Possible King County double voting case found

As reported here, [a]n inspection of voter records statewide has turned up a possible case of double voting in the November election in King County, the office of Secretary of State Sam Reed said Tuesday.

The case, which has been referred to King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng, could not be resolved by investigators from Reed's Data Integrity Program, an operation that was set up last month to review the statewide voter registration database for evidence of double voting, duplicate registrations or other problems.

Hopefully, charges will be filed. But, wait - there's more!

During 2006, scrubbing the statewide database removed more than 176,000 names from the roll. They included:

• 39,814 duplicate registrations, often created when a registered voter moves to a different county, registers to vote there and fails to cancel the old registration.
• 40,105 dead voters. The statewide database is cross-checked with records from the state Department of Health and the federal Social Security Administration.
• 4,500 illegal registrations of felons, who cannot vote until their rights are restored after they've completed their prison terms and probations. State officials cross-check voter lists with records from the Department of Corrections.

In their failed legal challenge to Chris Gregoire's narrow victory in the 2004 gubernatorial race, Republicans made a big issue of illegal voting by felons. (Although the presiding judge inexplicably didn't see things our way.)

• 91,954 inactive voter registrations (for voters who have not cast ballots in the previous four years) and registrations that voters asked to cancel.

I'd imagine that the local Dems aren't too pleased with these numbers, since that means 176,373 potential Democrat votes will not be cast in the 2008 election.

Oh, too bad.