Mary Souza's Newsletter - Bring on the Judge!

Tammy Currie Farkes lives in Canada. She voted in our last Coeur d’Alene election, even though her mother said, “She hasn’t lived here for 10 years.” Tammy is not the only one. There are many people who voted in our city election from outside the city, county, state and country.

Forget Obama’s Health Care bill, forget Cap & Tax, forget Card Check. None of these important measures will be repealable or controllable if our election system is seriously compromised. And there appears to be a dangerous national movement to do just that.

Last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (link below) reported Sen. Charles Schumer is working on a bill to override the election laws in all 50 states and “require universal voter registration, which would automatically register anyone on key government lists.” Think Medicare, Medicaid, Student loans, Welfare,etc. The article goes on to point out voter fraud concerns in several states, many of which we’re seeing in Kootenai County.

“Coercion and chicanery are made much easier by the excessive use of absentee ballots”, the article states, and it highlights the troubling issue of automatically mailing absentee ballots to voters, year after year, without requiring specific requests or legitimate reasons.

Most of the questionable CdA voters from Canada received automatic absentee ballots, sent by Kootenai County, because they had requested one for the Presidential election in 2008. Of course, since they were sent a ballot this time, the folks living in Canada went ahead and voted in our local city election.

Did I mention that one of our election races was decided by only 5 votes?

More than 30% of CdA votes came from absentee ballots. These ballots were counted and totaled for the Official District Canvass, reported the day after the election. That number was 2051. But two days later, the County Elections Dept. ran a highly detailed report on the absentee ballots which shows the total at 2042. That’s a NINE vote difference. What happened?

County Clerk Dan English tried to explain, in an email, by guessing that some of the ballots may have been spoiled, he wasn’t sure. His second guess was that workers may have forgotten to scan in some of the ballots. But the most upsetting guess of all was Dan’s third attempt:

He admitted, in the email, that sometimes they get more than one absentee ballot returned in an envelope, and count them anyway. But that’s against our law! Idaho Code 34-1009, “…If an absent elector’s envelope contains more than one marked ballot of any one kind, none of such ballots shall be counted.” The Secretary of State’s office explained, “the code is quite clear.” Any envelope containing more than one absentee ballot requires voiding all ballots in the envelope. That, however, is not the procedure followed here in Kootenai County.

The reason for the law is important. One person signs the outside of each absentee envelope to testify they are a legitimate voter and have voted their ballot. The ballot inside contains no identifying information. It would be possible for someone to also vote ballots of other family members, put them all in one envelope and send it in. It's not legal but they would all be counted here in Kootenai County!

And why would someone here in town request an absentee ballot but then go to vote in person on election day? Sixteen people, some of them very well-known names, did just that. So what happened to their 16 absentee ballots? Absentee ballots are identical to poll ballots. It would be possible for someone to fill in their absentee ballot, put it under their coat, go to the polls, then, in the voting booth, slip the second ballot into the plastic privacy cover along with the poll ballot, and slide them both into the ballot box.

Would an audit pick up this kind of cheating? We don’t know. The County has yet to release any documents and wants a huge amount of money to even look at them.

Please keep in mind that one race in the last election was decided by 5 votes, another had only a 29 vote difference.

The Wall Street Journal article concluded that serious voter fraud problems come from Same-Day voter laws, “which allow anyone to show up at the polls, register and then cast a ballot, ID requirements are minimal.”

Same-Day voters here? You bet. Kootenai County encourages Same Day registration. We had 165 people sign up and vote the day of the election. But out of that number, 90 have been tagged as possible problems because of their address, lack of ID or other inappropriate details.

And don’t get me started on the Poll Books! Almost every poll book (where you sign when you vote in person) is filled in differently, with important information left out of many books, hand-written names on odd, unmarked pages tucked in the back of some...the inconsistencies go on and on. Sloppy.

The questionable voters add up fast. And with only 5 votes, 29 votes and 361 votes deciding the city council seats, we could need a whole new election.

The WSJ article says, “A unanimous Supreme Court warned about the danger of loose election laws...The court made the obvious point that ‘disenfranchisement’ is a two-way street. Fraud, it noted...drives honest citizens out of the democratic process...Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised.” Why aren’t our local political parties screaming about these election problems?

Here’s my big question: Why does one regular citizen have to bear the burden and cost of uncovering these problems? Where’s the government? It seems to me that when legitimate evidence shows there are valid questions about the election, the state should jump in and order a full investigation. More than enough solid evidence has been provided but the state says they can’t or won’t get involved until there is a court ruling.

It’s been six months. The County refuses to give information or make requested documents available for viewing. Dan English recently told the Press he’s working with both legal teams but that’s clearly not true. What are they hiding? If it’s anything like the muck that’s already been uncovered with only minimal disclosure, it must be disturbing.

And now there’s no judge. Judge Simpson disqualified himself more than two weeks ago, “in the interest of justice”, he said, with no other reason given. Two weeks have gone by and still no judge has been assigned. It’s up to Administrative Judge John Mitchell to find a strong, fair person to hear this politically sensitive case and do the right thing for the voters of Idaho. Let’s get a ruling, get the state to do a full investigation of this mess and change the laws and procedures as needed. We must be able to trust the integrity and accuracy of our election system. Bring on the judge!

******************************************************************