The Seattle Times' Conundrum
Referring to a long ago 2004 Republican primary for U.S. Representative in the 9th Congressional District of Washington, among others, election activist Bev Harris was busily alarming people, in the late summer or autumn of 2004, that there was something wrong: the audit logs for the election in King County were missing for a certain period of time, the wee hours of the night, after the polls closed that September 14th. Mark Greene and Paul Lord were practically tied in the vote count, with Mark leading in the population-heavy portion of the 9th District, King County, and in Thurston County (Lord was leading in Pierce County). Audit logs may be able to detect vote tampering, which is why anyone who was tampering with the vote count would not want certain logs around, and certain logs weren't around by time sunrise came around on September 15, 2004.
After some examination, Bev Harris was pointing this out to anyone who was interested, but her operation is small and, to be honest, not nearly as well known at that time as it is now. It is doubtful that Mark Greene even knew of her then, let alone aware of her crucially important activities or her statements & documentation of the September 14th audit log problem. If the major newspapers in the area at the time (Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, King County Journal and the Tacoma News Tribune) said anything about the problem, it must have been very minimal and buried in the back pages, with no or little headlines. Same thing for the electronic media (T.V. and radio) in a different sense. Frankly, that's probably giving them all too much credit and probably no major media gave the story of the audit log problem any play whatsoever, although the King Co. Elections Dept. at the time, if not the director (Dean Logan) himself, made statements referring to the Sept. 14-15 audit log by effectively saying that long periods of "inactivity" on the log, even within hours after the polls closed, were no big deal. Searches on the internet only come up with reporting by Bev Harris (through her website) and other sources that are not the major media. It was Bev Harris who was watching and reporting the intricate details of the election closely, but not, or not so much, the journalists of the Seattle Times and the other major media.
As we reported elsewhere on this blog ("The Other Curious Election of 2004" and "Election Night: September 14, 2004"), Paul Lord ended up "winning" the primary, and not coincidentally by a margin large enough to avoid a legally required automatic recount. It was all very amazing how Lord's margin of votes ahead of Mark ballooned to such a sizable amount, but the Seattle Times/major media either did not investigate the matter, or more probably, did not care because neither Mark nor Paul Lord were establishment candidates, although Lord, a small-time burger businessman, did get token support from the Washington Republican state committee.
Now, as Mark Greene makes the 2004 Congressional primary a major issue in the Director of Elections campaign, the Seattle Times will be loathe to bring up the long ago primary since they failed to bring it up in a major way, if at all, in the immediate aftermath, and as a result, the public, including Mark, was largely unaware of the stolen primary. The Seattle Times' conundrum, throughout the Director of Elections campaign next year, will be whether to continue effectively stonewalling the story or to admit that they should have reported it more thoroughly or at all then, and thereby report it now, better late than never.
[revised on 2/3/11 to fix one spelling error]
SPECIAL REPORT:
The following link is from TomFlocco.com and is largely a detailed report about the September 14th, 2004 audit log incongruities and vote fraud in King County, Washington.
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/DocumentsReveal3Hours.htm
Please, contribute to Mark's campaign for King Co. Director of Elections: click on the title link above and make selections of how you want to donate, or send check or money order to P.O. Box 612, Bellevue, WA 98009. Thank you!
Copyright 2008 - 2010, Party of Commons TM, Good Orthodox Party of Commons TM, Democracy/Commons TM & Commons Party TM
After some examination, Bev Harris was pointing this out to anyone who was interested, but her operation is small and, to be honest, not nearly as well known at that time as it is now. It is doubtful that Mark Greene even knew of her then, let alone aware of her crucially important activities or her statements & documentation of the September 14th audit log problem. If the major newspapers in the area at the time (Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, King County Journal and the Tacoma News Tribune) said anything about the problem, it must have been very minimal and buried in the back pages, with no or little headlines. Same thing for the electronic media (T.V. and radio) in a different sense. Frankly, that's probably giving them all too much credit and probably no major media gave the story of the audit log problem any play whatsoever, although the King Co. Elections Dept. at the time, if not the director (Dean Logan) himself, made statements referring to the Sept. 14-15 audit log by effectively saying that long periods of "inactivity" on the log, even within hours after the polls closed, were no big deal. Searches on the internet only come up with reporting by Bev Harris (through her website) and other sources that are not the major media. It was Bev Harris who was watching and reporting the intricate details of the election closely, but not, or not so much, the journalists of the Seattle Times and the other major media.
As we reported elsewhere on this blog ("The Other Curious Election of 2004" and "Election Night: September 14, 2004"), Paul Lord ended up "winning" the primary, and not coincidentally by a margin large enough to avoid a legally required automatic recount. It was all very amazing how Lord's margin of votes ahead of Mark ballooned to such a sizable amount, but the Seattle Times/major media either did not investigate the matter, or more probably, did not care because neither Mark nor Paul Lord were establishment candidates, although Lord, a small-time burger businessman, did get token support from the Washington Republican state committee.
Now, as Mark Greene makes the 2004 Congressional primary a major issue in the Director of Elections campaign, the Seattle Times will be loathe to bring up the long ago primary since they failed to bring it up in a major way, if at all, in the immediate aftermath, and as a result, the public, including Mark, was largely unaware of the stolen primary. The Seattle Times' conundrum, throughout the Director of Elections campaign next year, will be whether to continue effectively stonewalling the story or to admit that they should have reported it more thoroughly or at all then, and thereby report it now, better late than never.
[revised on 2/3/11 to fix one spelling error]
SPECIAL REPORT:
The following link is from TomFlocco.com and is largely a detailed report about the September 14th, 2004 audit log incongruities and vote fraud in King County, Washington.
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/DocumentsReveal3Hours.htm
Please, contribute to Mark's campaign for King Co. Director of Elections: click on the title link above and make selections of how you want to donate, or send check or money order to P.O. Box 612, Bellevue, WA 98009. Thank you!
Copyright 2008 - 2010, Party of Commons TM, Good Orthodox Party of Commons TM, Democracy/Commons TM & Commons Party TM
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