King County - lessons in lying, obfuscating, and stonewalling

David Postman and Cheryl Phillips report in today's Seattle Times that, "King County election officials have been saying for more than a month that they would give prosecutors details on felons who allegedly cast illegal votes in the November election. As recently as two weeks ago, the county released a report that said officials had, in fact, forwarded information on more than 100 suspect voters.

But as of yesterday, King County prosecutors said, all they had seen were a computer printout, a newspaper clipping and a spreadsheet produced by reporters — not enough information to launch an investigation. They would need more documentation including original signatures of the questionable voters, prosecutors said.", and that, "Last night, King County elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said her office was working with prosecutors "to provide additional information to help in their investigation."

But there is no investigation." [Emphasis mine]

Later in the article, they quote Mary Lane, Dino Rossi's spokeswoman (person?) as saying, "They put out a taxpayer-funded report like this, with an accompanying press conference to toot their own horn, and now it turns out not everything in there is true.

"It's so frustrating working with King County because you're never able to get a straight answer out of them. It's always something." [Emphasis mine]

Why does 'working' (sounds more like having a tug of war with them to me) with KC have to be so frustrating? Why can't KC follow the example of Pierce, Whatcom, Clark, Douglas and Thurston Counties, and get the information to the prosecutors office, like they said they already have? Why does it seem that they are always trying to do as little as possible, as slowly as they possibly can? What are they afraid of - that they will actually prove that they are incompetent all at once, instead of just in dribs and drabs, as they are doing now?

Or, even more ominous, could it be that KC actually threw the election to the former Attorney General, and that by lying, obfuscating and stonewalling, they are trying to cover it up, to try fool the public about this? I think that Attorney General McKenna needs to take a cold, hard look at what the Elections office in KC did last November, and what they have been doing since then. Covering up incompetence is one thing - at best it's embarassing to those involved, and at worst it could cost some people their jobs - but if KC Elections people were actually involved in throwing the election, and are now trying to cover that up, that's a whole different matter.

Do I have any proof to these "allegations"? No, I don't. But, with all of the 'problems' (see Sound Politics for the long list of those!) that KC had during the election, and the subsequent vote counts, and what they have been doing since, there is a definite pattern that leads me to suspect that there is reason to suspect that they in fact did throw the election, and that they are now trying to cover that up.