So here we go, 2004 all over again: Secretary of State Sam Reed says his office has removed 11,610 felon registrations from the computerized state voter rolls the past three years – they being the convicted who haven’t gone to court and had their voting rights restored. But KIRO-TV reports this week that its own computer-data study shows almost that 24,000 convicted felons will be given ballots though their eligibility is still in question. Says KIRO:Sources familiar with the election program, who asked we not identify them, tell us the [state’s] new computer system was intentionally programmed to ignore a certain subset of felony data. The reasoning behind it was this: Because most of the felons on [the] list committed their crimes prior to the computer going online in 2006, it was going to be too difficult to research which ones can legally vote.Reed’s office today fired back, calling KIRO’s findings “seriously flawed,” not to mention “speculative, outdated and unreliable.” In a statement, state Elections Director Nick Handy suggested the report could cause a backlash, similar to Florida in 2000, “where election officials purged over 57,000 possibly ineligible felons from the voter rolls, and later were roundly criticized for cancelling many legitimate voters in their sweep.”Handy nonetheless agreed the state needs a better system for reviewing felon registrations, and essentially conceded there are likely ineligible felons registered. But “The Elections Division will not remove voters based on speculative data. The Elections Division will, and does, investigate specific cases based upon credible evidence.”In other words, there will, once again, be felons voting illegally in the November election. No problem though. It’s not a close race is it?