A reader asked me via email whether I should give any credence to Michael Letts’ suggestion that the royal foul-up of the basic mechanics of voting in Richland County was intentional, meant to accomplish some specific election result — such as passing the penny sales tax.
My short answer was no.
But a mere “no” is entirely inadequate. The fact is, it’s hard to imagine anything less consistent with the known facts.
Never mind the fact that I know the people who were pushing the referendum, and can’t imagine them being a party to such a thing. That would not be persuasive in any case to people who believe anyone wanting to raise a tax to be beyond wicked.
No, the reason it’s an absurd idea is that everything we’ve seen in this case points to gross incompetence. The idea that there was a criminal mastermind deftly manipulating the lines at polling places so that the people who were against the sales tax, or for any particular candidate, became discouraged and went away without voting, while making sure that the votes FOR whatever cause the conspirators favored were counted, is laughable.
Gross incompetence just drips from every aspect of this thing. I suspect that if voting officials in Richland County were party to a plot to try to pass the referendum, that would have ensured the failure of the proposal…
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For some reason, I’m picturing Napoleon Dynamite saying that to carry out such a conspiracy would require “Skills… voter suppression skills… machine-sabotaging skills… ninja skills… SKILLS! Gosh!…”
All it would take is one person in charge to limit the number of voting machines in certain key districts. For example, the person who hasn’t spoken to the public about her role as head of the department.
There’s a lot of money to be made from this tax — especially when there will be a bond issue related to it. Lots of fees go with that.
I’d also like to see the breakdown of the vote on the tax increase from absentee ballots.
I think that it was likely intentional, and the conspirators are trying to play it off as incompetence.
If one of your main jobs is to make sure that the batteries in the voting machines are charged for 1-2 days per year. Don’t you think that you might check em in advance, order replacements where neccessary, that sort of thing? It’s not like it’s rocket surgery.
I guess the moral of the story is: If the government isn’t competent to run an election, what else aren’t they competent to do?
We had class elections in elementary school, and somehow we muddled through without much controversy. Therefore, the Richland County government (and county legislative delegation) are less competent than a bunch of 3rd graders. And, we just gave them an extra billion dollars to squander!
I got the answer to my own question about the absentee ballots from the data off the Richland County election website.
The margin of victory for the sales tax increase was 9,016 votes (75406 – 66390).
The difference between the Yes and No votes from absentee ballots was 8,958… (16,994 – 8036)
meaning the difference on election day was only 58 votes!
This is VERY fishy. Absentee voter voted for the tax by a 2:1 margin while election day voters were essentially tied.
Since the majority of absentee voters in Richland County are elderly African Americans, it makes one wonder if something was done to influence those votes.
The aforementioned table in The State regarding the shortfalls in number of machines shows that they screwed up across the board. No obvious bias from what I saw.
@kathryn
Where is the table with the actual number of machines versus the required number? All I see is the required number values and empty boxes for the actuals at this link:
http://www.thestate.com/2012/11/13/2517597/richland-election-chief.html#.UKLEXYbk3lg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
Absolutely. The one about how the simplest explanation being the likely one (did Sherlock Holmes say that) seems to apply as well.
As to Silence’s assertion: “I think that it was likely intentional, and the conspirators are trying to play it off as incompetence.”
Hey, if that’s what happened, these people are BRILLIANT. What a masterful job they did…
If this was a conspiracy, I’ll bet Petraeus wishes he had these geniuses in charge of his email communications with Paula Broadwell.
Was it really that cold on election day? T-shirt, shirt, sweater, jacket.
I think what Sherlock Holmes said was when you eliminate the impossible whatever is left no matter how improbable must be the answer. Or something to that effect.
Gross incompetence.
The outcome went to passing the transportation (piggy bank) sales tax AND electing Kirkman. Those wouldn’t, to me, seem like a likely combination for a Machiavellian plot -even though I would have voted for both. But I am an outlier.
Crooks look to stay out of the limelight, not generate it.
I have the print version with the data. I guess you have to pay for the data. 😉
Does anyone seriously think anyone was enough in favor of the tax to commit a federal offense?
And for my next trick, I shall try to get appointed to the Penny Oversight Committee….
“Since the majority of absentee voters in Richland County are elderly African Americans, it makes one wonder if something was done to influence those votes.”
Do the voter registration roles give age? Wonder what percentage of CMRTA bus users are minority. Many depend on the bus system to get to work and with this poster’s previous comments he thinks the govt is incompetent in every thing it does. Most elderly African Americans are very intelligent and they do and will pay a higher percentage in sales tax that the income group that the poster represents. It’s in the minorities best interest to have a reliable and consistent transportation system. What can we say that with a majority of the population having a bias against AAs, this aspersion is par for the course.
Ever consider it may have been a much better marketing effort compared to the red “No” signs? There was something in the presented projects for the majority of voters – that’s a good sales job.
voter rolls
A post from FITS news on “Richland County Rigged Vote: The Latest”
“By DR November 13, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Based on the results posted on Richland County’s election website:
The margin of victory for the sales tax increase was 9,016 votes (75,406 – 66,390).
The difference between the Yes and No votes from absentee ballots was 8,958… (16,994 – 8036)
meaning the difference on election day was only 58 votes!
Absentee voters voted yes by a 2:1 margin while election day voters were essentially tied.
A FOIA request should be made to get the data on who voted absentee. You have to have a specific reason for voting absentee.”
Doug, don’t ever criticize another who may use their initials on a blog post as you’ve done many times about my identity and saying that I’m hiding by not giving my full name. Your action is so precious! Embarrassed to use your “real” name on FITS? Your FITS post was at 3:36 and your post here was at 3:32 (4:32 per Brad blog, but Brad’s posting clock is on EDT). You changed the intro and didn’t mention the AA as you did above. Copy and paste is so convenient! “This is VERY fishy.”
Never underestimate the power of stupid.
@Silence
Yes. How does one apply for that job? And shouldn’t most of the committee members be people who were opposed to the tax? Otherwise, what’s the point of oversight?
If there is a law establishing the minimum number of voting machines required at a precinct and that law is not followed, how can the results of the election be considered valid?
Is it a law or isn’t it?
If the government can’t even handle elections better than this, how well can it perform the other tasks it’s assigned?
@BJ
You caught me. I used my initials and gave my real email address. That’s the first time I ever posted on Fitsnews. I wasn’t hiding anything.
I’ll post my real name on there right now. I’m not afraid of anything unlike you.
You keep hiding your liberal tax-loving self in the bushes so you won’t have to be embarrassed.
@BJ
Done. I’ve just “outed” myself with my real name on Fitsnews. I’m sure it will cause me soooo much personal harm to be associated with posting factual information about the vote counts.
Now let’s see if you have the guts to do the same.
I hope you can find better things to do in your anonymous world than track my web postings. Since you are on the public payroll, I guess you don’t have any real work to do.
@ Doug – The committee will be appointed by our elected officials from the various municipalities afflicted by the tax. City of Columbia and Richland County among them. If you want on, I suggest that you give your city/county councilperson a call or go see them and tell them you want on.
If the committee is going to perform any real oversight, it can’t just be political hacks and flunkies. People’s opinion on the tax shouldn’t be the issue, it should come down to being willing to putting in the time and having the competence to evaluate the funding proposals. Of course, the body will only make recommendations – council will ultimately decide how it wants to act, much along the same lines as the planning commission.
“Most elderly African Americans are very intelligent ”
Do you have data to support that claim? I would suspect elderly African Americans are no smarter than elderly Caucasian Americans.. who are no smarter than middle aged African Americans.
How about elderly Asian Americans? Are they mostly very intelligent as well?
I voted absentee. I was in a long line which was mostly black, mostly old people. One of the few legal reasons for voting absentee is being over 65. With the racial makeup of Columbia being mostly black, it’s not difficult to assume that most of the absentee voters are elderly African Americans.
@ Doug – I don’t think that they consider applications from FITSNews commenters, though. 🙂
OK, Doug, BJ — let’s please take it down a notch. The personal asides are unnecessary.
Oh, and on the committee thing — yeah, I think there should be some representation from people who voted no.
But that definitely should not predominate. The best way to make sure the plan is implemented is to have people who actual BELIEVE in the plan, and are committed to seeing it carried out.
As to Silence’s point: “Of course, the body will only make recommendations – council will ultimately decide how it wants to act…” Indeed, and that’s how it should be. I no more believe that an elected body should be bound by this plan, to the letter, than I believe elected representatives should be bound by promises to Grover Norquist.
Twenty years from now — or 10 years, or even NEXT year — there may be compelling priorities that would make it foolish to stick to every aspect of the plan. If the Gervais Street bridge collapsed one day, for instance, I think replacing it should take greater priority than, say, widening the medians on Assembly Street.
To me, the oversight committee’s job is to make sure the general plan is implemented, not to prevent elected officials from shifting priorities in reaction to unforeseen realities. And I have confidence that such a committee can accomplish that, because deviating from the plan will be a politically risky proposition, which means the council would have to have awfully good reasons for doing so — reasons they can sell to the public, not just to themselves.
I think this is a plot so simple that stupid people could pull it off easily. All you needed was the data from the last tax vote to figure out which precincts to impede. Did it happen? I have no clue, not living up there and not understanding the temperature or the desperation of those in favor of the tax. I will say I just read a very plausible novel where a presidential election was rigged by the actions of both sides in West Virginia. Also, the ABC drama “Scandal” is about to show how a presidential election could be turned by one county in Ohio. I don’t think ANY of this would be particularly hard to facilitate.
Greg, let me tell you something about “the desperation of those in favor of the tax.”
There wasn’t any. Oh, a lot of people worked hard on it, and wanted to make sure they didn’t overlook anything, but from the beginning this was a vote the “yes” side was likely to win.
The referendum just barely failed in 2010, the MOST hostile environment for taxes of any kind that I can remember in my lifetime. It was the year of the Tea Party, a year in which someone as unqualified and scandal-prone as Nikki Haley could easily roll over more qualified opponents to become governor.
If the issue had been on the ballot in 2008 (which was the original plan), it would have passed fairly easily — more easily than it did this time.
Citizens for a Greater Midlands wanted to make sure it didn’t overlook anything it should do to sell the idea, but there was never anything remotely like desperation. It wasn’t seen as an uphill climb. It was more like “This is ours to lose; let’s just not screw up and lose it.” That’s the feeling I got from the meetings I attended, anyway.
A caveat: I wasn’t privy to the core group, though. I just heard the presentations made to the larger committee of people who met several times during the year over at the chamber. Those meetings weren’t “what should we do” meetings. They were more like, “Here’s what we’re doing and here’s how you can help” meetings. And you might say we were getting the rosy version. But all the optimistic words I heard were consistent with my own reading of the political situation — which as it happens was pretty much on the money as to what happened on Election Day.
Standing back from it all, even if I’d never heard those presentations, the way the vote came out is pretty much what I would have predicted a year or so ago — a better outcome than 2010, although probably not as good a victory margin as could have been achievable in 2008, when the portion of the electorate that is NOT anti-tax was very excited about Barack Obama.
“because deviating from the plan will be a politically risky proposition, ”
Yeah, we have a long history of voting out incompetent politicians. How long were the books messed up in Columbia? Who suffered politically for that screw up?
Plus, when you’re dealing with committees and boards, noone is ever responsible.
All I want to see is the 17,000 jobs that were promised. An oversight board should be able to track every single job created by the tax.
@Brad
So the way the vote came out – basically as a result of the absentee ballots – is how you would have expected it to come out? What is it about the absentee voters that made them vote 2:1 in favor of the tax increase versus the regular voters?
Just from the precinct data alone, this appears to be a tax increase favored mainly by the black community in the lower income areas of the county. Why would that be? Self-interest? Thinking that higher wage earners would be paying more?
The bottom line is the election in Richland County did not meet the legal requirements by any stretch of the imagination. It was invalid.
Why is it that some people get so fired up over theoretical voter suppression caused by showing an id card but don’t seem as concerned by an actual, verifiable instance of voters not having a reasonable opportunity to vote. There were more people who stepped out of the long lines than there are people who might have an issue getting an id.
Seems to me that the opponents of the tax were far more emotionally involved than proponents. Desperation would be more likely from opponents.
How many violent pro-tax protestors have there ever been?
“How about elderly Asian Americans? Are they mostly very intelligent as well?”
At math and science and stuff, driving… not so good.
@ Kathryn – Were there any violent tax protesters of any kind in Richland County?
Aren’t the anti-austerity rioters in Europe sort of violent pro-tax protestors?
@ SDII – Sounds like you are gonna get some pee-pee in your Coca-Cola soon, you’d better watch out.
@Kathryn and all the other pro-penny tax supporters, you should read the latest guest column on FitsNews regarding Lexington County vs. Richland County on a business related level.
http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/11/14/richland-vs-lexington-the-case-for-business/
Has FitsNews turned a corner on news? Yesterday The State even creditted him for the article on the state executives 8% pay raise.
@Silence – ROR (Raffing Out Roud)
@SDII – I’m suprised that we didn’t get banninated for the last few comments.
Doug,
If the population most likely to vote absentee, by your own calculations, is the same population who has a greater need for a reliable public transportation system, why does it surprise you that the absentee vote would have been largely in favor of the tax to fund a reliable public transportation. That is not a conspiracy, that is a correlation.
Now you see, the Penny sales tax is inemidible. Things are inebitably gonna change!
I’m so ronery.
Hans Bricks!
Oooh lookie – Silence has avatared Peace and her twin sister, Joy.
@Scout
I don’t believe the majority of the people who voted absentee are bus riders. The tax increase isn’t just for buses. I believe there are “influencers” within those communities who are able to convince elderly people to vote a certain way – i.e. by spinning the same lies about jobs and safety that the pro-tax people used. Call me cynical (I do myself), but I am highly doubtful that the majority of the people who voted for the tax had spent much time analyzing the issue.
Hahaha, racism is so funny!
There you go again with those pesky statistical concepts.
How bout those black people? Aren’t they just the laziest!
Good stuff. Amirite, guys? This blog sure is a hoot!
After the recount, the margin on the tax increase decreased by 2500 votes from 9000 to 6500. That’s a big difference in “found” votes…
Since only 3517 people use public transit in the Columbia MSA, (US Census) it’s quite impossible that the majority of absentee voters were also bus riders.
David – as someone of Eurasian extraction, I have honorary diplomatic immunity when it comes to making Eurasian jokes.
And there’s nobody trying to influence those elderly white people to vote a certain way as well? Or, for that matter to influence you or me?
A friend of mine (who is a regular bus rider) said that she was glad the election was over, since she was tired of being reminded to vote for the penny every time she got on the bus. (She’s not elderly, though). She voted for the penny — but because she lives with the fact that she currently can’t get home from her shift work after 6 pm anymore, and has to walk home in the dark from Five Points to Fairfield Road and wants the evening buses to start running again, not because they told her to.
@kathryn
“Seems to me that the opponents of the tax were far more emotionally involved than proponents. Desperation would be more likely from opponents.”
I was involved in the opposition since before the first council meetings. I spoke to DePass, Weaver and Letts several times on the issue (as well as many on the pro side)
They never seemed desperate. They ran the campaign on fumes moneywise compared to the 250k that the pro claimed was spent on the campaign. Exact figures are unknown since they never filed ethics reports. Lets not mention 50k that council appropriated to the education campaign.
Letts and Don Weaver were passionate and committed to this. They had successfully defeated the measure 2 years prior and were banking on voter outrage over an almost identical proposal. That didn’t happen though.
@DR and Silence
“The difference between the Yes and No votes from absentee ballots was 8,958… (16,994 – 8036)”
Nationwide democrats focused on early voting. Its on of the reason republicans have been trying to put up hurdles for in person early voting in some states. Mail in favors republican.
Look at the democratic turnout in Richland county overall. Obama won the county by a large margin. In many ways I think this was THE largest factor. Many of the grass roots obama organizers also pushed the penny tax. Its pretty standard progressive policy.
“All I want to see is the 17,000 jobs that were promised. An oversight board should be able to track every single job created by the tax.”
I think the job numbers will always be voodoo math. There is no way you can measure the effect of buses and road construction. Much less paving projects. Best you can do is guesstimate how many jobs will go to the construction and engineering firms.
Its also hazy measuring jobs that will be lost due to the tax burden. I searched the interwebs extensively trying to find figures to support the claim for my pro taxpayer argument. They just don’t exist.
@brad
“Oh, and on the committee thing — yeah, I think there should be some representation from people who voted no.
But that definitely should not predominate. The best way to make sure the plan is implemented is to have people who actual BELIEVE in the plan, and are committed to seeing it carried out.”
I personally suggested Weaver or Letts to Jim Manning as members of the committee.
The committee NEEDS some voice to counter future councils. Though they can’t sit on the committee they can lobby for the changes and its very much a home field advantage.
Saying that the committee should set a high bar to change what they sold to the public as the plan. It can’t be absolute though.
Here is an example. Lets say that on a road widening a large group of people holds out and wants to force the county to condemn the property for the widening. It might be more cost effective to change direction.
“Citizens for a Greater Midlands wanted to make sure it didn’t overlook anything it should do to sell the idea, but there was never anything remotely like desperation”
My only issue with the Campaign the pro waged was the failure to file ethics disclosures as a ballot referendum committee. Due to recent court rulings this was perfectly legal but this untraceable cash has GOT to stop from all sides.
I personally attempted to contact both Bannister’s firm and Citizens and received no response.
Its water under the bridge though and is more symptomatic of a larger problem in the political arena.
In the end I’m disappointed that the tax passed. Its not the end of the world though. There will be other campaigns and issues for me to push for. I sided with the wrong team this team but you are never wrong to follow your principals. It was still a worthwhile effort and though the tax was farther encompassing than to my liking hopefully it will be a valuable investment in the county.
So now that they’ve finished up the official count, The State is now reporting that they found two more bags of paper ballots.
Knowing the people of Richand County, not only will allow McBride to keep her job, she’ll probably receive a bonus for a job well done.
It isn’t up to the people of Richland County. It isn’t even up to the legislative delegation that hired her. The law is so poorly written that she seems to have lifetime tenure! Oy!
Of course, Darrell Jackson thinks she deserves a second chance. Uh huh.
Darrell is just protecting one of this flock. Gotta keep that money coming into the church if he’s going to continue with tailored suits and black Mercedes.
@Kathryn
“It isn’t up to the people of Richland County. It isn’t even up to the legislative delegation that hired her. The law is so poorly written that she seems to have lifetime tenure!”
I spoke to Seth Rose today about this.
Here was his answer.
From Seth Rose
“Thanks Tavis. That is correct.. County Council has no authority over the Richland County Voter Registration & Election Office. Because of this, there is no action that County Council can legally take on this issue.”
Im a bit disappointed over this response. It does seem passing the buck a little.
There needs to be a public meeting so people can give input and have Ms. McBride there. Put the questions too her.
They could at least write a letter of censure and ask for her resignation. It may not be legally binding but it could shame her into quitting.
Well, she is stonewalling the press. Why would she submit to a public meeting held by the County Council that, wrongfully, is powerless?
Suggest it to Seth. He’s doing a great job, IMHO.
@ Tavis – I agree. Even if County Council cannot legally fire Ms. McBride, they should still publicly censure her and demand her resignation.
My guess is that there are a few other things that they can do as well.
Like start by authorizing their own independent investigation, or asking SLED for one. They also probably aren’t legally required to provide her with office space at 2020 Hampton, so lock the doors and let the legislative delegation appropriate funds and start housing her offices.
Council needs to take a stronger stance to register their dissatisfaction.