Here is Saturday afternoon’spress release from the Kootenai County Clerk announcing the up-to-date results of his office’s examination of the Coeur d’Alene recall petitions.
June 16, 2012
22 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
People were obviously signing knowing full well their signature was invalid.
Comment by Fiftysmtg — June 16, 2012 @ 5:44 pm
Maybe. Or there maybe questions as to the level of scrutiny and the interpretation of what constitutes an invalid signature. Litigation to commence Tuesday morning, in my unusually abrupt opinion. Just my opinion, of course.
Just
Comment by Pariah — June 16, 2012 @ 6:00 pm
I’ll be curious to see the list of rejected signatures, and why they were rejected.
Comment by dinosaurman — June 16, 2012 @ 6:24 pm
The seed of using fraudulent signatures was planted before the signature gathering even started.
Comment by Fiftysmtg — June 16, 2012 @ 7:00 pm
you’ve got to be kidding-with the theatrical act the recall had going on i’m surprised you didn’t have more ‘clowns’ sign! give it up-the PEOPLE have spoken! CLEARLY!
Comment by murphyk — June 16, 2012 @ 8:09 pm
How do we & when can we review the list of invalid signatures? If the list was public record then the invalid list should be also. Plz post how 2 access it and if it will be reviewed just to satisfy/justify curious minds. Even with this, their time is winding down & the next election will be the place.
Comment by chouli — June 16, 2012 @ 9:28 pm
chouli,
The process of examining the signatures won’t be completed by the County Clerk until Monday, so I suspect that the petitions with invalidated electors will not be available until after the results have been delivered to the City.
Comment by Bill — June 16, 2012 @ 10:16 pm
I have read that a ‘typical’ petition reject rate is from 10 to 15%. I do not know how this proceeds from here. But, if the rejected signatures are put up for public viewing it would be interesting to see how many individual protests come forward to query their removal. People who signed in earnest will want to know why they got rejected. You should ask all who got rejected to identify themselves. People who make NO effort to complain about their signature being discounted may represent fraudulent petitioners.
Comment by Wallypog — June 17, 2012 @ 7:55 am
The anti recall folks shadowed the county in their assessment of valid votes, so – I don’t see why a look at the invalid signatures would be of any harm and we might all learn something. What folks might not know is if a voter is not contacted – their information may not be correct on the SOS (Secretary of State) site.
Additionally, we also know that there are issues and incorrect information can be established at the Secretary of State’s level – re: the website without a valid registration card on file. That is a FACT. This can happen when the city does a 911 update at the request of the county – the information provided to the county comes from the city to do this, and the data can be incorrectly documented. This disenfranchises the voter when they have no control over their own voter information. I don’t know what connection 911 has over any voter registration – but evidently, they do.
The only way the voter knows their information has been changed without their knowledge or authorization is if they check the SOS website or it is caught at an election. If the county election folks are aware of this, they can fix the problem but they would not know unless a voter brought it to their attention. My theory is if addresses are wrong, what else is wrong? The voter has to check the SOS site on their own accord to make sure the government has it right – and that is just not done. This can be fixed, but my point is that the government needs to leave voter information alone unless they contact the person directly because when the government takes it upon themselves to control the information and they get it wrong it can really makes a mess.
The SOS site that is available to the people does not sort by address – does the county/state have that ability? I am guessing they do. The invalid names need to be examined – it may not change anything – but it still needs to be done. Ideally, the SOS site needs to sort by city as well within the counties.
Comment by Stebbijo — June 17, 2012 @ 10:09 am
What I would like to see happen is people get their voter registration up to date and in 90 days launch another Recall effort.
Comment by Fiftysmtg — June 17, 2012 @ 11:51 am
I thought there were more left to validate? KXLY News is claiming the ReCall is done. Is that true?
Comment by concerned citizen — June 17, 2012 @ 1:31 pm
@cc – well, maybe KXLY did not listen to Wendy Gabriel to hold the story until she contacted officials?
Comment by Stebbijo — June 17, 2012 @ 1:46 pm
The recall has been successful even if it fails. More people than ever are looking closely at how this city is run. I think the next election…be it recall or regular general election will show just how effective the recall has been.
Comment by Randy_Myers — June 17, 2012 @ 2:22 pm
concerned citizen,
There are still petitions left to be examined and validated or invalidated by the County. The recall petitions will be turned in to the City on Tuesday unless the County finishes with them earlier and turns them in earlier. The City has a formal tabulation process it goes through, then it will announce the results. If we have sufficient valid signatures, then there will be a recall election. If we do not, then there will not be.
Comment by Bill — June 17, 2012 @ 3:05 pm
I believe those names rejected should be published. Had I been rejected, I would want the right to question why. As I understnad it, one reason names are being rejected because middle initials were left out. If that is true, it is ludicrous. I almost never use my middle initial. Apparently, “valid” is subjective not objective. There is nothing wrong with questioning the results! This is CDA we’re talking about.
Comment by rochereau — June 18, 2012 @ 9:25 am
There seems to be some confusion about the process for validating signatures. On June 8th, the ‘Procedures for Verifying Signatures on City of Coeur d’Alene Recall Petitions’ was posted online. Here is a link: http://media.spokesman.com/documents/2012/06/1834_001.pdf
It appears the big three things they are checking are voter’s signature, address, and registration date. Seems pretty straight forward to me.
For those who are confused by the fact that there are invalid signatures, I am unsure why you seem surprised by this. When RecallCdA had to start standing on street corners/parking lots and go door to door, this was bound to increase the rejection rate. When you stop people on the streets or go to their door a lot of times they might think they are registered but are not or maybe they just signed so they could get away from the petitioner and move on with their day.
But if you are really curious, take some time and review the petitions yourself. For example, the first 2 signatures on all four petition are from people that don’t live in the city limits. Seems like it didn’t start off on the right foot.
Comment by meesterbox — June 18, 2012 @ 10:22 am
Is there going to be news today around 4?
Comment by lexacon — June 18, 2012 @ 10:48 am
For once I agree w/meesterbox. Obtaining valid signatures should have been easily straight forward. But there is purportedly well over 1000 invalid signatures out of roughly 5000 obtained. Essentially 25% of the finite time period alloted for this process was wasted. The question is: who wasted it? Was this massive waste an accident or by some nefarious design?
Comment by Wallypog — June 18, 2012 @ 10:54 am
All,
I spoke with Cliff Hayes, and the reasons for petition rejections are varied. We’ll have to wait and see. According to the press release sent out today, the County’s results will be delivered to the City this afternoon.
Comment by Bill — June 18, 2012 @ 12:45 pm
Interesting comment meester. How do you know about the first 2 signatures? That info hasn’t been released yet.
Still, those who have been invalidated should be published for any number of good reasons. Not the least being their right to know and protest if a protest is valid.
Comment by rochereau — June 18, 2012 @ 1:56 pm
“Interesting comment meester. How do you know about the first 2 signatures?”
Meesterbox is referring to signatures that appear to be the same, however, are what look like to be father and son. However, the address given is Hayden View, this if correct, is in the county. And as far as how they know, the petition/s were public record.
Comment by lexacon — June 18, 2012 @ 2:08 pm
Thanks for the clarification lex.
Comment by rochereau — June 18, 2012 @ 3:16 pm