What Do We Know About The Boston Bombing?

NPR has been making a lot of noise this morning about the bombing at the Boston Marathon.  It's like they know this is important and they should spend a lot of time on it, but they don't really have anything substantive to say. So they keep playing the same things over and over.  I haven't looked at other media so I'm not sure what they're doing.

What do we actually know?

Of the basic news questions, what, where, when, who, and why, we know a little about what, where, and when.

WHAT?

I say a little because the 'what' that we know is the result:  two "improvised explosive devices" exploded [our understanding of what exploded is also still evolving] and three people were killed and over 150 injured.  We know about the action of some of the responders, especially the medical response.  There is a lot of 'what' that we don't know- all the action that led to the explosion or what he or they are doing now, whatever security precautions were taken by the race officials, and a myriad things we haven't even thought of yet.

The President, in his short statement today,  took it from the concrete and descriptive to  abstract interpretation:

"This was a heinous and cowardly act and given what we now know about what took place, the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism,"

How much was he thinking about the grilling he got over how fast he called the Benghazi attack terrorism?  

WHERE?

The explosions happened near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  But we don't know where they were planned, where the bomber(s) is now, where another explosion might be planned.

WHEN?

Again, we just know the timing of the explosions - the Anchorage Daily News reports it as "shortly before 2:50pm about four hours into the race."  We know nothing about how long this has been in the planning and whether another time is already planned.  We don't know when suspects will be apprehended or a trial will be held.

We really know very little about what, where, and when.  But compared to who and why it seems like a lot.

WHO?

We know very little about the victims and while we all have concern for them, I think we're most curious about who planted the explosive devices.  The President narrowed it down to:

 "a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or was the act of a malevolent individual."

Foreign or domestic covers the likely universe of suspects, but I think the rest of this may be a bit narrow.  When exactly does a 'group,' say, become an 'organization'?  And what turns a group or an organization into a 'terrorist organization'?  By detonating the explosive at the Boston Marathon, the perpetrator became a 'terrorist' if he/they didn't fit that category before.  But I suspect the President's words imply an existing organization with an already existing identity as terrorists.  But is that an identity they have themselves or an identity the US government or some other authoritative body puts on them?  (Were the original Boston Tea Party participants patriots or terrorists?)

I'm not trying to question whether this was a terrorist act, but rather whether this might have been carried out by an organization whose existence is known, but hasn't previously been considered terrorist.  Or the more chilling possibility of someone trying to stir up fear for political gain.  (I'm reading The Man Without A Face:  The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin which begins with apartment bombings around Moscow and other Russian locations that were blamed on Chechen rebels, but were apparently the work of the Russian Federal Security Service to build fear and nationalism among the Russian voters.)

And 'malevolent individual' again leaves out that in-between category of group. Plus it would seem that 'malevolent individual' merely tells us it's a person with the intent to do evil to others - not anything we didn't already know.  What if it was a delusional person who thought he was saving himself or others this way?  I'm merely saying we shouldn't close off reasonable options.

Terrorist groups tend to take credit for their projects.  We've been told no group has claimed credit and that the Pakistani Taliban denied responsibility.  Nor, apparently, had there been prior warning.  Though it's probably too early to be sure about that. 

He also told us who in terms of people in charge by telling us he was briefed by his National Security Team which includes

"FBI Director Mueller, Attorney General Holder, Secretary Napolitano, and my Counterterrorism and Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco"

WHY?

Ultimately, this seems to be the question most on people's minds.  The main clues we have at this point relate to the target, or what we assume to be the target, the Boston Marathon.  What does it represent?  Who would want to attack that symbol?

Boston:  Irish, liberal, Catholic come to mind. Boston Tea Party, abolition, elite education (Harvard and MIT plus a bunch of other universities), Logan Airport where 9/11 terrorists started, Red Sox, Cheers.

Marathon:  Running marathons is an 'achiever' sport.  It's not something people do lightly and for the Boston Marathon you have to qualify by running other marathons.  It's a non-motor sport.  An individual sport (not a team sport - though there are groups that run as teams.)  It takes endurance and planning. 

There are lots of possible motives there.  But it could be that the bomber is from Boston and it was just a convenient target.  Or that this was a personal attack on someone disguised to look like a terrorist attack.  (Probably not likely, but it should still be a backup motive until they're certain.)

It's more likely that the culprit(s) will be found through following the evidence he left at the scene, through photos or videos, or through a tip from an insider or someone who knows the bomber (like the Unabomber's brother sending info), rather than starting with the motivation.  But considering motivation certainly helps law enforcement prioritize their efforts.  (Though I would expect the bomber to have been well disguised so the photos will not be that easy to interpret.)

It seems prudent at times like this to take everything you hear with a grain of salt.  There's much that isn't known.  But the authorities also know, but aren't telling.  (Obama took no questions after his statement today, suggesting to me he does know more and doesn't want to have to evade questions.)

And, in a day or two, we can probably expect a full press Republican attack on why the US was not prepared for this event and how poorly the President responded.  That's just how they work.

But for a day or two, everyone will hold their tongues, make obligatory statements about unity and prayers for the victims and their families. 

Most average Americans will be sending genuine love and prayers to the victims and their families and paying special attention to the people around us.  Perhaps we can tap into these feelings of shock and outrage to understand how the people of Iraq and Afghanistan feel after the bombings that kill civilians there.  And how some might raise an eyebrow about our reaction today in contrast to our response to the events in their countries where far more are killed this way and where we have such a large presence. 

42 and Accidental Racist

I heard the Accidental Racist shortly before going to see 42.  42 is the movie about Jackie Robinson's first year with the Dodgers and all the racism he faced as the first black player in the major leagues.  It was 1947. 

The weight of racism is shown as crushing.  White and Colored bathrooms in the South.  Blacks can't stay in white hotels even in many parts of the North.  Branch Ricky, the Dodger owner who decides he wants to bring up a black player - well colored or Negro in those days - has his manager kicked out of baseball by the commissioner of baseball as retaliation.  The other Dodger players wrote up a petition against playing with a black player.   And the Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman hurls epithets at Robinson that were nastier than the balls his pitchers hurl at Robinson's head.

To whites it wasn't crushing.  It was normal.  It was how things were.  Natural.  They weren't racist.  The other players slowly began to get it when the Philadelphia hotel they always stayed in told them their reservations had been canceled because they had a black player on the team.  Some of them reacted at first by blaming Robinson.  But after Chapmen's tirade on the field, one of the Dodger players finally walks over to Chapmen and tells him off.  Because the team is affected by the racism against Robinson, the other players begin to get it.  Peewee Reese, a player I got to see when the Dodgers moved out to Los Angeles in the 50's, plays a pivotal role in 'learning' about racism and how to stand up to it.  I'll leave it like that so as not to spoil it for those who haven't seen the movie. 

After we saw the film, I thought about the responses I've heard about other historical movies:  "Well, that's all in the past.  We don't have racism any more." This wasn't that long ago, it happened in my lifetime, though before I was old enough to know anything about it.




Like Robinson's teammates on the Dodgers who are only discovering racism through Robinson, Paisley has no idea that a Confederate flag has a negative meaning until the clerk at Starbucks reacts.  The flag is a powerful symbol, not of personal prejudice, but of institutional racism.  And while slavery ended, it was quickly replaced by an oppressive set of laws and practices that made blacks second class citizens to all the whites.  And when the most overt signs of legal barriers to blacks were dismantled - separate water fountains and bathrooms, separate schools and pools, etc. - there were still plenty of institutional barriers - financial barriers like redlining by banks and realtors, educational barriers, employment barriers, and marriage barriers to name some of the most significant, that made the black path to the American dream much, much harder.

Accidental Racist is taking a lot of hits from detractors.  Here's an example from Conservative Blog Central that has the "I'm not responsible for history" theme: 

Mr. Paisley is typical of white left-wingers who think this country is horrible because of blips in the past where we weren't on our best behavior or living up to our ideals. Jim Crow laws were awful. Segregation, etc., all of it was bad, and an affront to what this country says it stands for. But we reversed course long ago. A lot of men died to reverse that course, but nobody seems to remember that. Any racism that continues in this country is the fault of individuals, and I refuse to join the pity party and say that slavery is my fault.

No, you aren't responsible for slavery, but if you have ancestors who benefited from slave labor you've inherited some of that benefit either in actual tangible wealth or in an inherited sense of entitlement and superiority.  A lot more people than slave owners benefited.  People involved in shipping benefited.  Even if they didn't carry slaves, those ships that did were not in competition with those that didn't.  Merchants benefited if they  made profits from goods that slaves helped produce.  Consumers got cheaper goods.  But even if there was no tangible benefit, whites everywhere inherited the belief they were superior to blacks.  Even liberal whites. It permeates our culture. 

The point isn't to make people feel guilty.  Rather it's to just recognize the injustice that still exists and help to dismantle those institutions that put blacks at a disadvantage. 

Leonard Pitts makes this point at the end of this critique of Paisley's assertion that whites can't walk in black skin:

But the song also fails in a more subtle, yet substantive way. Twice, Paisley speaks of the impossibility of imagining life from the African-American perspective: “I try to put myself in your shoes,” he sings, “and that’s a good place to begin, but it ain’t like I can walk a mile in someone else’s skin.” As if African-American life is so mysterious and exotic, so alien to all other streams of American life, that unless you were born to it, you cannot hope to comprehend it.

That’ a copout — and a disappointment. Say what you will about his song, but also say this: Paisley is in earnest. His heart — this is neither boilerplate nor faint praise — is in the right place. Credit him for the courage, rare in music, almost unheard of in country music, to confront this most thankless of topics. But courage and earnestness will net him nothing without honesty.

Every day, we imagine the lives of people who aren’t like us. Those who care to try seem to have no trouble empathizing with, say, Cuban exiles separated from family, or Muslims shunned by Islamophobes. For a songwriter, inhabiting other people’s lives is practically the job description. Bruce Springsteen was not a Vietnam vet when he sang Born In The USA.

But where African-American life is concerned, one frequently hears Paisley’s lament: how a white man is locked into his own perspective. That’s baloney. Both history and the present day are replete with white people — Clifford Durr, Thaddeus Stevens, Eleanor Roosevelt, Leon Litwack, Tim Wise — who seemed to have no great difficulty accessing black life.

One suspects one difference is that they refused to be hobbled by white guilt, the reflexive need to deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible, explain the inexplicable. They declined to be paralyzed by the baggage of history. One suspects they felt not guilt, but simple human obligation.

We Are Respectable Negroes blog has a long and interesting discussion on this.  Here are a few parts:

"In the post-civil rights era, white folks apparently just want "forgiveness" and to "get past" this race stuff. Black and brown folks want some type of justice and an acknowledgement of how structural inequality along the color line persists into the present. The former want to limit racism to "mean words" and "hurt feelings." The latter would like to discuss substantive efforts at improving live chances and the social inequalities caused by racism, both structural and inter-personal. . .

Because America is "a country without a history"--perhaps except for black and brown folks--there is no reasonable way to negotiate this impasse.

This dynamic is made even more complicated by how white privilege allows white folks to conveniently discover their own history on terms that are amenable to them.

This move is often used to blunt conversations about how racial inequality is trans-historical with a living past and present, one that shapes American society even in the post-civil rights era."

Despite these criticisms, Accidental Racist at least cracks open the door on a subject many whites refuse to acknowledge - the continued existence of racism.  Paisley, like the Dodger players for the first time seeing racism from the receiving end, is now at a point where you can have a conversation that gets a little deeper into what Confederate flags symbolize to African-Americans, about how racism isn't simply about epithets, but more importantly about the legal, educational, and financial infrastructures that make being white a lot easier than being black.  And Paisley sings

"Lookin' like I got a lot to learn, but from my point of view . . ."

Recognizing he's got more to learn and that what he believes is "my point of view" rather than "reality" is a big deal.  It's the start to remodeling one's world view.  

Do go see 42 and take the kids above seven. 
And listen to Accidental Racist. 

Did You Notice There Are Now Two African American US Senators?

For the first time in US history, there are two African-American members of the US Senate at the same time.  These are only the seventh and eighth African-Americans ever to serve in the US Senate. 

Tim Scott (R-NC) was appointed by Gov. Nikki Haley to Jim Dement's seat when he quit to run the Heritage Foundation.  He'll serve until a special election in 2014 to fill the remainder of Dement's term. 

William 'Mo' Cowan (D-Mass) was appointed by Gov. Deval Patrick as Interim Senator until the June 15, 2013 election to fill the remainder of the term of John Kerry, who recently resigned to become Secretary of State. 

I try to keep up with these details since I first posted about the number of African-Americans in Congress.  I couldn't find the information conveniently formatted, so I made it myself.  Since then I've tried to keep it up-to-date after elections or other changes.  The last post was after the November 2012 elections  which I updated just now to incorporate this information.

This makes 43 black Members of the 435 seat US Congress or a smidgen under 10%, while as a whole African-Americans make up 14% of the US population.  In the 100 seat US Senate, they make up 2%. 

In the House, Robin Kelly won the special election to finish out the term of Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. who resigned. 



If you read carefully, you should have noticed that both the Black US Senators were appointed by their respective governors, not by the voters of their states, though Massachusetts has elected a Black Senator before: Edward Brooke.

Hall 4296 Moe 3978

I checked about midnight last night before I went to bed, but the old April 2, 2013 unofficial elections results were still up.

Even though the "updated unofficial results" are marked '6:18pm' I only saw them when I checked again this morning.

I had the sense when I was watching the count of the absentee-by mail votes being counted that Hall was gaining votes, but it wasn't at all clear.  I know there are a lot of votes for Moe that were challenged and are not in the count.  Enough to overcome a 318 vote lead by Hall?  I don't know.

Most of them are the write-ins that have Nick Moe (or a close variation) written in, but the voter left the oval blank.  At the end of yesterday I would have guestimated that there were at least 100 like that.  If we say that each 26 precincts in District 3 averaged 6 like that, it would come out to 156 more uncounted votes for Moe.  The ordinance specifically says that the oval has to be filled in, at least with some mark.  The Alaska Supreme Court said in the Miller v Treadwell decision (on the Murkowski write in vote) that even those clearly written in without the oval marked wouldn't count.  The Muni ordinance follows the State law on this closely. 

There were also some ballots where people who live in District 3 voted out of precinct on ballots that didn't have the District 3 race on them.  They still wrote in Moe.  So, these were people who were eligible to vote in that district, but did not vote in their home district.  These votes weren't counted either.  I'd guess there were 15-30 of these at most.

Then there were a lot of votes for variations of "Nick Moe" that were not counted.  The Election Office had a list of acceptable and unacceptable misspellings of "Nick Moe."

Acceptable	Unacceptable
Nic Moe Nik Moe Nick Mo Nic Mo Nick Mow Nick Moh Knik Moe Knick Moe Nick Moo N. Moe N. Moa N. Mow Nicolas Moe Moe	Nick Mo Moo Moa Nick Smith Click Moe Pick Moe John Moe Tommy Moe

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There were, of course, a lot more variations that showed up that the Municipal Clerk had to decide on.  Things like Rick Moe and many others. 

There were also a couple where both the Ernie Hall oval and the write in oval were filled in, Nick Moe had been written in and Ernie Hall had been crossed out.  The Clerk ruled these were overmarked which is explicitly not allowed in the rules. 

I know the attorneys for the two candidates kept track of all the disqualified votes.  They'll know for sure if there were enough thrown out votes to keep Moe in contention.  It will be up to the Moe team to decide whether to challenge the election. 

I learned that Hall's attorney in this, Scott Kendall, was Murkowski's attorney when Miller challenged her write-in votes.  He had argued in court that the ballots that had Murkowski written in but without the oval marked should count.  If this election were to go to court, he would be in the position of arguing against what he argued last time.  I got some well-appreciated confirmation when he told me that my post on what might happen in a lawsuit over the questioned ballots was a good, accurate piece.  I figure he should know.  He went on to add to what I'd written the idea of subjective and objective measures.  Once you allow for the possibility of slight misspellings in the name, what is acceptable and unacceptable is subjective.  And the law didn't clearly say the write in had to be spelled right.  However, the law clearly says the oval must be marked and you can objectively see that it has or hasn't been.  He thought it would be pretty hard to get them to change that decision.  He did say that he had put in my arguments - that writing in the name showed intent and that with a write-in vote you didn't really need to fill in the oval to show which candidate you wanted - and they rejected them.

On the other hand, he didn't have the Court's strong language on voter intent,  the importance of enfranchising people, and the need to overlook minor mistakes, because of the variable backgrounds and abilities of Alaskans if their intent is clear. 

But if there aren't enough challenged votes for Moe to overcome the 318 vote deficit, this is all moot.  However, the Assembly ought to look very carefully at these issues and see if there are some changes that could be made to the Ordinance to increase people's ability to have their votes counted without compromising the integrity of the count. 

The Election Commission still has to certify the election and the Assembly has to officially except the results. 

I'd note that I left City Hall yesterday late afternoon before the final tallies were totaled.  So did most people.  While the results are marked 8:15:31pm, I couldn't pull them up around midnight last night.  I don't know what the totals were for the different categories of ballots that were counted - absentee-in person; absentee mail in; questioned ballots, etc.  But both candidates' attorneys were there and I have no question about the integrity of the vote count.  There were things that shouldn't have happened - like the Election Commission not counting the questioned votes when the voting official failed to sign the questioned ballot form -  but altogether the Municipal Clerk, in my mind, kept the process as transparent as she could.  Every decision she made was after explaining her understanding of what happened and the how the Ordinance applied and listening to the two attorney's offer their takes.  And she went way out of her way to preserve all the votes and even to identify where there might be write-in votes for Moe, even though she had ruled them ineligible, so that should there be a court case, all the votes were preserved and the candidates' attorneys knew where they were. 

Muni Handcount Results Still Being Calculated

People were ready to count at 8am.  Things got underway for sure by 9.

There's been a lot of friendly work going on.  The Hall and Moe attorneys are helping each other out and cooperating closely.  In fact, the Hall attorney, Scott Kendall, argued Lisa Murkowski's case in Miller v. Treadwell so he's very familiar with all the details of the law on this.

From left to right - Moe attorney Patrick Munson, Muni Clerk Barb Jones, Hall Attorney Scott Kendall and Municipal Attorney Dennis Wheeler.


There's really no way I can tell you what the outcome might be.  I do know there are a lot of ballots that were written in Moe but the oval wasn't marked.

The break is over.  Back to work.

4:35  The election workers have gone home and now the Municipal Clerk and Scott Kendall, attorney for Ernie Hall, and Patrick Munson, attorney for Nick Moe are working together to read through and count the facsimile ballots.  These are questioned ballots.  They are people who live in District 3, but voted in another precinct - which is why they were questioned.  They are looking for people who wrote in Moe.  The Election office is not going to count these, but they are keeping them in the record so that if there is a court challenge, they will be able to retrieve them.

Now they are doing the same with absentee by mail - there is only one in this category that is a District 3 voter facsimile.

This is pretty esoteric now - really it seems to me that the main reason is to keep these on the record in case there is a court challenge.  They are now looking at absentee ballots that were faxed in.  They are now just looking at the ballots to see if there are any write-ins at all.  If not, it will be moot.

From left to right:  Kendall, Muni Attorney Dennis Wheeler, Muni Clerk Barbara Jones.  The guy on the right is from the Moe campaign.  

I've seen precincts that were ahead for Moe and others ahead for Hall and others that were dead even.  My anecdotal sense was the absentee-mail in favored Hall, but I really didn't see them all and most were not very big numbers. 

It turns out there were six Nick Moes written in in this batch of about 60 faxed in ballots.

I think they are relatively close to going back and counting out the totals for each of the different categories they've done today, but I don't know if I'll still be here when they do.  There aren't may people left here.  About 15, mostly from campaigns watching.


I can say that within the room where voting was counted things were as transparent as could be.  Everything was explained - I didn't always completely understand, but that was probably my failing powers of concentration as the day went on.   Also there was really no animosity at all between the representatives of the two candidates.  It was all very cordial and cooperative.  When there were questions about what to do next - the Municipal Clerk conferred with the two opposing candidates' attorneys.  The Municipal Clerk was around for consultation too.

[UPDATE:  I'm home now.  If you want to check on the results, you can go to the Municipal elections results page.  When they have the final count, they said they'd post it there.  I'm not sure if they will amend it to the results from April 2 or just make a new link for the recount totals.  I'd vote for the latter.  Enjoy Saturday night and remember, it's supposed to be a good aurora night, so look up. 

Under The Hood Of Democracy - Counting Absentee Votes UPDATE

[UPDATE 7:00am:   I couldn't find an update on the Muni website when I was getting ready for bed last night so I sent an email to the Municipal Clerk if I was looking in the wrong place.  This morning when I got up I found this response:  

No, sorry.  We finally decided to call it quits.  We got through the absentee, but didn’t finished the questioned, so no results tonight.  We’ll start the hand count at 8:30 and then get restarted on the rest at 10. 

Barbara A. Jones]

Sorting and Counting Absentee Ballots

I stopped by City Hall about 4pm this afternoon to see how the absentee ballot counting was going.  Basically, they were separating the form on the outside of the absentee ballot envelopes and then they would go to the voting machine.

They were not going to announce the results until it was complete and there were different estimates about when that would be.

Glossary:

Absentee ballot - One sent to you and mailed back.

Absentee-in-person - When you vote at one of the voting places open before the election.  I've been calling this 'early voting' but in the election office they're 'absentee-in-person.'

Things were pretty cordial and in the video below you'll see and hear a staffer for Nick Moe and a staffer for Ernie Hall.  The Clerk was going to order pizza for the election workers and the Moe and Hall staffers were planning to eat together.  Really, a very pleasant thing to see in modern politics.


) If you listened to the end of the video, you'll have learned a little info about your blogger.  The election office called this week to say they needed another election worker to to help with the hand recount of District 3 on Saturday.  I did point out that I was blogging and they said they knew.  Working on election day certainly gave me insights I couldn't have gotten any other way.  This is a new world of journalism.  So, I'm not sure whether I'll have time to give any updates tomorrow.  My election worker job takes precedence over the blog.  Perhaps they believe that by letting me into the center of things they are telling the world they believe in transparency.  I have to be at City Hall at 8am.  Ugh.  Come by and take a look.  It's open to the public.  Bring your kids so they can see under the hood of democracy.  We'll be doing a hand count, as I understand it, of District 3, the race between Assembly Chair Ernie Hall and write-in challenger Nick Moe.  (Staff members from both camps are on the video above.)  This is the race that was 93 votes apart when the votes were counted right after the election.  So now they have to look at all the ballots to see who all those "write-in" votes had written in and to add the questioned ballots.  The results from the absentee ballots they counted today should be known before we start.

Observers watching how the ballots are handled

Perhaps they've already announced them, but I couldn't find anything online.   KTUU does say there should be active aurora tonight and tomorrow night and it's clear so I'll go outside and look. 










[UPDATE March 12, 2014:  Viddler video replaced with YouTube]

Poll Worker Error Causes Questioned Ballots To Be Rejected

Sorry folks, I didn't go downtown last night to watch the Muni go through the rejected questioned ballots.  But Daysha Eaton of KSKA did and here's part of her report:

Cresap was one of 11 voters whose ballots were rejected not because of any mistake of their own, but because an election official failed to sign off on them. The election commission voted unanimously to throw all 11 ballots out, arguing that they had sworn to follow municipal code, which states that votes may not be counted if election officials fail to sign off on them. That doesn’t sit well with Cresap.

“I’ve been voting here for 48 years and I voted the same way I’ve always voted. There was nothing irregular. I didn’t do anything wrong, like voting twice or anything like that. My vote has always been counted before.”

Cresap said that he felt the Election Commission should have made an exception and counted the 11 ballots without the election officials signatures. In addition, he said that the clerk’s office should better train their election workers insure they sign off on the ballots that they’re responsible for. Furthermore, Cresap said the municipal code needs to be changed so that no other voters have his experience.

This is a long post and I would normally hold it a day or two to try to make it shorter and easier to read.  But this one contains lots of detail - some which I learned as an election worker this year - that helps put this question into better context.   But this is timely to post right now.  I've tried to put in some headings to help you.

Overview:  The basic questions: Should election worker error invalidate a ballot? How do you know it's election worker error rather than a voter sneaking in a ballot?   Getting to the answers: The post details should help the reader understand the factors that would help someone untangle it all. Plus, we don't know if it even will affect any of the outcomes of the race.  But even if it doesn't, it's a call to make sure if this happens next time, there are good back-up ways to determine what happened.  [I use poll worker and election worker synonymously]

Post Continues Here

I've also been waiting until this was over to write up an overview and recommendation post.  But let me give you a preview.  One of the lessons that was very clear to me at 9:30pm waiting to hand in our precincts ballots and voting paraphernalia on election night was this:

Election Lesson:  People who start work at 6:15am should not be in charge of checking all the details (such as matching votes on register to number of ballots used and voting machine totals) at 8:15pm when the polls close.  We were pretty loopy by then and the chance for errors was much higher than it should have been.

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When we finally made it into the room at City Hall on election night where people received our polling stuff and checked that we were turning in everything correctly, it was after 10pm.  Someone in there said that about half the precincts had something wrong.  Another person looked at them and said, only half?

A lot of the election workers are senior citizens, some more senior than others. It makes sense.  Retired folks have time to work one day like this.   I qualify for that label and I keep pretty active.  So I'm not saying us old folks can't be fit.  But that doesn't mean all of us are.  And I was very tired at the end of the day.  Hell, I was tired at 6:15 am, but that's way early for me.

The big question raised by Daysha's piece is this:  Should voters (and candidates) be penalized for election officials' mistakes?  

I'm guessing here that the reason that the election worker is supposed to sign the questioned ballot envelope is to prevent voter fraud, to prevent someone from sneaking an envelope and ballot and putting them into the ballot box.  That's a valid reason.  But let's look at the procedure for questioned ballots to see if there isn't a way to balance that need with the democratic interest that a voter's right to vote is paramount.

First, here's what the questioned ballot envelope looks like.  I've marked in blue the section that the election worker is supposed to fill out. I saved it as a big file so you can see it clearly if you click on it to enlarge it.

You can click on the image to enlarge it

Here's what the Election Manual tells the poll worker to do about questioned ballots:

First, there are ten reason a voter may need a Questioned Ballot.  I have those listed in my previous post on questioned ballots so I won't repeat it.  Just go to the link.


Second is a section called "How to Issue a Questioned Ballot."  (The red highlight I added, the bold is in the original.)

• The voter must sign the Questioned Register.
• The voter must complete the Questioned Envelope before being issued a ballot.  The Election Worker must sign as a witness and write the date. 
• Fold the ballot gently into thirds (do not crease).  Folding prevents questioned ballots from being able to be inserted into Accuvote machine. 
• Give the voter the ballot and secrecy sleeve.
• Ask voter to place the voted ballot inside the Questioned Ballot secrecy sleeve before leaving the voting booth.
• Ask voter to return the Questioned Ballot and envelope to the Questioned Ballot Worker.
• Observe the voter insert the Questioned Ballot into the Questioned Envelope using the secrecy sleeve;  the voter must seal envelope.
• The Questioned Ballot envelopes must be placed into the Blue Municipal Tote.

(Do not scan Questioned Ballots through the Accu-Vote Machine.)

 Did you catch all that?  OK, you aren't an election worker with the responsibility to carry out all these steps.  I'm sure the election workers who handled questioned ballots  all read it carefully.  I know I did.  But still, it's easy in a busy polling place to forget a step. Especially if you only got a few voters needing  questioned ballots over the 13 hour period the polls were open.  Our polling place only had about 10 or 11 questioned ballots all day.  But election day wasn't busy most of the time, though there were a few times.

In Cresap's case, he says he voted at the Chugiak Senior Center.  That was one of three special voting sites where you could get a ballot from any precinct, so I would expect they had more questioned ballots than the average precinct. 

Now, in our polling place, voters were directed to the register.  Some knew they needed a questioned ballot because they were voting outside their precinct.  Others needed to vote questioned for other reasons.  The ones I did were all "voter's name is not in the Precinct Register" and "Voter is voting out of precinct."  (I really wasn't sure if I was supposed to mark both of those since they were both true.  I mostly marked both.)

If the voter was required to vote a questioned ballot,

• the voter was given a ballot and directed to the next table.  I did this part in the afternoon.  
• I had the voter sign a yellow sign up (register) sheet for questioned ballot voters.  =
• The voter filled out the form attached to the questioned ballot envelope and 
• I checked their ID to see if the name and address matched what they wrote.  Next
• I gave them the secrecy sleeve (an open sided envelop, almost like a small file folder with one end open) and explained about not folding the ballot and bringing the whole thing back to me.  Then,
• I filled out my part of the form on the questioned ballot envelope including signing it. (See picture above)
• The voter returned from the voting booth.  I opened the envelope and they put the ballot, inside the sleeve, into the questioned ballot envelope. (There was some debate in our precinct if the sleeve was supposed to go into the envelope, but we decided to do it that way.)
• I held the envelope while the voter sealed it.  Finally
• the voter put the envelope into the blue Municipal tote bag/box.

I'm going through all this detail so you know all the steps and checks along the way for when I talk, below, about whether it should be counted or not.

Here's what the Municipal Code says about counting a questioned ballot or not:
(I've included the absentee ballot rules too because they are in the same section and may also be of interest before this is over.)

28.80.040 - Ballot review standards. (I can't link to the exact citation - scroll down to Title 28.)

A.  A questioned ballot may not be counted if:

1. The voter failed to properly execute the certificate.
2. An election official failed to execute the certificate.

B.An absentee ballot may not be counted if:

1. The voter failed to properly execute the certificate;
2. The official or witnesses authorized by law to attest the voter's certificate failed to execute the certificate;
3. The voter's certificate is not attested on or before the date of the election;
4. The ballot, if mailed, is not postmarked on or before the date of the election;
5. The ballot is not received before the public session of the canvass; or
6. The ballot envelope has no postmark and is received after election day.

So, should the voter's ballot be thrown out if the election worker failed to sign the questioned ballot form on the questioned ballot envelope?

The presumption in the law, I'm guessing, is that if the election worker didn't sign the form, it's because the vote isn't legitimate.  It's good to know the Assembly was concerned about election fraud.

But what if it really is just a mistake by the election worker?

Are there back up systems to track what happened and insure that the voter was valid and wasn't sneaking in an extra vote?  Sort of.

I think everyone will have to make their own conclusions.

First, will it even matter?

In every race, the margin of victory was high enough, that it's unlikely that the uncounted votes will make a difference.  Except one:  the Assembly District 3, Seat D - the race between Assembly Chair Ernie Hall and write-in candidate Nick Moe.  Here are some considerations:

• If people lived in District 3 
• and voted out of their district, they won't have a ballot that allows them to write-in the Seat D race.  
• and they do vote in their district, but another precinct, or didn't have their id or some other reason for getting a questioned ballot, then they would get the ballot with the Seat D race and could vote in that race.
• If they don't live in that District, but voted in that District, they would have been able to vote in that race.  But since they don't live in that District, the vote in that race won't count. 
• If they voted in one of the all-ballot locations - the Chugiak Senior Center, Loussac Library, or UAA - they could get their home precinct ballot.  If they live in District 3, they'd get that ballot and could vote in that race.  

Mr. Cresap voted at the Chugiak Senior Center, so he would have gotten his home ballot.  If he lived in District 3, it would include the Hall-Moe race.  But it appears that he lives in Eagle River. Google searches suggest that and Daysha's story says he came "all the way from Eagle River." If that's the case, he would NOT have been eligible to vote in the District 3 race.  

I don't know anything about the home precincts of  the other voters who were rejected because of poll-worker errors.  So, we can ask these questions without knowing if they have any chance at all of affecting the election.


What's the Conflict?

Prevention of fraud versus Counting All Valid Votes

What's missing on these rejected forms is the election worker's signature.  There are two possible explanations I can think of (leaving out options like disappearing ink):

1.  Everything was legit except that the election worker failed to sign the form.
2.  The voter snuck in the ballot, questioned ballot envelope, voted, and left without being detected.

For option 2 - what other evidence might there be to show this was legit or fraud?

1.  The voter wouldn't sign the main regular register, so there would be nothing there.
2.  The voter would need to get a ballot.  In our precinct, when the voter was identified as a questioned ballot voter, the election worker at the register gave the ballot to the person staffing the questioned ballots.
2.  The voter would then sign the questioned ballot register.  If the name is not on this register, that would raise suspicions, but the voter wouldn't necessarily know he was supposed to sign this.  The worker would have to tell him.  It would be hard to sign the register without the election worker's knowledge. I don't believe there are any time or order indicators (ie numbers on the ballots, time marked on the form) that would enable us to know if the name was out of order on the register.
3.  The voter would need to fill out the form on the questioned ballot and get a secrecy sleeve.  As I said above, when I did this I kept the questioned ballot form (and envelope it was attached to) until the voter finished voting and returned.
4.  The voter puts the ballot, in the secrecy sleeve, into the yellow questioned ballot envelope that the election worker is holding, and then seals the envelope.
5.  The voter puts the envelope with the ballot inside into the blue Municipal tote.

So, to double check on this we could:
1.  check if the voter is signed on the questioned ballot register
2.  check the precinct final tallies to see that the number of people who signed the main register plus the number of people who signed the questioned ballot register equals the number of ballots used.  And this should match the number of votes the voting machine  minus the number of questioned ballots (which aren't counted by the machine.)

There are lots of other reasons that the ballot count might not match up.  They might have thrown out a ballot that was marked wrong and the given the voter a second ballot.  Someone might have taken a ballot, but not actually voted.  In our precinct a worker highlighted the wrong name and then fixed it, so I counted one extra voter, until someone figured out the problem. So if the count's off it isn't necessarily because of this voter.

Also, if anything unusual happens, the election workers are supposed to write notes.  So a voter would have to be very smooth to get through all these steps without causing someone to write down an unusual event.

The election worker might even remember the voter and be able to confirm he was legit and the worker must have just forgotten to sign.

Conclusions

There is no way you're going to eliminate all election worker errors.  This is a job with lots of rules, on the job training, and you have to figure it out in just one long day
Then it doesn't happen again for another year, when some of the rules might change.

But worker error shouldn't cause voters not to have their ballot count.  But before approving a questioned ballot without an election worker signature, one would have to check that all the other issues were recorded correctly and that the worker error is the most likely explanation.

Is it worth all that extra work if the vote isn't going to matter anyway (because the vote count won't affect the outcome of any races)?  Probably not.

But if it would affect a race it's not fair to the voter not to count it.  It's not fair to the person he voted for.  But it's also not fair to the person he didn't vote for if there is any doubt.

The best solution is:

1.  To have better trained workers.
2.  To have shorter shifts for workers so they don't get exhausted, especially in the late afternoon when the biggest voting surge tends to happen.
3.  To have lots of double checks so one mistake doesn't cancel a voter's ballot. 

Everything Is OK

Now here's a video that people on the left and on the right, you would think, would all approve of.  Like Tea Party folks, he raises questions about government authority and interference into people's lives.  Like people on the left, he questions our cultural imperative to consume things we don't need.

Yet, I think that there is something about what he's doing that makes everyone a little uncomfortable.  People who speak truth in public, people who make us think about what we are doing and why, always make us uncomfortable.






He makes us, for a moment at least, confront the gap between what we believe and what we do.

April Snow Plays With Us - How Many Aprils Had More Snow?

Normally - at least as my memory reconstructs normal - April snow is fat and wet and the air is close to 30˚.  

I'd finished a downtown meeting and decided to take advantage of the April sun and walk home. 

The depth and texture of the snow screamed January or February. 

But the light said April.  Look at that tree's shadow.  In January the sun is just a few fingers above the horizon and stretches the shadows way, way out. 

This sun actually felt warm, even though it was low 20s. 

 

I went straight down E and got on the Chester Creek trail at Valley of the Moon Park.   The Weather Service says it's colder than normal and we've had a lot more April snow than normal.  (This is for April 10.)

WEATHER ITEM   OBSERVED RECORD YEAR NORMAL DEPARTURE LAST            
                VALUE   VALUE       VALUE  FROM      YEAR            
                                           NORMAL                    
...........................................................
TEMPERATURE (F)                                                     
 YESTERDAY                                                           
  MAXIMUM         25     55    1938  42    -17       42               
  MINIMUM         14      4    1949  27    -13       22               
  AVERAGE         20                 34    -14       32             
                                                                     
PRECIPITATION (IN)                                                   
  YESTERDAY        0.02   0.47 1963   0.02   0.00                    
  MONTH TO DATE    0.72               0.14   0.58                    
  SINCE MAR 1      2.09               0.74   1.35                    
  SINCE JAN 1      4.54               2.19   2.35                    
                                                                     
SNOWFALL (IN)                                                        
  YESTERDAY        0.8    7.8  1963   0.1    0.7                     
  MONTH TO DATE   13.2                1.7   11.5                     
  SINCE MAR 1     33.8               11.6   22.2                     
  SINCE JUL 1     89.9               71.9   18.0                     
  SNOW DEPTH      21                        

 

 

Mostly, I had the trail to myself. 

So we've had 13.2 inches of snow the first ten days this month (mostly in two days).  Last year when we had the all time snowiest year in Anchorage, only 5 inches fell in April according to Western Regional Climate Center.  Their records show 

• 30 inches April 2008
• 27 inches April 1963
• 18.7 inches in 1955,
• 16.1 inches in 1975
• 14 inches 1977
• 14.1 inches 2010

Most of the 1990's had no April snow.  


There were a few people just hanging out, a few more pedestrians and a guy on his fat tire bike. 

And, of course, this trail through the heart of Anchorage, follows along Chester Creek. 

 

And some cross-country skiers with their dog.  The snow had been packed down but it was like walking on a sandy beach - a lot of work.  It felt like I'd shed a 30 pound pack when I got off the trail and on to pavement again.  

When Is A Conspiracy Not A Conspiracy?

It's easy for people to take a few facts and jump to conclusions.   On election day, a man came into our polling place and exited the voting booth and asked why there wasn't an Assembly race on the ballot.  We hadn't notice that and at first were concerned.  But then we realized not every Assembly seat is up for reelection this year.

But he said that his wife, who has the same address, voted early at Loussac and she'd voted for an Assembly candidate.  We couldn't explain what happened at Loussac, but we checked and found out that he lives in Patrick Flynn's district and Flynn wasn't up for reelection.

But in checking things, I found a link on the Municipal Elections webpage that got me to all the different Sample Ballots (there were about 48 different ballots to take care of all the Local Road Service Area elections) and a list of each polling place which said which ballot was to be used at each polling place.

And as I looked at the sample ballots I saw the candidates for the Assembly races and School Board races.  As you can see, the School Board races are all city wide seats, so they all show up on every ballot.  Some of the Assembly races had only one candidate. (For the sake of space I left out JOHNSON, Jennifer)

ASSEMBLY - DISTRICT 5 - SEAT H  HONEMAN, Paul Write-in SCHOOL BOARD - SEAT A SMITH, Don DAVIS, Bettye Write-in SCHOOL BOARD - SEATB NEES, David W. CROFT, Eric CORNWELL-GEORGE, Stephanie Write-in

ASSEMBLY - DISTRICT 3 - SEAT D HALL, Ernie Write-in SCHOOL BOARD - SEAT A SMITH, Don DAVIS, Bettye Write-in SCHOOL BOARD - SEATB NEES, David W. CROFT, Eric CORNWELL-GEORGE, Stephanie Write-in

ASSEMBLY- DISTRICT 2 - SEAT A  MULCAHY, Pete DEMBOSKI, Amy LUPO, SCHOOL BOARD - SEAT A SMITH, Don DAVIS, Bettye Write-in SCHOOL BOARD - SEATB NEES, David W. CROFT, Eric CORNWELL-GEORGE, Stephanie Write-in

ASSEMBLY - DISTRICT 4 -SEAT F CLARY,Andy TRAINI,Dick Write-in SCHOOL BOARD - SEAT A SMITH, Don DAVIS, Bettye Write-in SCHOOL BOARD - SEATB NEES, David W. CROFT, Eric CORNWELL-GEORGE, Stephanie  Write-in

HTML Tables

As I looked at the contested races, the candidate order on the ballot  seemed to favor Mayor Sullivan's candidates.

Don Smith was first in his race with Bettye Davis.
Nees was first in his race against Croft.
Mulcahy was first in his race.  (All seemed to be Conservatives and I wasn't sure who was endorsed by the Mayor, but Mulcahy had been appointed to the Planning and Zoning Commission by the Mayor so that seemed a safe bet.)
Clary was first in his race with Traini.

Whoa! I thought.  I knew that the first position on the ballot gets an advantage at the polls, because a certain number of people, if they aren't familiar with the candidates in the race, will just vote for the first one.  The best way to deal with that is to rotate the order on different ballots.  Then each candidate is first on an equal number of ballots.
Not only were the ballots not rotated, but the Mayor's preferred candidate seemed to be on top in each race.

This had conspiracy written all over it.   But first, some of the research on positional advantage on ballots.


From Northwestern University's Kellogg School: 

"Specialists in the mechanics of voting have long recognized that the order in which candidates’ names appear on a ballot influences voters’ decisions. Typically, candidates listed at the top of a ballot earn a greater share of the vote than they would receive in any other position, regardless of their policies and personalities. Now research on voting patterns in local state elections coauthored by a Kellogg School researcher has taken the issue a stage further. It concludes that the first listing on the ballot also increases a candidate’s chances of actually winning office—by almost five percentage points."

Stanford Professor Jon A. Krosnick describes the positional effect and how they've demonstrated it:

"How do we know this? Well, consider this: In California’s 80 Assembly districts, candidate name order is randomly assigned. In 1996, Bill Clinton’s vote tally was 4 percentage points higher in the Assembly districts where he was listed first than in the ones where he was listed last — a difference that persisted even after we took into account pre-existing Democratic registration levels in the districts.
In 2000, George W. Bush’s vote tally was 9 percentage points higher in the districts where he was listed first than in the districts where he was listed last — again, persisting with registration taken into account."

He adds this note which suggests the magnitude of the impact:

"In Florida, for instance, candidates from the governor’s party get top billing, which is why in 2000 and 2004 George W. Bush was listed first on every ballot. (His brother, Jeb, was governor.) "

Other states, he adds, order their ballots in different ways.  Some require rotated positions, some require the previous winning party to be listed first, Minnesota requires the party with the least votes in the previous election to be on top.  Some do alphabetical by party, some alphabetical by candidate's last name. Some random. 


I looked up the state law:

"(6) The names of the candidates for each office shall be set out in the same order on ballots printed for use in each house district. The director shall randomly determine the order of the names of the candidates for state representative for each house district. The director shall rotate the order of placement of the names of candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, United States senator, United States representative, and state senator on the ballot for each house district."

But this gets complicated.  There was a Supreme Court decision in 1998 where a candidate sued the Division of  Elections because he was disadvantaged by having a lower place on the ballot. [If the link doesn't work, start here at the Supreme Court site, link Alaska Case Law Service, then click "By Party Name" and write in "Sonneman"] The case said that the State had switched from rotation to random order with a 1998 amendment.  From the Court's decision:

The amendment was recommended by the Lieutenant Governor's Election Policy Transition Team. Its report stated that the amendment would save “between $150,000 and $250,000 per election cycle.” However, the actual cost of ballot rotation in the 1994 primary and general elections was $64,024. The amendment was also intended to eliminate the confusion of voters who relied on single-order sample ballots and were confused when they found a different rotation of candidates' names on their actual ballots. The team also concluded that “[r]esearch indicates that the order of candidates' names on American ballots does not significantly influence voters.”

Sonneman lost his case.  The Court decided that since the order was random, everyone had an equal chance for the coveted first spot.  I couldn't tell if it had been changed back since and that was why it said rotational in the statute I found.  I was going to see if I could call up Sonneman to see if he knew, but I got his obituary.  I don't have the app that lets me call the departed. 

So I called the Municipal Clerk's office to find out how it was done in Anchorage.  She was ready for that call.

Later, I videoed Deputy Clerk for Elections Amanda Moser explaining how the order is determined so you can listen to hear and/or read below.




Names are placed on the ballot in random order.  They have a written procedure and, in fact, the Clerk, Barb Jones, and her staff, and the Municipal Ombudsman were there as witnesses.  Here's  the procedure:

Procedure for Letter Drawing
Anchorage Municipal Code 28.40.010  Form
C.    The names of all candidates for the same office shall be on one ballot with spaces for write-ins equal to the number of offices to be filled. For each municipal election, the clerk shall determine the random alphabetical order in which the candidates' last names are placed on the ballot, regardless of the office sought, by conducting a chance selection of each letter of the alphabet. The sequence in which letters of the alphabet are drawn shall be the sequence of letters utilized in establishing the order in which the candidates' last names appear on the ballot.

1. Ensure that all 26 letters are present
2. One person will draw a letter from provided container.
3. A second person will read aloud the letter drawn.
4. A third person will record the letter drawn.
5. The fourth person is an observer.
4. Continue until all the letters are drawn.
5. After all letters are drawn the Clerk and other observers will sign sheet provided.
6. The Deputy Clerk will post on the Municipal Website.

And here's a copy of the list they made when they did the drawing.  Note, the date was January 24, 2013.  That's before people filed to run for office.

So, for each race, once they had candidate names, they went through this list.  Any Q's?  No?  M's?  etc.  In one case they had two candidates running for the same School Board seat whose names began with C - Croft and Cornwell-George.  Which should come first?  O comes before R in the alphabet, but they had to use this chart instead of the alphabet.  If you check the list, R is number 20 and O is number 24.  So Croft came first.

And when I looked further into this, I found out that in Eagle River, Demoboski, not Mulcahy was the Mayor's favorite.  And on the ballots with Ernie Hall's race, there were actually two Assembly races because Harriot Drummond had resigned to take her seat in the State House.  In that race, when I checked, Tim Steele's name was before the Mayor's candidate Cheryl Frasca.


So, you ask, if nothing was wrong, why write this post?  A reasonable question.  Here are some reasons:
1.  Don't jump to conclusions. It's always good to be reminded that one should do one's homework and get all the facts before jumping to conclusions, especially negative conclusions.  It reminds us that we see what we are looking for instead of what's actually there.  This is a good example of that and finding out there was no conspiracy, even though, at first glance, my evidence pointed in that direction.  

2.  We should write about good things as well as bad.  When the media only report things that go wrong, we get an unbalanced sense of how the world is.  The Clerk's office had thought through how they were going to do this, wrote up a procedure, and did the order randomly before they even knew who the candidates were.  And when a blogger called them up to check on what they did, they were prepared for me.  Their foresight on this should be recognized.

3.  I had all this information.  I didn't want it to go to waste.  A lame reason, but I'm trying to be honest here.


Final Thoughts

If the bump in votes due to position on the ballot is as big as the research says, then that's a pretty good argument for rotating the names.  But I think the research also needs to tell us if there is a population threshold when it rotating the ballots makes sense.  In my polling place we used less than 20% of the ballots.  Even if the names had been rotated, would we have used enough ballots to get to a different name order?  Should different parts of town get a different order for the School Board races - since they show up on all the ballots?

And I still have to find out what the current state law is - random or rotational?