Governor's Race

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While I've been trying to force myself to remember what happens to alcohols in the presence of aqueous sulfuric acid, Kos diarist N in Seattle has been paying attention to the WA Governor's race. Here's his summary of the race as of Tuesday, with 32 of 39 counties reporting:

...The composite story through Tuesday is that, even with over four-fifths of all counties reporting, only about 32% of Washington's gubernatorial ballots have been recounted. A mere 13% of the recounted ballots were cast in counties where Christine Gregoire outpolled Dino Rossi. Some 439 new for-a-candidate votes have been tallied -- 184 for Gregoire, 248 for Rossi, 7 for Bennett. If we accept all numbers shown on the Secretary of State website, including the clearly-erroneous ballot count from Cowlitz County, the new-found vote rate is now 4.8/10000 ballots. From that value, we can estimate that the total number of new-found votes for a candidate might be 1375. That's down quite a bit from Monday (5.8/10000, 1687) and the weekend (7.1/10000, 2058). However, this estimate doesn't take into account the several hundred improperly-invalidated ballots from King County.

Wait-and-see remains the only rational outlook on the Washington gubernatorial race.

Here's his summary of Thursday's results, with Skagit, Thurston, and Whatcom Counties reporting in. Which is to say that only 40% of the states votes have been officially recounted to date. So waiting (patiently or not) remains the only option.

What Are You Doing? Tell us!

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What's going on in your neck of the woods? If you're affiliated with your district Party, with a local grassroots effort, or anything at all that could be considered a Democratic Party related program activity, please write me so I can let everybody know.

Are you canvassing, planning a get-together, raising money for something, trying to organize around a local issue? Tell us. Please. You are the party, and without either your input or a bustling full-time staff of dedicated reporters, the activities of Democrats in King County are going to go underreported. More importantly, other King County Democrats looking for ways to help build the Party might be looking for something to do, and you, yes YOU, might know about the perfect thing for them to get involved in.

Send all submissions to natasha.the[at]gmail[dot]com.* Please include your phone number, and if relevant, the contact information for any organization involved so we can check the details. Not keen on posting any prank announcements for obvious reasons.

We'll retain editorial discretion about what to run, but in general I expect that King County Democrats have pretty good judgement about what announcements should make the cut.

Thanks in advance.

* Email address modified with [at] replacing the '@' symbol, and [dot] replacing the '.' in the actual address. Unaltered email addresses put out on the web can get flooded with inbox spam, and the little monsters don't seem to have gotten hold of this one yet.

Recount Rally

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Several dozen demonstrators lined opposite corners in front of Dino Rossi’s Bellevue campaign headquarters Sunday. From a block away, the blue and yellow Rossi signs on one side clearly distinguished his supporters from the diverse and mostly handmade signs urging a full count that includes improperly set aside ballots in King County. I talked to several Rossi supporters, and then moved over to the other side to talk with recount supporters, including some of those whose ballots were in dispute.

At issue, primarily, are 573 absentee ballots which were turned in properly and whose authenticity is not generally in dispute. They were wrongfully set aside because though signatures were on file for the voters in question, those signatures were not in the county’s electronic file. The ballots in question are still sealed in their signed absentee voting envelopes. It wasn’t until King County Councilman Larry Phillips discovered his own name on the list of rejected ballots that the mistake was discovered.

On Rossi’s side, two of the five demonstrators I interviewed stated that Rossi had “won twice.” Another, Michael D. went one farther, saying that it “seems like Republicans have to win three times.” Of the disputed ballots, Michael said “that’s what happens… [it] occurs in every election.” A number of them brought up an issue of military ballots that were mailed back late and weren’t counted, suggesting that if those weren’t counted, these other ballots shouldn’t be counted either.

Rossi’s supporters were led in chants by several campaign volunteers wearing sweatshirts whose fronts said “Rossi Recount 2004” and whose backs said “Re-Git R Dun.” The sleeves were printed with the number “261,” the number of votes separating Rossi and Gregoire after the first count.

Rossi supporter Marilyn T. told me that “[she goes] by the law regarding voting,” explaining that the State Supreme Court had said it was a retabulation, and it was important to follow the law to avoid confusion. She said a vote was from a citizen who followed instructions and turned in their ballot at the proper time and place, while a “ballot is merely a form.” About the 573 ballots in question she said that the county was accountable for them, but they were “not included before the election was certified,” and that the late military ballots should be counted if they were included. She said the “court ruled there was not a statewide standard,” but that the canvassing boards set the standards.

Maria Webster said of the 573 ballots, “I don’t believe in them. …They are not legal right now. It’s a recount of the votes that have already been counted.”

Paul Morris of Kirkland came up to talk to me when he saw that I’d taken an interest in his sign, and brought it over to make it easier for me to see his message: “Dems – Vote Late – Vote Often” Explaining his sign, he said that “if the majority of those [ballots] that are found are Democrats, they must have voted late.” About the 573 ballots, he said that “every vote should have been counted before midnight on the 2nd,” and that it was the King County Election Board’s problem. He said that they didn’t do anything wrong, but that they should “go over to King County and raise the roof.” *

Morris went on to say of the recount supporters that “just like any liberal would, they think they’re forgiven for everything they do wrong.” He said that the “liberal left” of Seattle was asking for late ballots to be counted, and that “they’re counting dead people’s ballots.” He said the demonstrators were probably mostly from Seattle because people on the Eastside were more conservative.

I went looking for a recount supporter from Seattle, and was able to find one. Martha J. pointed out to me that there were “no Christine Gregoire signs on [the demonstrators’] side of the road.” She said she was “making a statement that there’s a principle here that’s more important than who gets to be governor… Democracy is more important than who gets elected at any given moment.” Pointing to a sign held by a young teenage girl in pink sweat pants, she said that if a police officer was present they might ask about the sign saying “Dead people don’t vote,” which “could very easily be interpreted as a threat.” She said the Rossi supporters “act like they’re still campaigning.”

Martha J. was standing right next to Heinz Hecht of Bellevue, whose sign read “Count every vote.” He said that according to the signs and chants, Dino Rossi won twice, but “last time I looked, the Secretary of State had yet to certify anything but a recount.” He said you couldn’t win anything until the election was certified. Of the people standing across the road, he said “apparently their candidate is more important than counting all the votes. I find that objectionable.”

Jack and Diane Oxford of Enumclaw were demonstrating because their ballots hadn’t been counted. Diane Oxford explained that this election was the first time they’d voted absentee, and that they had walked their ballots to the precinct they’ve voted at for around 20 years. Their son, who also voted absentee that day, had wanted to hand in his ballot in person so they all decided to go. His vote was counted, but theirs weren’t. She said their votes were questioned because there was no electronic record, even though they’d registered quite some time ago. She said that it “really doesn’t have anything to do with party lines, it has to do with the right to vote. At least for me.”

Eileen Dunihoo of Shoreline was there because her son, Daniel Mair, had one of the 573 uncounted ballots. She said that he’d voted absentee since at least 2000 with no previous problems from his current home in the Czech Republic. On the 15th of November, Dunihoo said a letter was received asking for signature confirmation that had to be back the next day. Then a week ago, the said the election officials said they never received the ballot, even though the family had seen Mair’s name in the online list. Dunihoo said that her son voted on time via registered mail.

Greg Ellis of Bellevue carried a sign that said “Count All Our Votes.” He said he was “one of the 573 that supposedly they did not have a signature on file [for].” He’d been a registered voter for three years, and had voted at a polling place before. This election was the first time he voted absentee, saying that he’d been travelling a lot for work and hadn’t even got back to town until the day before. Ellis said he’d requested an absentee ballot, but because it had never arrived, he filled out and turned in an absentee ballot in person at the King County elections office in Seattle the Saturday before the election. He added that “they say they don’t have a signature on file, but I had to show them my drivers license to get the ballot,” so election officials must have known who he was.

At about 4pm, the recount demonstrators decided they’d made their point and packed it in. The Rossi supporters sent a contingent over to the newly vacant corner and cheered like they’d just successfully stormed a hill. The street was empty of passersby, traffic at the intersection was nearly nonexistant, and the only people within earshot were a few reporters and the last of the demonstrators heading home.

* King County's ballots weren't counted the first time until several days after the election because 83% of the county's million plus voters cast a ballot. Further, considering that this county is a deep blue dot in the middle of a lot of red, the odds of a majority of the 573 ballots being anything other than Democratic could charitably be described as slim. There are at present no credible reports of dead people attempting to vote in King County.

Fighting For Social Security

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The Alliance for Retired Americans thinks that Florida Congressman Allen Boyd's endorsement of social security privatization is wildly irresponsible. I'd agree with that assessment, but how to back it up?

Social Security isn't the most interesting topic to anyone who isn't on it (amazing how much more fascinating it becomes when people retire), but Americans have grown up for a long time now to expect it to be there for them when the day comes. I remember the first time I got a Social Security statement outlining my expected benefits at some point in the distant future based on my payroll taxes to date. I thought, 'cool, I've got a pension.' A little bit extra to make sure my family would never end up footing the whole bill for my advanced old age, even if everything goes wrong between now and retirement. It was comforting.

That little bit of comfort, however, is about to be wiped away if the Republican leadership gets to add private accounts to the system. I also remember being glad after my California dotcom employer went belly-up that I'd put my savings in my savings account instead of following my friends onto one the ubiquitous e-trading services. Several of them ended up completely wiped out, most of them lost their proverbial shirts compared to their original investments, while I walked away with a savings account that saw me through a very lean couple of years. I attribute this not to savvy on my part, but to a healthy respect for my own ignorance.

I knew I didn't know enough about investing to get into the game, and at the time, I was too busy to spend enough time learning about it properly. In terms of outcome, I didn't end up wildly well off which I might have done if I were a very smart investor, but neither did I end up destitute which I might have done if I were the type of investor that the vast majority of people seem to be. For me, with my lack of stockmarket know-how, not being destitute is a reasonable outcome. Considering that the most likely outcome for retirees anywhere in the world without a social safety net is, in fact, destitution, the guarantee of a minimum standard that mostly keeps retirees warm, dry, and fed is a better outcome than the majority of people would be able to get on their own.

Or to sum up: Social Security is a tax we pay to keep our collective grandparents from starving in the streets.

But getting back to backing up support for Social Security, different arguments work better for different situations. I have the luxury of an easily persuadable audience here, but that isn't always the case when we go talk to people out in the Big Room. So to help me help you to make this argument, I yield the floor:

As to the importance of making our case, Digby explains how the parties developed their 'hard' and 'soft' images, and then outlines exactly how to fight for what you want when you're out of power. He then reminds us that people have been hearing that Republicans want to destroy Social Security for far longer than they've been hearing about any so-called crisis.

Nathan Newman explains that future wage increases would offset future benefit increases, particularly if they were accompanied by raising the $87K cutoff on the payroll tax. Speaking of which, remind people loudly and often that payroll tax only applies to income below that ceiling, while at the same time applying to incomes that fall below the minimum threshold for federal income tax.

Max Sawicky says that buying into the argument of permanent shortfall is a loser from the get go, why it doesn't make sense to borrow now to cover possible expenses 40 years from now, and how Clinton era congressional Democrats held the line against benefit cuts by leveraging Republicans' fear of standing for re-election against people who had opposed benefit cuts.

The DCCC blog seems to get it, pointing out an article on a stalwart longtime defender of Social Security, and that Democrats are starting to get with the message that there is no crisis. They also note that Democratic goodwill is running low for talks with the White House on Social security, but I have to wonder what exactly Bush has to do before elected Democrats realize that the goodwill in question is entirely unrequited?

Seeing the Forest on how sloppy journalism perpetuates the myth that Social Security is in crisis.

ThreeHegemons describes what privatizing their national pension plan did to Argentina. The NY Times' economist Paul Krugman elaborates further on where the money goes when you privatize, also going back to the Argentine example. From Krugman:

...Once you realize that privatization really means government borrowing to speculate on stocks, it doesn't sound too responsible, does it? But the details make it considerably worse.

First, financial markets would, correctly, treat the reality of huge deficits today as a much more important indicator of the government's fiscal health than the mere promise that government could save money by cutting benefits in the distant future.

After all, a government bond is a legally binding promise to pay, while a benefits formula that supposedly cuts costs 40 years from now is nothing more than a suggestion to future Congresses. Social Security rules aren't immutable: in the past, Congress has changed things like the retirement age and the tax treatment of benefits. If a privatization plan passed in 2005 called for steep benefit cuts in 2045, what are the odds that those cuts would really happen?

Second, a system of personal accounts, even though it would mainly be an indirect way for the government to speculate in the stock market, would pay huge brokerage fees. Of course, from Wall Street's point of view that's a benefit, not a cost. ...

Kevin Drum echoes Matt Yglesias in explaining how vitally important it is to make it clear that there is no Social Security crisis, something you probably didn't realize that you already know. President Bush, meanwhile, doesn't want to talk about it.

Matt's argument:

...I'm not sure the older liberals who run the show quite understand how overwhelmingly important it is to keep the "there is no crisis" message front and center in the Social Security debate. Most of the young people I know -- including myself until very recently -- have been taken in by a decades-long effort on behalf of privatizers into believing that Social Security is in "crisis," and that if we do nothing the system will "go bankrupt" before we retire, meaning that the system will somehow collapse and we won't get any benefits.

If you approach the issue from inside that frame, then no amount of cavailing about benefit cuts or "risky" stock market transactions is going to get you anywhere. A smaller benefits package and a stock portfolio that may or may not pay off looks like a really good deal compared to a bankrupt pension plan that gives you nothing. Once you understand that even if we do nothing whatsoever to fix Social Security and the Trustees' overly pessimistic predictions come true, the system will still have enough money to pay my generation more in real terms then current retirees get, everything looks different. Bush is offering us a guarantee of lower benefits and $2 trillion in debt to forestall the possibility that benefits will need to be lowered sometime in the 2040s. That's a terrible deal in a straightforward way. But only if you try and see the truth: There is no crisis. If you can't make people see that, everything else becomes pretty irrelevant.

Have you ever believed that Social Security was already in such a crisis that you'd never get anything from it anyway? I know I used to. Realizing that makes it easy to understand how important it is to counter this, though maybe you still need convincing that you aren't alone in having fallen prey to disinformation.

From the article above that the DCCC blog pointed to:

The result: Polls show that huge majorities of Americans lack confidence that Social Security will meet their needs in retirement. An often-cited 1994 survey found that more people between the ages of 18 and 34 believed in UFOs than believed Social Security would exist by the time they retired. ...

If you're feeling sufficiently motivated by now, contact Allen Boyd, and maybe explain to his staff why you wish he wouldn't go along with selling out our future retirement safety net. (D-FL) DC: (202) 225-5235, Tallahassee (850) 561-3979, Panama City: (850) 785-0812 (Thanks to Atrios for highlighting Boyd's role in whitewashing this.)

Secretary's Office on the Recount

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Just talked with a communications staffer in Secretary of State Sam Reed's office regarding the contentious recount appeal currently on the docket of the State Supreme court.

She said that the Secretary of State's current position under CW 29A60210 was "basically requesting that the Supreme Court make it clear that canvassing boards have discretion to correct errors or fix discrepancies in the count." Speaking for the SoS, she said it was their belief that "there is a safety valve", and that a previous Supreme Court ruling didn't say the ballots now in question shouldn't be counted.

To distinguish this motion to clarify from other battles fought over the recount, she said that in the previous State Supreme Court case the Democrats had insisted that all rejected ballots be recanvassed. This case, however, regards only correcting errors or inconsistencies in canvassing.