I got my Covid booster shot at 6pm, earliest post-election appt I could get. There were holdups, so I missed almost the entire meeting, which ended at 6:39. Synchronistically, I arrived just in time for Simpson to speak. Here’s what he said, followed by my rebuttal of his facts and logic:

18:31:36 – Mike Simpson Councilor Reports (copied from Live Transcript)

“They killed it. So first I’d like to thank the people who made this all happen that’s that’s the taxpayers here in the city. They’re the ones that provide the revenue for for this, you know, budget to go through the city stamps [staff?] done a great job putting together. We’ll have more on that next two weeks at our next city council meeting. And as we see more, more results come in, you know, things. Things may change. So, I’d also like to express the, the frustration from other members of District six it with the election that has occurred yesterday. Now, the frustration results from the auditor and it’s a mistake that the auditor’s office made. And it is frustrating to see that a special election has happened, and a large mistake was made by adding voters in that shouldn’t have been in the district. And it does not do anything to help help folks have faith in our election system which should be sacred it should be secure it should be something that is, you know, easily to areas so that it’s easy to understand what happens. And when problems with our election systems that are brought up by the by the auditor, six days before the balance get counted. People lose faith in the election system. And that is unfortunate, and it should not happen in 2016 and 2020, two different parties complained about it, about the elections. And they both said that the elections were stolen. And we should not have a problem, this close to the to election day happening to our system. And with that, good night.”

Here’s my response: There may be frustration in District Six, particularly in Mr Simpson’s household, but nothing says it’s traceable to a minor error at the Kitsap Auditor’s office. It’s not a large mistake, it has nothing to do with elections being stolen, and only ONE party claims ONE election was stolen — the Republicans claim that the 2020 election was stolen, despite the testimony of their own party’s election officials, like Brad Raffensperger, and despite the fact that judges nominated by both conservative and liberal presidents were unanimous* in rejecting every lawsuit challenging the 2020 election. Facts. They “feel” that the election was stolen. They decry the lack of faith in the system as many voters, they say, feel that the election was stolen. Feelings. The Democrats claimed that the 2016 election should have gone to Hillary because she won the popular vote by over 2.86 million votes. They said that the Electoral College gives too much weight to low-population states, which is empirically true. I never heard of any Democrat saying that election was stolen, nonetheless Simpson makes it sound as if they did. Two parties. One that believes in evidence, one that believes in feelings. Simpson doesn’t present as a person swayed entirely by sentiment, but here he is, filled with a “feeling” and decrying the lack of “faith”. Feelings over facts.

Back to Councilor Reports. There’s a bike party along the newly-paved NAD trail on Nov 4th, Younger and Gorman both attending and spoke of it. Gorman responds, in his Councilor’s report, that he didn’t raise a Point of Order when Simpson was speaking because he believes in free speech. We have to keep national affairs at the national level. We have to focus on what’s happening right here in the City, as we’re the City Council. It’s irresponsible to compare a minor clerical mistake to a “stolen” election.

Adjourned at 6:39 pm.

• One judge in one case dismissed one lawsuit on a technicality.