Washblog

Port of Seattle Commissioner Alec Fisken is running for re-election.  Yesterday, I emailed his campaign to ask for a yard sign and literature to hand out to neighbors.  Today he called.  I'm in the neighborhood, he said, would you like me to drop off a sign?  

Fisken is a friend of the people, a true-blue public servant who responded to the scandal, secrecy, and mismanagement plaguing the Port by entering the political arena and putting his expertise in maritime and financial management -- as well as his good-governance beliefs -- to work. Over the years, Port blunders, some appearing to involve ethical lapses, have led to financial losses, diminished market share, the sale of valuable public property to private interests way below market rate, poor environmental practices, excess taxation on homeowners, and losses of good jobs. Fisken been a plainspoken and steadfast voice and vote for the public interest above special interests.  He's one of the elected officials I most admire.  It was a real treat for my husband and me to meet him at our home -- even for just a 5-minute visit.  

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Alec Fisken kindly consented to pose in our yard for the picture above.  

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King County has adopted a Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness.  But, as Sarajane Siegfriedt reported last night, the Port of Seattle and the City of Burien made a decision to tear down 162 units of affordable housing in the Lora Lake Apartments in Burien, refusing Ron Sims' offer of purchasing the apartments at market rate.  Yesterday, the Church Council of Greater Seattle held a service of lamentation at the site of these apartments.  The title of this piece is a quote from one of the clergymembers who spoke.  I don't know her name yet, but here's a photo (click to enlarge):

Below, are a number photos taken by Sarajane Siegfriedt and by me.  Sarajane is the photographer and author of the captions, except where noted.  

This morning, as Cherisse Luxa notes in her comment on Sarajane's previous Washblog story, there was a motion made by a Port of Seattle Commissioner to "suspend the demolition until there can be a special meeting of the full Commission and the motion will also direct the Port Commission staff to work on finding a compromise." I believe that the work of the Church Council and other activists played a big part in this change in direction.  See more information on the site of Church Council of Greater Seattle: Service of Commiseration and Seeking a Fair Society.  And here's my Flickr Slideshow of the event.

The Executive's reckless plan to overhaul our elections includes all new hardware for mail ballot processing. We have very significant concerns about the Diebold DRS PS900 iM2 units we intend to buy.

Well. I've got some good news and some bad news. First the bad news.

(more below the fold)

We gave our "Reckless Plan" presentation to the 32 LD Democrats last night. Their membership is very informed on the problems with computerized voting and secret vote counting systems. So we were preaching to the choir and they got pretty worked up. And they totally understood that making so many changes right before a presidential election is a pretty bad idea. Once we were done, the 32 LD immediately launched into passing the same resolution as the 36 LD Dems.

More...

Below are my observations from yesterday's King County Council's meeting of the Committee of the Whole. The main agenda item was discussion of the Executive's business cases for "highspeed ballot tabulation" and "ballot accountability and tracking". Diebold reps were on hand to help close the sale.

I lead with a section on questions unasked. Then I have personal commentary on each of the actors in this play. Sorry for the length, but I've got a lot to say.

The Washington Citizens for Fair Elections is meeting Tuesday, June 26th @ 7:00pm.

The topic is a recap of the recent legislative session. The two speakers are WA Senator Oemig and Marcee Stone of Washington Public Campaigns.

The King County Council will be hearing about the Executive's reckless plan to buy uncertified Diebold ballot counters (Monday June 25th). So we'll review that too.

Full announcement below the fold.

Update: Now that's good timing. According to the Open Rights Group, the DRS hardware used in Scotland's recent botched election had trouble with a fold mark on the ballot. I've added choice excerpts from the ORG report at the end of this story.

As part of the reckless plan for completely overhauling our elections systems just in time for the presidential election, King County Elections has chosen to buy 18 of Diebold's DRS PS900 iM2 highspeed scanners. We have serious doubts that this DRS model can handle mail ballots. Unlike nice and flat poll site ballots, mail ballots are folded and otherwise abused.

Below (the fold) is a quick summary of everything we know at this time, including our unanswered questions.

King County Elections intends to completely replace our existing, working, proven vote counting systems with all new Diebold hardware and software. This stuff hasn't been tested and certified yet. King County would be the first customer. Right in time for a presidential election.

KCE's most obtuse justification for a complete switchover is a storage limitation in the current system. Diebold's GEMS (aka Global Election Management System) versions 1.x tabulation database has a data capacity limit of 2 Gb (gigabytes, or roughly 2 billion bytes). The geek (arcane) reason is GEMS 1.x uses Microsoft's Access desktop database product.

The easy fix is to upgrade to GEMS 2.x, which uses Microsoft's SQL Server enterprise database product. SQL Server can store terabytes (trillions of bytes) of data.

More below the fold...

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[Update, 6/8/07. The title on this post was changed from Keith Sully will File to Run for King County Prosecutor and the information on Bill Sherman was added. Comments through 6/7/07 reflect that earlier version. Update: 6/7/07: Bob Ferguson has announced he won't run. Here's the Seattle Times article.]

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Democrat Bill Sherman has announed that he will formally file today (6/8/07) to run for King County Prosecutor. The email I received with his resume (see below the fold) included a note: "...(h)e is an exceptional candidate with an impressive resume. He is a bright, dedicated and experienced front-line prosecutor, a fundamentally decent person and a well-grounded family man who shares the core values of the people of King County."

Keith Scully, Legal Director for Futurewise and former Deputy Prosecutor in Maleng's office (1999-2005), has announced that he will file to run on the Democratic ticket (update 6/7/07) for the position of King County Prosecutor tomorrow (6/6/07). See below for the press release. Scully's official campaign site.

[Update: 6/7/07: A Seattle Times story has just appeared reporting Bob Ferguson's decision to not run.]

A recent Seattle Post Intelligencer article characterized Bob Ferguson as the Democratic party's 'anointed candidate' to run for the King County Prosecuting Attorney position that opened up following Norm Maleng's recent death.  But I heard a different assessment tonight when I spoke with Jeff Smith, former executive director of the Washington State Democratic Party.  

Smith said that he and Karen Marchioro, Democratic National Committee member and past Chair of the state party, have been actively searching for Democratic candidates for the position.  We've been calling prominent King County attorneys and activists in minority communities to find potential candidates, he said.  And several have indicated serious interest.  According to Smith, there is a widespread feeling in the county Democratic Party that Ferguson is not electable.  He and Marchioro have called "many" Democratic party leaders from throughout King County during the past week, especially in Seattle, he said, and there is strong feeling that Ferguson has "insuperable" problems as a candidate for this position.  What do you mean by "many" leaders, I asked.  Oh, maybe a dozen, Smith clarified.

Below is a cut & paste of my draft response to the King County Executive's plan to use automatic signature verification while processing mail ballots. This is just a small, but horrible, part of the tracking and accountability business case.

The brief: The computer will automatically reject (challenge) signatures. Testing shows between 26% and 63% percent (of one million!), depending on setup. Humans will then have to re-examine all the rejections. 1/2 of voters who have their signatures challenged do not respond in time to have their votes counted in that election. So hopefully the human re-examination will be sufficient.

Please contact the Council and Executive, tell them this is a horrible idea.

Note: the Council is discussing the first business case, for the purchase of Diebold's highspeed tabulators, during tomorrow's Committee of the Whole. Be sure to remind them that's also a horrible idea.

[Update: Both Marian Beddill and Sheryl Moss replied with a correction. They did not use ASV in a real election. I don't fully understand their descriptions, so I'll post their replies as comments. -- zappini]

I have no evidence that anyone is suggesting this, other than the gray matter between my ears telling me it would be a good idea. Mark lost to Debra Senn in the primary for attorney general a couple of years ago (Senn ended up losing herself). He was the elected city attorney in Seattle for awhile (for which he earned himself, in my opinion, a somewhat undeserved reputation). He's now the chair of the state Utility Commission, the state watchdog for energy consumers.

He's got the resume, he's got the experience, so anything saying this wouldn't be a good idea?

Activist Chris Clifford's petition for recall of Seattle Port Commissioner Pat Davis was ruled legally and factually sufficient in King County Superior Court yesterday.  The Recall Petition alleges misfeasance and malfeasance in Davis' lone sign-off on a $339,841 salary extension for Mic Dinsmore, her friend and political ally and the Port's former CEO. Davis' counsel announced an intention to appeal to the Washington Supreme Court.

Some background documents:

• The petition: In Re: The matter of recall charges against Port of Seattle Commissioner Pat Davis.
• Port Commissioner Recall: What Will it Take?
  Washblog, 4/26/07
• Judge Clears Way for Next Step in Port Recall
  Postman on Politics, 5/18/07
• Petition Filed for Recall of Seattle Port Commissioner Davis
  Washblog, 5/9/07
• Recall of Port Commissioner can Proceed, Seattle PI, 5/18/07

[Update 5/15 11:00am]

I'm told that yesterday's hearing will air on KCTV today at 3:30pm.

http://www.metrokc.gov/kctv/

Be sure to watch the first testimony given. "Raincity Calling" was on fire, her message was spot on. The debate was over right then and there. Everything after her was gravy.

This hearing was a huge success for democracy. Thirty people, including Senator Eric Oemig, showed up to oppose King County Election's plan to buy Diebold's new ballot counters.

Feedback ranged from deep reservations to impassionated outrage that our county was going to buy more Diebold equipment. All of our major talking points were covered (too risky in a Presidential year, fallacy of early results, etc). No one spoke in favor of the business plan.

Also present were 10 representatives from King County Elections, members from the Citizens Election Oversight Committee, and some staff.

Josh Feit over at the Stranger does great work pulling the blanket off the low flying efforts of the Safeco Field Public Facilities District to hire a lobbyist without actually following what seem to be the rules. Its hard enough to make an argument that will fly on why we should spend public money on large sports facilities, but when they don't even follow their own rules. As strange as it continues to sound, Safeco Field is a public building. We built it, we own it, we operate it.

I just wish the process of operating it was a lot more public than Feit's article paints it.

Here are the most important parts of his article in regards to the transparency the Safeco PFD seemed to miss: