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January 24, 2005

In the business of getting it correct.....

I began investigating the Washington Gubernatorial Election due to allegations being tossed around by Sound Politics blog. This one specifically raised a red flag for me:

With high praise to reader Joe O'Donnell for uncovering the answer.

He discovered that Bulk Permit #1455, the permit that is used for mailing absentee ballots, only had activity on October 2nd (1,605 pieces) and October 13th (28,000 pieces)... with no activity between those dates!

As it turns out, Joe O'Donnell had it all wrong. The ballots were mailed on time and that particular Bulk Permit wasn't the one used for the mailings.

Still, that story has really bugged me. Does the post office just give that information to anyone who asks?

In short, yes. But there's a hitch.

Last week I spoke with Jannine Young, who is the Retail Manager for the Seattle District of the United States Postal Service. Ms. Young informed me that information on Bulk Mail permits is public. But that information must be obtained via a Freedom Of Information Act Request. That Request must be submitted in writing with a very specific list of criteria.

Did Mr. O'Donnell do an FOIA request to get his information? I don't know. But it does seem very odd that he was able to get information like that so quickly to Sound Politics. At the very least, Sound Politics didn't fact check him and didn't follow through with the Post Office.

It's a lot more difficult to do the sort of fact checking required to get a story correct. But then if you're not in the business of getting stories correct...

Update:Torrid Joe at AlsoAlso has this piece up today debunking GOP claims that it's somehow King County's fault that some felons may have voted in the election.

Again...it's about getting it correct.

Posted by Carla at January 24, 2005 08:19 AM