The Seattle Times and Sam Reed blow it: The worst Secretary of State in the country?

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I've made no secret of my utter contempt for our waste-of-skin Secretary of State, and his most recent efforts have, if anything, deepened those feelings of disdain for him as arguably the worst Secretary of State in the country, if not the worst elected official currently serving.

His tenure has been an abysmal failure, where he has ignored the frantic efforts to get his attention focused on the most important aspect of his job: election security.

The legendary election debacle of 2004, which should have resulted in major revamping of our election system concerning requiring proof of both citizenship and identification, has resulted in neither. Further, our moron Secretary has been a staunch supporter of the bizarre concept that convicted felons, who automatically lose their right to vote with their convictions, should automatically regain that right the moment they're released from confinement, even before or without fulfilling all of the requirements of their sentences, most importantly, paying back their victims for the damage they caused.

In this most recent election, 24,000 felons received ballots who were not eligible to vote.

Beyond the costs involved in that fiasco (Far north of $100,000 wasted taxpayer dollars for which he was not held accountable) is the fact that Reed has had 8 fricking years to fix this nonsense... and the outcome is obvious.

Reed has done nothing to fix that issue; has done nothing to address either the citizenship or identification issues... and now he is screwing us up even more because of yet another misguided effort to screw with the voters by demanding that all ballots be turned in by close-of-business, election day.

The article below describes it far better than I could, but the crux of the matter is that this moron will keep thousands of citizens from voting in this state because he seems to believe that the post office is incapable of making a mistake... and God help our military voters or other citizens overseas.

I voted democrat for this position in the last election and I will vote democrat in that position no matter who runs against Reed, an embarrassment of an elected official.

That kind of incompetence and failure to adhere to the law he is sworn to uphold simply cannot be an acceptable way for any elected official to comport themselves. It is my earnest hope that Reed resigns. And the sooner, the better.

Make Washington ballots due by Election Day

Washington state's embrace of mail voting has created a problem of not knowing election results, especially in tight elections, for days. Secretary of State Sam Reed has a worthy proposal to require ballots to be received in local election offices by Election Day — the same as Oregon's law. Now, ballots are required only to be postmarked by Election Day.

WASHINGTON voters are no strangers to suspenseful elections — but our state has a habit of dragging the suspense out for way too long.

Secretary of State Sam Reed wants to bring elections to more decisive ends sooner. His proposal would require ballots be received in election offices by Election Day. Now, the ballots need only be postmarked by Election Day. That means ballots straggle in throughout election week, often putting off the decisive conclusion for days — given Washington's propensity for razor-thin margins.

On Election Night in November, Democratic challenger Darcy Burner was leading in her bid to unseat incumbent Republican Dave Reichert for the 8th Congressional District seat. But Reichert pulled comfortably ahead over several King County and Pierce County ballot counts by Friday to win re-election.

With 38 of 39 counties now conducting mail elections, the problem of interminable elections has grown only worse. Reed's proposal follows the lead of Oregon, a veteran vote-by-mail state that requires ballots in by Election Day. The change would not disenfranchise voters who, Reed argues, would quickly adapt.

More:
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The utter cluelessness of Sam Reed.

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Lew Waters over at Clark County Conservative gives us his take on the moronic disaster that is our Washington State Secretary of State, Sam Reed.

Lew tears into Reed in a variety of ways. I leave it to the reader to go over to his blog and check out his take. I mention Lew here essentially to give credit for reminding me about this issue, since I, too, read Reed's garbage in the LTE section of the Columbian, but failed to address his self-delusion essentially because out here in the hinterland, Qwest (aka the Prince of Deafness) decided to have an unspecified internet outage for unknown reasons for an unspecified duration and it just slipped my mind.

Lew's gentle slap at the moronic political protestation of Mr. Reed, which I discovered yesterday, reminded me to take my Fulda Tanker's Boot out and bury it in the Secretary's political butt.

Here it goes.

Reed is arguably the worst elected official in government today, and that's saying something.

In the most important elements of the domain of the Secretary of State, those elements concerning our election system, he is an utter, abysmal, failure.

Reed's failures make electoral fraud a fact of life in Washington State today. His failure to reform the state electoral system combined with his staunch support of the democrat position of giving convicted felons the vote while they encourage every other form of illegal voting since they know they, the left, benefit from the fraud vote.

The drive for reform stems from the disaster that is the 2004 election. Reed, caught in the glare of examination much like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi, has never adequately explained how it is, for example, that there could be 100's more votes then voters who cast them in King County.

The steps to reform the system are straightforward and simple: pick a date far away from the next general election.... say, February 1. On that date, invalidate every voter's registration in this state.

Require everyone to re-register USING PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP TO PROVE THEY ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS. Democrats hate this idea because they know of the thousands of people illegally registered because they don't HAVE to prove citizenship, they directly benefit and most of those illegal votes go to their candidates.

Require everyone applying for mail-in or absentee ballots to show, in addition to their proof of citizenship, PROOF OF THEIR RESIDENCY. We all saw that nonsense in Ohio and all the ACORN fraud that so helped democrats in the last election.

Continue the requirements of keeping felons from voting and restoring their right to vote WHEN THEY HAVE COMPLETED EVERY ELEMENT, INCLUDING RESTITUTION AND PROBATION, OF THEIR SENTENCE.

These are, as I said, simple and straightforward steps. Secretary Reed heard these demands over, and over, and over again at the 4 or 5 bogus dog and pony shows they put on around the state after the debacle that was the 04 cycle.

Reed has ignored all of it. In fact, even though this waste of skin has held the office for 8 years, he deliberately continues to violate the law by sending out ballots to 24,000 convicted felons.

And what do we get from this election disaster of a Secretary of State? It's too hard to separate felons out. Our computers don't talk to Department of Correction's computers. It's too complex. The weather's wrong. My pony has a loose shoe.

That this idiot has had 8 years to FIX all this and has done NOTHING to accomplish that task seems to have fallen through the cracks.

And now... now, who does he think he is? Why, he thinks because HE won statewide, that HE actually knows something about politics and how Republicans, apparently, can regain political prominence.

So, to show his high level of political ability, he reminds us that he "is one of two Republicans left standing state wide." Big whoop.

To set the table, here's his spew on the LTE front:

Put party division aside

In the aftermath of the Barack Obama tsunami, Republicans are correctly analyzing what appened. As secretary of state and one of two statewide Republican elected officials left standing (the estimable Attorney General Rob McKenna is the other), I hope party leaders will resist the self-defeating instinct to move toward ideological dogma, negativism and government-is-bad rhetoric.

I hope the party will increasingly be the idea-rich home of pragmatism and reform, inclusion and problem-solvers. We are, after all, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dan Evans.

We have thrived for 148 years by championing individual freedom and responsibility, equal rights, fiscal conservatism, strong local and state governments, free enterprise, conservation of natural resources, and a strong national defense. To move away from the practical, common-sense middle is the wrong impulse.Yes, Democrats have won the White House, the governor’s mansion and legislative majorities, but we must put division aside and get on with collaborative governing. Voters want results.

Sam Reed
Olympia

First of all, the main purpose of this is not to set Republicans straight.

The main purpose is so Reed can brag, period. "Egomaniacal" doesn't begin to cover it. But what Mr. Reed seems incapable of grasping is this: nobody cares.

Nobody cares that he won. Our local county commissioner races resulted in $460,000 spent... just in one county.

The statewide costs for Reed's election?

$186,000.

All of 14,162 people didn't bother to vote in this particular county for this statewide race.

The low amount of money goes to the utter lack of importance of this office and the fact that Reed's positions on electoral reform come straight out of the democrat playbook. Why take this idiot out when he's doing what the democrats want? And in the critical area of election reform, Reed acts like he's taking his marching orders from Comrade Dwight Pelz, chair of the Washington State Democrat Party.

That said, Reed is a member of a democrat front group known as the Mainstream Republicans. Essentially, Mainstreamers are democrats who, for some unfathomable reason, want to have an "R" appended after their name.

The irony and hypocrisy of Mr. Reed's letter cannot be overstated.

The first paragraph of Mr. Reed's letter is this:

"In the aftermath of the Barack Obama tsunami, Republicans are correctlyanalyzing what happened. As secretary of state and one of two statewideRepublican elected officials left standing (the estimable Attorney General Rob McKenna is the other), I hope party leaders will resist the self-defeatinginstinct to move toward ideological dogma, negativism and government-is-badrhetoric."

First of all, the so-called "tsunami" was, like Mr. Reed, a lot of hot air.

Here in Clark County, we gained Republican control of the County Commission and lost but one of 12 legislative seats, where Republicans now hold 7 positions. The legislature as a whole gained both one House and one Senate seat.

Yes... we lost the governor's race, but then, I predicted Rossi's loss from the moment he came out in favor of a taxpayer-funded bailout of the Sonics... for only $75 million taxpayer dollars.

So, Reed, in an effort to exaggerate his own success, exaggerates the climate within which that success took place. That is defined as "self-aggrandizement."

Government IS "bad." As the multi-hundred billion dollar bailouts continue, it can only get worse. But at the state level, there are PARTS of government that are "bad," such as the moronic and worthless Secretary of State's office. And as a party, Republicans shouldn't ignore that. And that he would claim that government ISN'T bad shows how dramatically out of touch and moronic his perspectives are.

Next, he spews:

I hope the party will increasingly be the idea-rich home of pragmatism and reform, inclusion and problem-solvers. We are, after all, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dan Evans.

Let's see.... Evans endorsed and did ads for Rossi.

And how'd that work out for him?

If pragmatism as practiced by Mr. Reed means the abandonment of Republican principles, then I say "screw pragmatism."

I would rather lose each and every year standing up for something then to cave into the politics of expediency and wimp out by adopting democrat party positions as a tool to become re-elected. And THAT is the recipe for Mr. Reed's success.

"We have thrived for 148 years by championing individual freedom and responsibility, equal rights, fiscal conservatism, strong local and state governments, free enterprise, conservation of natural resources, and a strong national defense. To move away from the practical, common-sensemiddle is the wrong impulse."

Again, cluelessly, Reed would have us believe that conservative principles include these tenets. Just for one example, the Soviet Union used to have the strongest imaginable "state government."

And how do these massive and moronic bailouts equate to "free enterprise?"

Rossi OWNED the "common sense middle." What good did that do him in a state so blue it borders on black?

None.

"Yes, Democrats have won the White House, the governor’s mansion and legislative majorities, but we must put division aside and get on with collaborative governing. Voters want results."

If "results" got people elected... or unelected... then Reed would be long gone and Gregoire with him, given their disastrous tenures in office.

Mr. Reed is so dangerously ignorant, so politically inept, so moronically guilty of misfeasance and so unqualified to hold elective office that his election is proof that you can, in fact, fool all of the people, all of the time.

And it certainly does NOT give Mr. Reed the gravitas that he thinks it does with his blown up sense of self-importance.

I look forward to actually watching Mr. Reed ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING.

But I'm not holding my breath.