Liberty's Blog: Election Accuracy Is Important

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Election Accuracy Is Important

Democracy depends on elections. Efficiency and accuracy are the backbone of democracy. When election results aren't trustworthy the sytem breaksdown and chaos is the result. The 2000 debacle in Florida provides an example. Even though GWB clearly one in every recount challenge and the votes were retalleyed many times with GWB winning every time. Yet the results did vary and weren't consistant. Bush could not get away from the cheap shot of being called the "selected president". The defective Ukranian elections halted goverment and resulted in complete chaos until the revote, even after the closely monitored revote Victor Yanukovich still refuses to admit defeat, but how can we expect cleancut elections in emerging democracys when we in the United states can't get it right. The Washington Governor race is very close and there are some discrepencies.

There is a new wrinkle in the Washington gubernatorial election, and it happens to bear directly on the question of how important bloggers are or can be. The Seattle Times reports that Democrat Christine Gregoire was officially certified the winner of the election yesterday. But the Times also reports that a serious problem has arisen in King County, the Democratic bastion that gave Gregoire her margin of "victory":

The latest questions about King County came after the elections office released on Wednesday a list of all registered voters in the county, broken down by those who voted and those who didn't. The Republican Party, among other groups, had requested the information as part of its investigation of voting irregularities.
Conservative blogger Stefan Sharkansky pointed out the discrepancy Wednesday, and by yesterday it was Topic A among Rossi backers and Republican Party officials.

Party Chairman Chris Vance said it could be the "smoking gun" needed to overturn the election.

The number of King County ballots counted in the final tally was 899,199 — 3,539 more than the number of participating voters reported in the county's list.

County officials are trying to reconcile the discrepancy--yes, I'll bet they are!--and an updated voter list will be released late next week.

Elections need to be run so that even very close results are beyond doubt. Good elections need to be of the highest priority, at every level. Democracy depends on it, and we need to set the standards for the world.