Author: Marlon Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
King County Electoral Communications Officer Harley Watkins stood in front of a safe cage where ballots were stored. (Photo by Marlon Meyer)
Frank Irigon believes that he lost his bid for a seat on the Newcastle City Council partly because of his exclusive strategy that allowed him to support “black life is also fate” and the history of anti-Asian hate movements and his age. Stigma. This may be the first time his long history of activism has turned against him.
“I am not going to give up my values and beliefs,” he said.
Since the total number of votes that separated Ilgon from his opponent and final winner Paul Chabono was 0.30%, the forced machine recount was triggered. The votes were recounted to confirm that Irigon was defeated by a gap of 10 votes.
Irigan supports increased public safety and opposes the new tax. He said that voters stigmatize him.
For example, Charbonneaut’s campaign platform contains the sentence: “Young people can do it,” Irigon said. “This is age discrimination.”
Charbonneau graduated from Western Academy in 2020, where he was a member of the school football team. In the debate on October 19th, Charbonneau said: “Considering my age, I don’t have the luxury of not planning for the future.”
Charbonneau later posted what he called an “apology” on his Facebook page. But it also seems to reinforce a degrading message.
“After further thinking, I realized that I used this sentence on the forum. Our two photos are side by side. Considering our age difference, this implies something more…pathological and may make people think It’s about you, not about me as I want,” Charbonneau wrote the next day. “I would never talk about you or your health like that on purpose.”
Irigon was the revolutionary leader at the University of Washington (UW), where he transformed the student government and promoted the integration of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). As a member of the reserve officer training team, he participated in anti-war protests. He also led the protest to save the Chinatown International District and founded the pan-Asian journal “Asian Family Events.” Later, Irigon held leadership positions in the prestigious AAPI organization for more than 20 years, which included helping to solve drug abuse problems in the community. After winning many awards throughout his life, he was awarded the University of Washington’s Odegaard Award for individuals who have led the community in promoting diversity.
Although Irigan was defeated by only 10 votes, he did not intend to run for the election again. He pointed out that several famous politicians asked him to stand for election. Instead, he will continue his radicalism, such as advocating affirmative action plans in the Bellevue School District.
Nevertheless, Irigan does not believe that stigmatizing candidates as senior social activists is the way of the future.
“This is not a harbinger of what is about to happen,” he said. “For us Democrats and even mainstream Republicans, we all have the same values of diversity, fairness, and tolerance, but we must work harder to educate people.”
Perhaps one way to do this is to encourage them to vote-to support the local race.
Recount
In light of the approach of the game, the law required a recount of the votes, and it turned out that 154 votes were empty for that particular game.
“This means that none of these people voted for Paul or me,” Irigan said.
But Irigan, who joined the army directly after graduating from high school, never gave up hope.
At 10 o’clock in the morning on November 30th, he watched the King County election staff check every “under-voted” ballot on a pair of computer screens.
There are many different forms of under-voted ballots. Sometimes, the square may contain stray marks, such as diagonal lines. When this happened, the computer controller withdrew from his careful night watch, and his colleague also stopped. He magnified the entire ballot so that the rectangle was no longer isolated.
In a case witnessed by a reporter, a voter simply drew a huge X on part of the ballot, indicating that he did not even bother to vote for these races.
Zooming in again, the ends of those Xs become line fragments in each rectangle-a classic under-voting.
During the recount in Newcastle, Irigan watched the computer software system align the ballots on each ballot with the boxes that voters failed to fill in the options.
When the staff glanced over one of them, the empty boxes scrolled in columns on the screen.
It only took 15 minutes to recount the votes.
The recount is triggered by the difference in the number of votes. When the difference between the votes of the two candidates is less than 2,000 votes and less than 1/2 of 1% of the total votes, a machine recount will be performed. For manual recount, the difference in the number of votes between the two candidates must be less than 150 votes and less than 1/4 of 1% of the total votes.
In the 6th place in the Newcastle City Council, Irigon received 1,662 votes and Chabono received 1,672 votes. This makes a 0.30% difference in the total number of votes-making it a machine recount.
“As you have observed, for machine recounts, our team will confirm that the votes are insufficient, but will not actually calculate anything by hand,” Kendall Levin Hodson, director of the King County Election Office, in an email Say.
system
The vote-counting system is designed to capture the votes of anyone willing to vote-as long as the intention is clear.
For example, recently, a voter mistakenly filled out a page in the voter handbook and mailed it. The King County election carefully reviewed it in accordance with the law and determined that it was valid.
Almost anyone can perform a recount.
Any candidate, political party, or even five voters can request a recount—no matter how big the vote is.
But when a recount is requested, the fee for the requester is 25 cents per voter.
Ensuring the safety of every ballot is also of utmost importance.
Fifty security cameras hang overhead along with many webcams.
“We consulted with banks and casinos,” said Harley Watkins, the communications officer for King County elections, who was the guide.
Each ballot passes through one of a pair of sorters that are as long as a school bus. Named “Stars” and “Stripes” by the staff, each machine can process 40,000 votes per hour. They scanned the signatures on the outside of the envelopes in which voters mailed ballots for any irregularities. If anything happens, put the envelope aside for the staff to check and compare it with the signature in the electronic database that matches his voter registration or driver’s license application.
The envelope that was found to be healthy was crushed by the machine so that the previous ballot could be withdrawn.
The next stage is to tie all the ballots to a trolley and drag them into a safety cage the size of a small building. The cage consists of a floor-to-ceiling chain-link fence with security cameras hung on it, which can only be accessed through a door that requires both the use of a security card and the pressing of fingerprints into the flange.
In the end, the bare ballots were sent to another scanner in another room. Here, their images are recorded so that the electronic fax can be transmitted to a group of ultra-secure servers in a sealed room.
The security server is located behind thick glass windows and double sealed doors.
When not in use, there is a small red zipper on the door with a yellow number on it, which surrounds the door and the door frame. If the seal is broken, the staff will immediately know that someone has entered the room without authorization.
To further prevent unauthorized entry, the number on the zipper was recorded in a log on the table next to the door by the last person to use the room.
When manual recounting is required, workers enter the cages where old ballots are stored — the law requires them to be safely stored for 60 days in local elections — and then pull them out.
Kendall Hodson, director of the King County Election Office, said: “In fact, two people would manually count all these ballots and verify that they match what is listed on the scanning device.”
The facility was originally a Boeing factory and attracted countless visitors. Outside the building complex is a large map of the world, next to it is a map of the United States.
Both maps are dotted with clusters of cut-out paper circles, indicating the geographic origin of visitors to the facility.
Worldwide, it seems that the only country that has not received visitors in the King County election is Russia. Like the general election, the recount must be certified by the Canvassing Committee, which includes the election director Julie Wise, the representative of the prosecutor’s office Kevin Wright and the representative of the King County Council Jenny Weh.
As far as the Newcastle game is concerned, the mandatory recount was certified on December 6.
“But there is still a lot of optimism,” Irigon said. “Young people are moving in, and they have a strong sense of social justice,” he said.
Mahlon can be reached info@nwasianweekly.com.
