"Protecting the Integrity" of the Emerald City Election Process

More "tall tales" from the Godfreyite camp

By Jim

This is a new twist.

According to this morning's Salt Lake Tribune article by Kristen Moulton, there are 2000 absentee ballots and 700 provisional ballots out now.

The provisional ballots are to be counted starting today.

The absentee ballots will not be counted until later, to allow mailed ballots to arrive.

Godfrey is now taking responsibility for "five or six" challenges to voters. His Dorothy Littrell and Jesse Garcia obsession continues unabated.

He claims no knowledge of the other 140-odd voters who were challenged by his renegade supporters over whom he has no apparent control. Lots of freethinkers over in the Godfrey camp, I suppose.

(Note to the meaning-impaired who have recently occupied this forum: when I say, "140-odd", I mean "about 140 and I can't be bothered to look the exact number up or calculate it". I don't mean "these people are odd". Many are my friends and neighbors who are trying to figure out how they ended up on a Nixonesque "enemies list".)

This morning's Standard-Examiner also contains two articles on the election.

This Charles Trentelman piece includes the first extensive interview with Blake "She'll never believe that, dude" Fowers, who explains some of his motivation behind the challenged voter list.

Apparently, Mr. Fowers' keen powers and Spidey-Sense have picked up a lot of fraudulent voter names, and he was just doing his duty as a citizen when he submitted those names to election officials. No political dirty tricks, no sir. Not retaliatory tactics. It's the same community spirit we see in those who are willing to follow police officers' wives and run down license numbers, and go tackle Evil Bicycle Thieves,

I have a suggestion. If the Godfrey campaign really believes that voter fraud was taking place, then they should have been satisfied with the relief they received, which was the checking of identification at the polls. Presumably, everyone who voted on a provisional ballot was allowed to do so only after they produced the required forms of identification. So, that process should have satisfied their civic-minded intent.

So I'm certain, since I believe that the Godfrey campaign's Mr. Fowers is only interested in the integrity of the process, I'm absolutely certain that there will be no further challenges to those provisional ballots and all ballots will be counted as-is without additional legal challenges.

After all, if attorneys under Mr. Godfrey's employ are challenging the provenance of provisional ballots at this point, it will be hard to support Mr. Godfrey's claim that he had nothing to do with the 147-name challenge list or with Mr. Fowers.

If, on the other hand, Godfrey-paid attorneys continue their obstructionist tactics, then it only reveals the true intent: to gum up the electoral works and pervert the intent of the voters of Ogden.

I mentioned a second Std-Ex election article, and here it is. It's similar to Kristen's, but with different numbers. What ought to be apparent... nobody seems to really know how many ballots remain uncounted.

By the way, I hope some of our recent visitors continue to hang around the blog. I have enjoyed posting my views and having them met with ad hominem venomous attacks. As Yogi Berra might have said, if he spoke Latin, "it's res ipsa loquitur all over again". I enjoy hearing opposing views and letting the quality of thought in them speak for itself.

Update 11/9/07 11:10 a.m MT: Kristen Moulton has a story up in the Salt Lake Tribune on election complaints being filed with Weber County and with the County attorney's office.

Update 11/9/07 9:24 a.m. MT: From this morning's SLTrib - "Gloria Berrett, county elections administrator, said Friday afternoon that she and County Clerk Alan McEwan, have decided to seek legal advice concerning the ballots. She declined to say why advice is being sought. However, election workers plan to continue working through today and on Monday, a legal holiday, to scrutinize provisional and absentee ballot envelopes. They want to ensure that only those verified as legitimate will be counted."

We just got off the phone with Gloria Berret, in connection with the above SLTrib article update. Ms. Berret informs us that the verification process mentioned in Kristen's article involves authenticating voter signatures only. This has proven to be a tedious process, due to the large number of provisionals.

Ms. Berret also informs us that election officials have not sought additional legal advice, beyond initial consultations with the Weber County Attorney's office earlier this week.