Crossposted at Preemptive Karma
Yesterday at Sound Politics blog, Stefan Sharkansky opines over Republican claims of 1000+ felons voting in the November 2004 election.
Sharkansky cites a Seattle PI story quoting Democratic lawyer Jenny Durkin as saying the GOP will have to prove that the felons voted for Gregiore in sufficient enough numbers as to push the election to her, away from Rossi. Rossi's spokesperson Mary Lane, appears flustered in the piece, in my opinion. But Sharkansky of course spins it by namecalling Durkin and ignorning any actual substance.
(more below the fold)
Also cited in the Sound Politics piece is
book review of John Fund's tome, Stealing Elections: How Vote Fraud Threatens Democracy. The review was written by Paul Froehlich, GOP Congressman from Illinois' 56th Congressional District. The review points out that 68% of the felons who voted in the 2000 election in Florida were registered as Democrats.
For Sharkansky, this is proof that Rossi won because felons registered as Democratic in Florida means they're voting Democratic.
Pssst....Stephan, which Presidential candidate won in Florida in 2000 despite Democratic registrations vastly outnumbering Republican?
This entire line of "reasoning" is ridiculous. The counties in Washington can only purge felons from the voter rolls when they get the information from the courts. There's apparently supposed to be a statewide database but the legislature has failed to fund it (Republicans don't like to raise taxes to cover expenditures, after all). It's also apparent that many of those who voted illegally honestly believed that they were entitled. This whole notion that there was some sort of conspiracy to allow people who knew they shouldn't be voting is tin foil hat stuff.
But in the end it all boils down to the fact that Rossi chose to make the felon vote the crux of his legal contest. Rossi's people (and the State GOP) are complaining that taking affadavits from felons is a nonstarter because a felon can't be trusted to swear to the truth. Too damn bad. The law is the law. Rossi must prove that enough illegal votes went to Gregiore to tip the election to her (RCW 29A.68.110).
Mary Lane complains that the convicted felons can't be placed on the stand because they're criminals.
Maybe you guys should have thought of that before you hung your contest on the illegal felon vote, Mary.