Talk:Washington gubernatorial election, 2004

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Featured article star Washington gubernatorial election, 2004 is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.
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The election will be held on August 4, 2004.

is thatsupposed to be November 4 or does Wash state hold a seprate election in Aug User:Smith03

Yeah, you're right, it's November 4. -- ShadowDragon
(I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote the above comment or when I wrote the date in the original article -- ShadowDragon)

Contents

[edit] Gregiore Campaign Pictures

I added an NPOV tag based on the picutres added to this article. Doesn't the presence of four Gregoire campaign pictures as opposed to one Rossi picture (and one of Bennett give this article the appearance of pro-Gregiore bias? Granted, Rossi did not appeal (which doesn't mean he conceded, it meant he didn't believe he stood a chance @ Washington Supreme Court), but this was a very contested election with the end result being at least dubious. Four Gregiore campaign pictures give the article, in my opinion, a pro-Gregiore bias, regardless of the editiorial content of the article - especially in today's "sound bite" world. Is it really necessary to depict Gregiore's inaguration twice, or Democrat/Gregiore lawyers celebrating their court victory? Equinox137 14:31, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, getting more Rossi pics, if they're available, would clutter the article unncessarily, in my opinion. I feel the Gregoire pics can be scaled down. Equinox137 14:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I would say there's plenty of room for another picture. Especially at the end of the "further legal challenges" section - if we can find one of Rossi speaking about the problems with the election, that would be a great place to put it. I would recommend removing one of the inauguration pictures and adding a Rossi picture. 3:2 in favor of the winner is reasonable, don't you think? -- Jonel | Speak 18:50, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"If they're available" ? Are you blaming the article for being POV because free-use Gregoire pictures are easier to get than Rossi ones? If it bothers you, then feel free to find and upload some Rossi pictures and add them to the article. Popping in an NPOV tag was the lazy thing to do. - Keith D. Tyler [AMA] June 28, 2005 20:31 (UTC)
Fair enough, if I can find some, I will add them. However, they way the article appears right now, it seems to have a pro-Gregiore slant. I won't respond to the "lazy" insult. Equinox137 28 June 2005 21:00 (UTC)
I disagree strongly with the POV tag being added to this article. There are no Rossi pictures that I can find that are available online. That does not lead to a bias, it is just what is available. A point of view dispute is rewriting an article to represent only one side of the issue, not to have the only photographs available. I am removing it now. Páll 28 June 2005 21:27 (UTC)
Same here, I haven't been able to find any Rossi pictures as well - but what I'm saying is that the appearance of four Gregiore pics vs. one Rossi gives the article the appearance of accepting Gregiore as the "legitimate" winner (which is still hotly contested), regardless of what is written in the article. It appears more like a Gregiore campaign article than information on the election. Equinox137 4 July 2005 18:15 (UTC)
I'm not aware that poor availability of material for one side is a conventionally accepted argument for removal of content. The primary goal is to present complete, enyclopedic information. Balance is achieved through addition, not by removal. One side should not suffer merely because their opposition refuses to make content freely available. - Keith D. Tyler July 6, 2005 00:34 (UTC)
It makes no sense to resolve this dispute by removing all pictures of all candidates. I saw an earlier version that had two different pictures of Gregoire's swearing in, which is unnecessary duplication. I'm restoring one such photo. Gregoire's inauguration reflects the ultimate outcome of the election, so it's not POV to show a photo of that event. It doesn't imply that Rossi's challenge was incorrect, only that, as a practical matter, it will be Gregoire rather than Rossi who exercises the powers of the governor. I'm also restoring one photo of each candidate in the section about the respective party primary. JamesMLane 7 July 2005 15:13 (UTC)

[edit] Fuzzy math

I don't have the correct numbers, but someone might want to take a look at the current vote totals.

Yep . . . right now the page suggests that Rossi came out ahead. Funnyhat 03:37, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. The manual recount took place after the machine recount.
Yes that table could use improving (initial machine count tallies, anyone?) but it's so tightly formatted it's a bear to change. - Keith D. Tyler [AMA] 06:05, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] registration by party

Still no such thing in Washington (see especially the Libertarian primary section). Primary voters have to choose the ballot of one of the major parties (in 2004, Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian) or an unaffiliated ballot. --Lukobe 07:03, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Initiative 892 has now scrapped the partisan primary altogether, replacing it with a top-two "Cajun" system. So 2004 will have been the only election requiring voters to make any kind of partisan choice whatsoever. (Assuming 872 holds up in court.) RadicalSubversiv E 07:59, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Right you are. That bit in the article is still inaccurate, however... --Lukobe 07:19, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion pages

Seems to me that it's rather POV to have two pages explicitly calling for a revote, and one that did in the past. I thought about linking to a particular SP post about the election, and adding a HorsesAss.org post from a similar time, but that didn't strike me as terribly encyclopedic.--SarekOfVulcan 23:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Please note that SoundPolitics is the only organization that is doing active, verifiable research by posting public documents online. Are they POV? Who isn't? But their evidence is indisputable. Readers who want to be informed on what really happened need to read SoundPolitics. Jgardner 23:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
... --SarekOfVulcan 23:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Including Further Research by Stefan Sharkansky

Why are my contributions citing public documents and admissions by the elections department consistently removed? This is very critical to the debate because it is direct and indisputable evidence of what actually occurred. Stefan has PDFs that are basically photographs of the documents he has. Isn't this important? This isn't original research, it is a verifiable source, and it should be included here. If you think otherwise, please discuss it here. Jgardner 23:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources -
"At the other end of the reliability scale lie personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, which are not acceptable as sources. Rare exceptions may be when a well-known professional person or acknowledged expert in a relevant field has set up a personal website using his or her real name. Even then, we should proceed with caution, because the information has been self-published, which means it has not been subject to any independent form of fact-checking."
"A personal website or blog may be used only as a primary source i.e. when we are writing about the subject or owner of the website."
"Personal websites and blogs may never be used as secondary sources."
"That is, they may never be used as sources of information about a person or topic other than the owner of the website. The reason personal websites are not used as secondary sources — and as primary sources only with great caution and not as a sole source if the subject is controversial — is that they are usually created by unknown individuals who have no one checking their work. They may be uninformed, misled, pushing an agenda, sloppy, relying on rumor and suspicion, or insane; or they may be intelligent, careful people sharing their knowledge with the world. It is impossible to know which is the case. Visiting a stranger's personal website is often the online equivalent of reading an unattributed flyer on a lamp post, and should be treated accordingly."
Hopefully this clears things up, I'm going to revert the page accordingly Gheorghe Zamfir 01:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
What about PDFs of actual documents? Does that count as first-hand information? Take for instance the most recent letter from the elections director in King County: [1] This isn't opinion, this is well-researched and documented facts. Jgardner 06:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC) (re-signed to get name)
Stefan has been doing a full-on research of the facts at his own expense and with donations. He's hired people to check documents. He's going through a lawsuit to obtain documents. He's the premier expert on the 2004 WA Gubernatorial Election. No one has done even half the research he has done. This would be one of those rare exceptions because he is the expert in this field, and no one compares. Jgardner 06:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
But it is still irrelevant. I can start a blog and put anything on it with no fact-checking or accountability. Blogs are not considered a source on Wikipedia except for articles about the blog or author of the blog itself. Other than that, it is fairly irrlevant how much research Stefan has done or not, until it is published in a neutral third party souce it is inneligibile for use on Wikipedia. Páll (Die pienk olifant) 17:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
And to the other point, according to the blog, Stefan is a "family man and small business owner." He may have done a lot of research, but its for his own blog, so that research isn't from being a professional in a relevant field, nor is he a professional in a relevant field, nor is he significantly acknowledged in any realm other than his own blog. So I don't think he qualifies under the limited, rare exception mentioned as "a well-known professional person or acknowledged expert in a relevant field."Gheorghe Zamfir 01:05, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
And I'll just add that this isn't a matter of whether this research is well done or not, simply that until its acknowledged in a reputable form, its not encyclopedic.Gheorghe Zamfir 01:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Michael Nelson?

Looking at the link for Michael Nelson, I see that it's got nothing to do with the Libertarian candidate - the article is about a British footballer. Being that this is my first time doing anything with editing wikipedia, I wasn't sure if I should edit it right out, or post this first and wait for someone of a higher authority (e.g. someone who has edited this article a lot!) to approve it...

Either way, I believe the link should be removed. --Hoborocks 18:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

You should never worry about making minor edits like that.  :-)

I made the correction, and noted your contribution. --Coz

[edit] Dino Rossi article

Until recently Dino Rossi had been tagged for cleanup since January of 2005. I tried by best to clean it up, but it still is paltry. Considering this article's featured status, shouldn't his article be a little more substantial? I would appreciate help in this from those who know. — Scm83x talk 04:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

the guy's biggest accomplishment was losing an election, which ain't much. he's a tiny historical footnote at this point. Justforasecond 03:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Usage of "Republicans" and "Democrats"

I don't think that this article makes appropriate NPOV usage of the entities involved. Any instance of "Republicans" should be replaced by "The Republican Party" and any instance of "Democrats" should be replaced by "The Democratic Party". In my opinion, phrasing like "The Republicans did such and such" or "The Democrats did such and such" is too informal to be used, and the more appropriate long form should be used. Opinions? I made changes to the first paragraph before realizing that most of the article had these malapropisms. --Jeff 03:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, no. Saying (for example) "the Republican Party" filed suit is not the same thing as saying "the republicans" filed suit. The former means specifically that the Republican Party was named in the lawsuit (when, in all likelihood, it was Dino). You are proposing to change it to something which is factually incorrect. Raul654 04:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Good point. I'm not familiar with the intracacies. MAyhaps the instances of "the Republicans" and "the Democrats" should be replaced with the proper noun describing the person whom the sentence depicts, rather than the loose form. --Jeff 18:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Then it should be changed to Dino Rossi and his gang of goons, not left as "the (amorphous entity formerly known as) republicans" Justforasecond 20:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks in bold part? Explaining "gubernatorial".

I've never seen wikilinks from the bold part of an article, but in this case I expected to see, up front, some explanation of what a US State Governor is, and what and where Washington State is. I've added links from the first use of these terms after the bold bit, but the way the introduction has been written, these links come quite a few sentences into the article. Ideally, the terms would be linked sooner, IMO, but I can't work out how to tweak the wording to do this. Also, I wanted to link the term gubernatorial to an explanation. The best link on Wikipedia that I could find to explain "gubernatorial" was Governor#Etymology, but again, I can't find a suitable place to put this. Despite the word "gubernatorial" being used in the title, the word is only used twice more in the article, and is not explained at all! For lack of a better place, for now, I've linked the first use of the word "gubernatorial" to the Etymology link I provided above. Maybe a "See also" section should link to Governor#United_States and Governor#Etymology? These were the first questions that I asked on reading this article. I thought this was basic stuff, and was surprised to see such links or explanations missing from a featured article. Carcharoth 09:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, those links had occured earlier, must have gotten lost in the editorial shuffle somewhere. But I don't have any problem with the placement of Governor and Washington links, I think they're immediate enough to serve the purpose. Though I agree in regards to gubernatorial, I would like to see a link for that placed in the intro, if there is a more informative link to be placed. I didn't turn one up in a quick search, gubernatorial redirects to governor with no explanation on that page, and I don't think that etymology link really explains the term. Gubernatorial is simply the adjective of governor, gubernatorial is to governor as presidential is to president, I suppose that's a bit that should be on the governor page somewhere, I'm not quite confident enough to determine where to place such a minor note though, I'll leave it up to someone else if its deemed needed. Gheorghe Zamfir 10:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Just after posting, I thought of checking the page history. Should have checked it first. Earlier versions do include the links. I did find an entry on wiktionary for gubernatorial, though it is essentially the same information as the other link. A link to wiktionary can be done like this, I think gubernatorial, so maybe that could be used instead? Carcharoth 11:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
There was also an earlier link to Governor of Washington, which redirects to a list of Governors of Washington. I think the Manual of Style says the entire phrase (here, "Governor of Washington") should be linked if possible, and people can then follow the links for governor and Washington from that list. I'll make the change, and change the link at Governor of Washington to go to the US governors bit of Governor. Carcharoth 11:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Running to get milk?

What does that mean, saying they "ran to the store to get milk?" -Litefantastic 13:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see that anywhere. Must have been some random vandalism. In colloquial American English, it means the speaker was gone for a short time. Ted 17:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Here come the freepers.

I think that this is a very bad idea to put such a vandal and conspiracy prone article on the front page of Wikipedia. We in Washington State have been listening to the rants and conspiracy theories about our close but legal election for years now and having this article in a high profile and unlocked is going to bring about a whole new wave of vandalism. --8bitJake 18:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I also live in Washington, and I see no objection to having the article on the front page. I note that, despite much argument, and many hard words, there has been no noticable violence. In how many locations, countrywide and worldwide could that be so? Too Old 02:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potentially misleading statement

What is this statement trying to convey?

"Conservative columnists suggested that felons were more likely to vote for Gregoire, but most of the felon-voters resided in counties won by Rossi."

It is nice that it has citations, but I still don't follow the logic. I think this is another ecological fallacy, which is ironic. However, the statement that "most of the felon-voters resided in counties won by Rossi" is still useful in the next paragraph because it would be in opposition to the Republican's "proportional reduction" plan (in the argument building up to the ecological fallacy). Or am I just reading this wrong? Burzum 00:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not even sure the cited source supports the claim that most felons resided in counties won by Rossi.. The Horse's Ass cite says over 900 felons were submitted by the Republicans and the Dems submitted a list of 750ish felons. At most the cite says the margin between Rossi and Gregoire might increase, but that does not mean that most lived in counties Rossi won. Many of those felons could reside in counties Gregoire won, but in precincts she lost. *shrug* All in all, could definitely do with a rewrite. --Bobblehead 00:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
That was an attempt to misdirect people. The Secretary of State removed nearly 1000 felons that they have verified as illegal from the statewide database in June. More are being further researched for possible deletion. It doesn't matter who you THINK illegal voters voted for, it is the fact that they were allowed to vote, and that the clearly illegal votes were counted, that is the real issue. If that illegal voter was Democrat, Republican, or Independent doesn't matter. The fact that one party wants to keep allowing them to vote does. --Coz 00:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linkspam

Please explain to me how the following, added as the only edit by N in Seattle (talk • contribs), is not linkspam:

  • WA Gov series - day-by-day, county-by-county analysis of the vote count and recounts on DailyKos, by "N in Seattle" (also summarized on his Peace Tree Farm blog)

Thanks. -- Jonel | Speak 13:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The wiki definition at Linkspam: "the practice of deliberately and dishonestly manipulating search engines to increase the chance of a website or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a dishonest manner." I went to the dailykos page -- it seems to be all about the election. Where's the dishonesty there? Is this really an attempt to manipulate search engine results? Justforasecond 18:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I was using linkspam with the idea of "links that are added to promote a site" in violation of the Wikipedia:External links guidelines. Sorry for any confusion over terminology. In this case, the links are also in conflict with Wikipedia:Reliable sources, as unattributed (to a real name), personal, partisan websites. -- Jonel | Speak 01:00, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible move?

I'd like to change the title to conform to what I see as a naming standard for elections like this. My proposed title is "Washington State Gubernatorial election, 2004". Comments? Chadlupkes 19:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Which naming standard are you referring to? Most other gubernatorial elections have '<State> gubernatorial election, 2004' In the case of 'Washington State' it seems to be wiki standard to refer to the state as simply Washington and to have other political breakdowns fully written out, such as Washington, D.C., Washington County, Washington, Arkansas, etc. --Bobblehead 20:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a formal standard, or is this just an adopted convention? Chadlupkes 03:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll just point you to the Washington discussion page. The topic has gone round and round and referring to the state simply as Washington has won out.--Bobblehead 04:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] maps

seems like the %ile map is better than the map up top. unlike the presidential election, this isn't winner take all. the %ile map is still flawed, since it doesn't show how many people live in each county, but its better than the other.

Justforasecond 18:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking both are equally uninformative without the population, but if you want to switch their positioning I don't see why that would be a problem.--Bobblehead 18:57, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] evidence of tampering with touch screen machines

This is one of the more interesting aspects of this election, if you ask me, and it's (a) buried awfully deeply in this article, and (b) there's a sentence inserted in the middle of it all that doesn't make any sense to me whatsover:

Furthermore, in precincts with voting machines that were repaired within two weeks of the election, Rossi had a touch screen advantage in 56 out of 58 (96.6 percent). The average margin for Rossi at these polling places was 11.58 percent more favorable than the absentee votes, and averaged 10.8 percent more than Gregoire on Election Day. However, the Republicans countered this by stating that among 90 precincts with no reported machine problems, 44 had touch screen vote counts more favorable to Rossi than the paper ballots from the same precinct, while 46 had a touch screen count that favored Gregoire. This raises serious questions as to whether the machines requiring repairs were tampered with to improperly assign votes to Rossi.

This is the sentence that I can't figure out:

However, the Republicans countered this by stating that among 90 precincts with no reported machine problems, 44 had touch screen vote counts more favorable to Rossi than the paper ballots from the same precinct, while 46 had a touch screen count that favored Gregoire.

Even if you grant that this is true, what does it have to do with the main point: How is it a "counter"?. And why is it inserted immediately before this sentence:

This raises serious questions as to whether the machines requiring repairs were tampered with to improperly assign votes to Rossi.

The flow of logic in the paragraph is totally disjointed.

-- Doom 01:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

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