A D3 “grassroots voting station” (Image: @mattcaucus)
In the end, it will add only a percentage point or three to the turnout but these votes are exactly the kind being most contested in the District 3 recall fight over Kshama Sawant.
“These are folks who didn’t know there was an election or people who lost their ballots,” Solidarity spokesperson Bryan Koulouris tells CHS. “Overwhelmingly, they are renters, and overwhelmingly, tend to be supporters.”
Koulouris says the campaign is also highly aware and highly careful about potentially violating voting laws over electioneering.
The Recall Sawant campaign and “yes” supporters say that “grassroots voting stations” being staffed by Kshama Solidarity across District 3 are unethical and should be against the law.
“During the process of downloading, printing, and then filling out, they can’t campaign, can’t urge them how to vote,” Koulouris says of the guidelines being provided about the printing stations.
King County Elections says it began hearing complaints about the ballot printing during the General Election. Elections officials say registered voters are able to access and print their ballot online. “This is primarily for our service and overseas voters, voters with a disability, as well as for local voters who maybe lost their ballot or realized they didn’t receive one at the last minute. It saves folks a trip to a Vote Center,” a statement from KCE reads.
KCE says campaigns and organizations are also allowed to help people print their ballot. “Even if someone prints out a ballot and returns their original ballot that we mailed to their house, we will only count one,” the statement reads. “Each ballot – even those printed online – have their own unique identifiers that are tied to the individual voter so we cannot accept more than one ballot per voter.”
Officials say the printed ballots go through “exactly the same process as mail ballots.”
“Our alternative format team confirms that they voter is appropriately registered and hasn’t already returned a ballot. The signature is verified – printed ballots required the exact same declaration as the one on the back of the return envelope. And then it’s processed just like every other ballot.”
The grey area comes in the state statute prohibiting electioneering at any “voting center or ballot drop location” by “election officers” —
Any election officer who does any electioneering at a voting center or ballot drop location during the voting period that begins eighteen days before and ends the day of a special election, general election, or primary is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction must be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred dollars and pay the costs of prosecution.
Koulouris says separating the politics from the process works. “There is a conversation sometimes before and after, of course,” he said, but the volunteers and workers are “extremely strict” about the process of actually printing and during any voting. “No politics.”
Recall campaign manager Henry Bridger has not responded to requests for comment from CHS but the campaign has spoken out about the printing stations on social media.
🗣 Hey SEATTLE District 3! Have you voted “NO” ❌ yet against the right-wing recall?
Defend our voice in City Hall @cmkshama! Come print your ballot with @Kshama_SC at 18th & Jackson or many other printing stations throughout CD and Capitol Hill. Scan the QR code for locations! pic.twitter.com/BF1J9YUqQx
— Em 🏳️⚧️✊ (@socialistem) December 4, 2021
Turnout 12/1 to 12/6 via King County Elections
Turnout in the vote has now reached 38% with the strongest numbers overall and even in the first six days of December showing the strongest turnout in the district’s north and along the Lake Washington shoreline. If the Solidarity campaign’s promise of “the greatest turnout the vote effort Seattle has ever seen” is going to come to fruition, will be a late-forming wave.
The number of “challenged” ballots, meanwhile, over issues like signature matches, has so far disproportionately affected younger voters with more than 2% of ballots returned by voters 25-34 facing challenges vs. less than 1% of those from voters 65+. 18 to 24-year-olds, meanwhile, have seen 4.9% of their ballots challenged. Typically, King County says about 1.5% of ballots will be challenged in any election. Voters will have weeks until certification to verify issues like signature matches but many will not be aware or go through the effort to verify.
Of the more than 400 challenges thus far, less than 100 have involved ballots received via drop boxes, the county says.
UPDATE: King County Elections says it has received around 70 to 80 “questions/concerns” via email and phone related to “pop-up ballot printing.”
Ballots in the recall were mailed beginning November 17th. Your vote must be postmarked or dropped in a county drop box by 8 PM on Tuesday, December 7th — at this point, we recommend you choose any of the available King County dropboxes across the city to make your vote is not left out. Learn more and check on your ballot at info.kingcounty.gov. Only voters in District 3 — encompassing Capitol Hill, First Hill, the Central District, Montlake, Madison Valley, and Madison Park — can participate.
The Solidarity campaign, meanwhile, plans to have the printing resources available right up until the 8 PM deadline Tuesday night and the campaign’s Election Night event at Chop Suey, Koulouris said.
And if a “yes” voter needs their ballot printed? Kshama Solidarity campaign people will be happy to help, Koulouris said.
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While it may be technically legal under election law, it is not a good look. Having a campaign printing ballots on the sidewalk a block away from a ballot drop box was clearly not the legislative intent. It undermines trust in the integrity of the voting system and seems like a recipe for voter fraud. How is residency in District 3 verified if a person is homeless? Once again Sawant is pushing ethical and legal boundaries to advance her own self-interest. Using such tactics is a stain on the left, and it will be used as evidence by far right politicians across the country pushing a voter suppression agenda. This is why many voters, progressives included, want her and SA removed from office. She is a disaster for Seattle and the progressive movement, a false prophet.
Ah yes, nothing says ‘Orwellian’ like the democratic process
A recall is part of the democratic process. Printing ballots and pressuring people to the point of intimidation to vote for your candidate under the stare of party officials and posters of the leader one block from a voting station is a corruption of the democratic process, and yes, it is Orwellian.
“Under the stare of party officials” – it’s long way from volunteers for a city council member to 1984, my guy. This is a false and inflammatory equivalency. Being able to print a ballot on the spot and turn it in a block away is amazing and I hope it happens on every street corner in every city.
I would say voter suppression is not a good look. You just hate Stacy Abrams!
I love Stacy Abrams
The recall is technically legal under election law, but is not a good look.
You know what’s problematic about this? Sawant’s partnership with homeless organizations like Nickelsville that require their residents to support her in order to keep a roof over their heads.
So is the Recall crowd just lying now? Absolutely none of this is true.
Well, I’ve attended community meetings in the past and this is openly shared but you don’t need to believe me.
https://mynorthwest.com/1339296/nickelsville-political-rallies-residents-lihi/
Its a fact. Scott Morrow gives his residents a choice: clean up camp outside in the weather, or “volunteer” Sawant and wave a sign indoors at City Council. The tiny home residents are no dummies. They take the indoors duty every time.
They are definitely walking a fine line….. I was asked about 5 times in 3 blocks if I’d had an ‘opportunity to vote no’ on the initiative. Were it back when we had polling stations, people who were actively campaigning wouldn’t have been allowed to be standing over you as you voted, even if they were quiet during the process….
I don’t think that they necessarily need to be stopped entirely- but anyone working these booths should be prohibited from displaying any campaign/party signs, urging you to vote any particular way or even disclosing their affiliation…. Any activities that are partisan should be limited to whatever distance they had been when we had in person polling….
That’s my thing. I’m fine with them having the stations making it easier to vote. I actually think this is a good way to get turnout higher, especially since the mail service on the hill has been shit this year. What I’m not down with is someone staring over my shoulder as I fill out my vote and also trying to proselytize a position to me.
The pro-Sawant crowd would go absolutely apeshit if someone else tried to do that sort of thing.
Sawant’s well funded campaign to save her job has turned into aggressive harassment in the final weeks of the vote. Phone calls, texts, multiple visits to my door. I keep telling them to stop but they don’t seem to listen, which I guess is on brand for Sawant’s political style. I now cross the street to avoid her canvassers. Both my partner and I have reached the end of our patience with her team.
Oh boo hoo. I get harassed by Recall people too. It just happened a long time ago and not now. And still get harassed by bombardment of TV ads from Recall campaign’s big Amazon/Boeing pockets.
are there really no laws about blocking the sidewalks like this? Earlier today they were litereally taking up the entire sidewalk on Boylston and Pine street. No consideration for social distancing, no consideration for people who are disabled, no consideration for people who don’t want to be bothered.
Reminds me of the La ROuche kids from back in the day though at least those clowns had the intelligence to not block sidewalk traffic.
The whining Recall types pushing disgusting and classist voter suppression: did you hate when Stacy Abrams did it for Georgia? Nope. Hypocrites.
I remember when Stacy Abrams came to Seattle. She made a joke about how she is viewed as a leftist in the Georgia legislature, moderate in Atlanta, and in Seattle she would probably be called a conservative. I think she is correct. Sawant would be calling her a right wing corporate shill. Thank you for helping make my point that Sawant is out of touch with mainstream progressives and her unscrupulous campaign tactics threaten the achievements of Stacy Abrams in addressing the dark history of voter suppression in this country and the ongoing efforts by Republicans to undermine the democratic process.
“Sawant is out of touch with mainstream progressives”
She’s a socialist, not a progressive and as such not beholden any capitalist progressive ideology. There is so much wrong in your above statement I don’t how to begin to address it.
Sawant is certainly not a progressive and certainly not a liberal. Her supporters remind us all the time they have a large disdain for liberals and progressives. They mock them. I believe many progressives in District 3 unwittingly vote for Sawant thinking she is progressive who supports their policies. But she is not. They hate progressives. Sawant and cronies are leftists. They do not believe in a regulated capitalist economy with protections for those in need, instead they favor abolishing capitalism entirely for a state-run economy. e.g. Sawant has openly advocated for nationalizing Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon.
There are not enough leftist, anti-capitalist, state-run economy, and communist types in our district to elect Sawant. The only way she manages to win these elections is that many people aren’t aware of what she and her camp actually stand for, and end of voting for her.
Which is why I think her support is eroding election after election as more people learn about her, and why there’s a good chance she might get recalled. And why the Sawant people are nervous. There aren’t enough leftists in D3 who want to bring about a glorious workers’ revolution to keep electing her. Most people in our district want to live in a nice, safe, thoughtful, and prosperous community without all the divisiveness thrown into their faces.
Our district is divided. And just like we got rid of Trump who was the source of much of the national division, it’s time to get rid of Sawant, who brings divisiveness to our city. We’re a community where most of should be agreeing and building coalitions to end homelessness and address cost of living increases, not at odds with neighbors over this polarizing politician.
Do all the Recall weirdos compare Kshama to Trump? Does that one actually stick? She’s the literal opposite of Trump in every single way. I thought this district was supposed to be smart? I voted No.
She’s so similar it’s actually laughable that any sane person would argue otherwise.
Mensheviks, Bolsheviks. So hard to parse.
When you target election timing (mid-December, off year) for low turnout and then get mad that people are doing unusual things to get as many people to vote as possible, you’re basically admitting that you’re trying to pass something that most people don’t like.
This is admitting you don’t want the vote to reflect the will of the people, but instead reflect the will of your kind of people.
It’s actually shocking that I could dislike a politician more than Trump. She is just awful in every way if she put this much effort into actually doing what the job of City council entails she wouldn’t be in this position but she’s a totally inept, fringe wacko. It’s so gross.
She’s the opposite. But I guess you like to lie. You’re gross.
what are you 9 yrs old?
She may represent the opposite end of the political spectrum, but her tactics are depressingly similar- relies on a rabidly loyal base that believes sincerely that she can do no wrong, always on the attack towards anyone who dares express a differing viewpoint, response to questions that she cannot or doesn’t want to answer – deflection and loud self aggrandizing, any failings are always someone else’s fault, definite belief that the rules don’t apply to her.
Love seeing her fan club take up the entire sidewalk for their lies and misinformation. They had another drone on the opposing sidewalk bullying people about their vote, with no mask on.
A few weeks ago I emailed CHS and city council to complain about one of her fanclub campaigners literally getting in my face to yell her propaganda at me while I was waiting for coffee outside a cafe. He of course was wearing no face mask and wasn’t interested in a discussion, just a screaming of facts that she’s innocent.
These are exactly the same tactics as the GOP & alt-right: operate in the legal gray zone and keep asserting innocence instead of acting with integrity. Deflect, deflect, deflect!