Today the Kootenai County Clerk’s Office sent out a press release titled Some Absentee Ballot Requests Show Confusion About Eligibility. In that release, County Clerk Cliff Hayes revealed that for the upcoming November 8 cities and fire districts elections, his office has received almost 1500 requests for absentee ballots. Of those requests, 469 were rejected because they were from voters whose residence address places them outside a city and in a fire district which has no contested races.
Some people will probably just ask, “So, who cares?” But more timely and appropriate questions might be, “What difference does it make?” and “How did he know that?”
He knows because our present County Clerk and his staff are doing the job they are required to do. They’re complying with the law.
Specifically, they’re complying with Idaho Code, Title 34, § 34-1003. Among other things, that section requires that before sending out an absentee ballot to a requester, the County Clerk must first “…ascertain whether or not such applicant is registered and lawfully entitled to vote as requested.” That means that the Clerk’s Office first had to determine the requester is lawfully registered to vote. Then the Clerk’s Office had to determine the requester was lawfully entitled to vote in that particular election. In other words, it isn’t (and never was) enough for the requester to just be registered to vote. The requester had to also be lawfully entitled to vote in the particular election for which he was requesting the absentee ballot.
The County Elections Office staff is also complying with Idaho Code, Title 34, § 34-1011. That law requires the County Clerk to keep a record of every absentee ballot request and the response by the Clerk’s Office.
Diligent compliance with those statutes makes it possible for Hayes and his staff to ensure that only registered voters are sent ballots for elections in which they are entitled to vote.
It is important to remember that during Jim Brannon’s lawsuit contesting the November 2009 Coeur d’Alene City election, sworn testimony disclosed that then-Kootenai County Clerk Dan English and his staff had failed to fully comply with either statute.
The November 2009 Coeur d’Alene City election for Council Seat 2 was decided by a difference of only 3 votes, and the election for Council Seat 6 was decided by a difference of only 29 votes. Look again at the numbers in Hayes’ press release. If less than 1 percent of this year’s 469 rejected absentee ballot requests had been erroneously and illegally sent out for the 2009 Coeur d’Alene City election, that number could have been sufficient to change results in the 2009 City election.
No one can say with any authority how many absentee ballots applications, if any, were rejected in the 2009 Coeur d’Alene City election, because the former County Clerk and his staff didn’t keep the statutorily required records. By the same token, without the required records, neither can anyone say with authority how many absentee ballots (over what were acknowledged in court) were illegally sent out and voted in that election.
Of some importance, too, is that during the election canvass on November 9 2009, Coeur d’Alene’s Mayor and City Council, acting as the canvassing board, didn’t ask any questions about absentee ballots and other voting irregularities. They should have if they had been diligently performing their election canvassing duties.
One final note on today’s press release from County Clerk Cliff Hayes. He and his staff went beyond the requirements of the law and notified rejected requesters that their application had been rejected. Then he told them how they could still comply and vote legally. He and his Elections Office staff are working to keep our elections honest and accessible to registered voters who are lawfully entitled to vote.
It is obvious that Cliff Hayes is making a difference and his discoveries certainly shed a light on previous operations within our county/city and the fact that he is now keeping an absentee ballot book/record will certainly remove the confusion. An absentee ballot record is critical evidence per se when or if an election is contested. It is still difficult to believe that the standard in Kootenai County was not to record absentee ballots – okay, it’s not so difficult to believe. 🙂
Comment by Stebbijo — October 7, 2011 @ 4:23 pm
I wager that Cliff is the only civil employee who did not get a pay raise and is one of the few who really merited one.
Comment by Wallypog — October 8, 2011 @ 6:57 am
Stebbijo,
When we first began looking into the November 2009 City election, one first impression we had was that the state’s election laws were really fouled up. Because of the time constraints for filing an election contest lawsuit, it wasn’t until after the lawsuit was filed that we began to realize that the problem really wasn’t so much that the laws were FUBAR’d, but rather that they were simply being ignored by the City of Coeur d’Alene and the Kootenai County Clerk. Even well-written, logical laws become meaningless when they are repeatedly ignored by those charged with administering them and when they know that our County Prosecuting Attorney is more likely to perpetuate the ignorance than correct it.
However, some of our election laws do need updating and clarifying. The responsibility for identifying those laws and initiating remedial action rests with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the County Clerks. As we saw in investigating for the election contest lawsuit, the Secretary of State, the AG, and the Kootenai County Clerk let the people down badly. Idaho’s legislature needs to remind Ysursa and Wasden (preferably with some judiciously-applied shoe leather to their posteriors) of those duties.
On top of that, our area is completely lacking in competent, timely, accurate news coverage. In my opinion, both the Coeur d’Alene Press and the Spokesman-Review newspapers intentionally avoided any comprehensive reporting. The intentional avoidance had to be more of a management decision by owners, publishers, and editors than by reporters. Thus, to the extent our public officials were derelict in their duties and responsibilities to the public, just as derelict were our local news media. To the extent our public officials engaged in deception, our local news media perpetuated the deception by failing to research and report it. The end result was the public was (and has been for years) denied the information it needed to exert its will and social control over a runaway City government and derelict County government.
Comment by Bill — October 8, 2011 @ 7:02 am
Just like Deedie Beards magical disappearance of information on her computer. The outcome had always been in the favor of the stakeholders. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Comment by concerned citizen — October 8, 2011 @ 7:45 am
concernedcitizen,
Good point. The big questions that testimony raised with me were (1) Who authorized and gave her access to return and clean it, and (2) When the lawsuit was anticipated or filed, why didn’t the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney specifically and explicitly instruct the County Elections Office staff, the County Clerk, and the County IT staff that no writings (which include emails and all other documents related to the 2009 election) were to be erased, altered, or otherwise made inaccessible since they would be considered evidence in any trial that might result? Even here in Idaho, we have a falsification/destruction of evidence statute. I would have expected the honorable Senior Judge Charles Hosack to be more concerned about the computer cleaning than he was, but then, he considered the entire statutorily-prescribed election contest process to be anathematic to the democratic process so …
Comment by Bill — October 8, 2011 @ 7:58 am
“why didn’t the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney specifically….”
Because of the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s “Good Ole Boy” connection?
Why didn’t the mayor, why didn’t the city council, why didn’t the county clerk, why didn’t the, why didn’t the….?
Because it is not about right versus wrong. It is about entitlement and this is the only way we can insure the outcome that will give us financial gain. After all we have done and the sacrifices that we have made for our community of course.
Comment by concerned citizen — October 8, 2011 @ 12:29 pm
I was reading Kelso’s brief again and I can’t even describe in words how this botch job makes me feel other than I haven’t read anything as bad since my old divorce case which is now sealed, along with some other cases during that time – because the judges in this area are downright biased, and that is a nice way of saying it.
There is a lot to digest in this appeal, you have to take it in a little bit at a time because it is complicated. The Supreme’s if they have read Kelso’s appeal should have their jaws dropped right down to their guts and they should be getting on with this hearing ASAP instead of drawing it out to get the public to forget. Bill’s breakdown on this case is wonderful, but when it gets to the math on all the different counts re: absentee ballots, I was stunned. It’s defies any logic other than what Kelso has presented. It is so obvious that this election was manipulated. No ballot books, no computer, no subpoenas, handpicked judges, ect.ect. Anyone that doesn’t read Kelso’s brief and still denies that the election was correctly administrated has their head in the sand.
When there is solid evidence right in our judges faces, they won’t see it. They will see what they want even if it is not true. They don’t need facts. They ignore individual rights, they ignore everything even their own administrative rules. This case reeks. Kelso’s brief explains it all – if the Idaho Supreme’s don’t get this one then, I would be happy to move the hell out of this godforsaken state because another botch job like this is just too much for me to choke down, again. “They” will just be getting away with it again and I am sick and tired of it. Our judges ignore laws and our own legislators can’t even write the ones needed to clarify botch jobs like this. This case is a huge mockery of our entire government – Executive Branch, Judicial Branch, and our Legislative Branch and it digs right to the core of every individual who wants to ensure their basic right to vote is protected.
There is not a doubt in my mind that Jim Brannon won that last city election.
Comment by Stebbijo — October 8, 2011 @ 2:01 pm