[Megahurtz]

8. Oh give me a break.

:eyes:

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AP]

16. The secretary of state is a Republican, right?

Say 200-300 felons did vote who shouldn't have. What's going to happen?

They're not going to get a new election, I presume.

They can hate on the Secretary of State for not doing a good enough job keeping felons from voting. That would be interesting.

And then what happens if they start looking into these fellons on a case-by-case basis and discover that they should all have had their voting rights restored?

I think it would also be funny as consequence of this for the Democrats to become really diligent about restoring voting rights for fellons.

[merwin]

19. The repubs are going after him as well :-)

He's a fair and honest Republican, which is very odd nowadays :)

[Jane Austin]

30. What if the felon voters were White Supremecist Gang Members?

Think they would vote for Gregoire?

I was under the impression that some of our prisons are breeding grounds for Neo-Nazis, white supremecists, and other grotesque philosphies.

[mattclearing]

18. Talk about some Sore-Losermen...

Anytime the Republicans talk about trying to change the result, we'll have to point to this mess.

[newscott]

22. Does everybody notice that once again

The Republicans are about TAKING AWAY votes and not actually counting them.

[wabeewoman]

24. My hope is that the voters

are seeing Rossi for what he is. You can bet if they had lost the first two counts and won the final count they would be saying 'get over it, we're following the LAW' which is what the dems did. I have no sympathy for Rossi and I was prepared to accept him as gov if he won by 42 votes. That's the system...unless you are a repug.

[merwin]

25. I completely agree. He is making a very bad name for himself.

[keopeli]

27. This is wonderful news!

Follow me here:

WA State had a complete and certifiable election, following the law exactly with a count, recount, and manual recount. The result was razor thin. In a normal democracy, noone would begrudge the loser considering their rights and taking any grievance to court for a fair judgement. The likelyhood of the loser succeeding in getting a new vote is very small, but always a possibility in a Democracy.

This is the way vote counting should be done with our current system.

NOW, consider FL 2000. What was different? The difference is that in 2000 the Repubs (winners) stopped the recount process (which is exactly what the Repubs in WA were trying to do while they were ahead). Noone even batted an eye, because it had been done in 2000. But my home state of Washington did not capitulate to the Repubs like the disgraced supreme court of the us.

What else is different from 2000? The losers are fighting! Doesn't everyone agree that the loser should have the right to bring any valid complaint to court? Yet, this is not what happened in 2000. The reason that Gore did not fight can be argued (being magnanomous is the nice reson...being party to a coup is the ugly reason...there are many more possibilities), but by refusing to fight in any meaningful way, he set a TERRIBLE precedent. As a result, the question has stood unanswered: What should happen when an election is so close that it is within the margin of error? What rights should the winner/loser have? Who should the mitigator be? What action is best for resolving the dispute if it is found to have merit?

The fact is that the Repubs are MUCH better at manipulating government than the Dems...so much so that it is embarrasing. I have my theories as to why this is, but suffice to say that I do not thing the Dems are doing anything wrong...just stupid.

So, the wonderful news is that, by fighting this close election in WA, Rossi is setting precedent. No matter what the outcome, a pattern will be established for how to deal with a close election once the counting is finished. With any luck, my home state will make good choices and other places will have an honorable standard to follow when the same thing happens to them. Hell, we may even become the poster child for voting laws! We're re-writing them all right now anyway!

My 2 cents.


Citizen-At-Large

[merwin]

28. That is true. There is a good side to all of this.

The down side, however, is that they might succeed in throwing chaos into the mix in the WA government with a revote.

[candy331]

32. So they never give up, a lesson the Democrats could learn. n/t

[grumpy old fart]

33. Even if they find ineligible felons who voted, what does that get them?

The time for challenge is legally over. Just as the Arnebeck suit (if refiled) will only be about reform, the WA issue cannot now force a re-vote. Can it?

[merwin]

34. Theoretically, they could get a revote.

Unprecidented things have happened in the past, such as the Supreme Court deciding that Bush won Florida in 2000.

[allalone]

39. at the rate repubs get indicted

it shouldn't be too hard.

[WhiteTara]

40. Would that the DNC fought so hard! eom

[Jack Rabbit]

41. I thought Republicans were into golf

This sounds more like a fishing expedition than golf.

[farmbo]

42. Sorry...Blackwell set the GOP precedent in Ohio...

Release no records, make no statements under oath, send state lawyers out to fight every discovery request, stonewall, stonewall, stonewall...until the clock runs out.

[DeepModem Mom]

44. Seconding posts 32 & 40 -- the opposition fights, never gives up...

a lesson we Dems could learn.