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CJ Cregg
Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 1254
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 Wed Dec 22, 2004 11:24 am Washington governor's race could swing after hand recount |
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| Quote: | 
(CNN) -- Washington's most populous county is expected to announce its manual vote recount Wednesday, which could swing results in the closest governor's race ever in state history.
Also Wednesday, the state Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether some 730 additional ballots can be hand-counted and added to that total in King County, a Democratic-leaning bastion that includes Seattle.
On Tuesday night, Democrats claimed state Attorney General Christine Gregoire had moved ahead of Republican Dino Rossi for the first time with an eight-vote victory, citing preliminary recount data given to them by King County election officials, The Associated Press reported.
"We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington," Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt told the AP. "I believe Dino Rossi should concede."
Republicans had yet to draw a conclusion from the recount data, Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane told the AP. "It's just too close to call," she told the AP.
After the initial count of statewide ballots in the November race, Rossi led by 261 votes out of nearly 2.9 million cast -- a margin small enough to trigger a mandatory machine recount. That retabulation cut Rossi's lead to 42 votes, at which point Secretary of State Sam Reed certified him as governor-elect.
The state Democratic Party then put down a deposit of $730,000 to pay for a statewide hand recount.
The AP reported Tuesday that the 900,000 votes in King County had been counted, but election officials said they need to reconcile precinct totals before announcing the results.
King County cannot certify its results until the state high court rules on whether the disputed ballots should be included.
Hand recounts have been completed in Washington's other 38 counties, with Rossi making a net gain of seven votes.
Gregoire carried 58 percent of the vote in King, compared with 40 percent for Rossi, a real estate agent and former state senator. If the 730 disputed ballots were to break in the same proportion, Gregoire could pick up a net gain of 130 votes.
On Friday, a judge in Tacoma issued a temporary restraining order preventing King County from counting the disputed ballots that election officials say were mistakenly excluded from initial voting and from a machine recount.
Republicans went to court to prevent the counting of those ballots, arguing that an earlier Supreme Court decision mandated that ballots previously excluded could not be reconsidered during recounts.
Democrats, backed by the secretary of state, a Republican, argued that the court's earlier ruling only applied to ballots that had been considered and rejected, not ballots that had been excluded by mistake.
In an affidavit, state Elections Director Nick Handy told the court that in the first two counts election officials in at least six other counties had corrected results with ballots found to be processed improperly, as King County wants to do. He also said that Reed's office advised local officials they had the authority to fix errors found as they recounted ballots.
The absentee ballots at the center of Wednesday's court fight originally were rejected because the signatures on the ballots did not match the voter registration signatures in King County's computer system.
Dean Logan, the county's election director, said the ballots were excluded by mistake because the voter registration signatures were never entered into the computer system.
The King County Canvassing Board voted 2-1 to re-canvass the ballots by checking the signatures on them against original voter registration documents and counting those where the signatures matched.
Republicans have questioned the appearance of hundreds of new votes in the middle of the hand recount, arguing that they had not been kept secure. In court documents, GOP attorneys also said that many of the voters whose ballots were not counted because they had no signatures in the county's system did not respond to letters -- sent after the problem was detected -- asking them to send in new signatures. |
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CJ Cregg
Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 1254
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| Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:07 pm |
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Court rules for Democrats in Washington race
OLYMPIA, Wash. - The Washington Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that more than 700 disputed ballots from Seattle�s King County should be counted in the extraordinarily close governor�s race � potentially enough to tip the balance in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire.
King County is a Democratic stronghold, the biggest county in the state and the last to report results from the statewide hand recount that began Dec. 8.
The ruling was a boost to the Democrats, who even before the decision were claiming victory, saying their own analysis showed that even without the disputed ballots, Gregoire had erased Republican Dino Rossi�s slim lead and had won the race by just eight votes out of 2.9 million cast.
�We are absolutely thrilled,� said Kirstin Brost, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party. �All along, this has been about those voters who have been disenfranchised, and this is a tremendous victory for them today.�
King County planned to release its official results Wednesday afternoon. State Republican officials and Rossi�s campaign did not immediately return calls for comment.
No confirmation of victory claim
The ruling was the latest twist in the roller-coaster race, which was supposed to have been settled seven weeks ago, on Election Day.
Gregoire, 57, a three-term attorney general, was the favorite going into the election against Rossi, 45, a real estate agent and former state senator.
On Election Day, Rossi squeaked past Gregoire by 261 votes. His lead was whittled to 42 votes in a subsequent machine recount. Democrats then paid for the hand recount.
During the hand recount, county workers found 573 ballots that elections officials said were mistakenly rejected because of a problem with how the voters� signatures had been scanned into the computer system. Workers then searched a warehouse and found 150 more overlooked ballots from voters with last names beginning with A, B or C.
State Republican Chairman Chris Vance called their discovery weeks after the election �very suspicious.� And some Washington residents who had calmly been watching the recount with confidence in their state�s reputation for clean politics were starting to have their doubts.
Up until Wednesday, the 723 King County ballots had not been included in the hand recount, because a lower-court judge granted a Republican request to temporarily block the counting of those votes.
During arguments in front of the state Supreme Court, a lawyer for the secretary of state�s office argued that state law allowed canvassing boards to fix errors made by elections staff.
�The recount process is to secure a prompt, accurate closure to close elections,� lawyer Thomas Ahearne said. �Correcting errors by election officials makes the results more accurate.�
But Harry Korrell, a lawyer for the Republican Party, countered that state law did not grant King County the right to add new ballots to the recount seven weeks after the election. �A recount is limited to a retabulation of the ballots that were already determined to be valid,� he said.
When Korrell argued that counting those votes would cause irreparable harm, the justices questioned who would be hurt.
�You're looking at it from the point of view of the winner or the loser � shouldn�t we be looking at it from the point of view of the voter?� asked Justice Susan Owens.
Unlikely to finally settle race
More court battles appeared inevitable. Rossi has said he would consider going to court if he lost the third count, and Korrell acknowledged that more legal challenges were �almost unavoidable, regardless of what this court does today.�
If the fighting does not produce a new governor by the scheduled Jan. 12 inauguration, lame-duck Gov. Gary Locke, a Democrat, may have to stick around. That is because of a provision of the state constitution that says the governor�s term of office is four years �and until his successor is elected and qualified.�
Locke has made it clear that he is not interesting in hanging around. |
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Defiant
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 04 Jul 2001
Posts: 15946
Location: Oregon City, OR
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| Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:41 pm |
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Score. One more for the Dems...
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CJ Cregg
Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 1254
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| Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:45 pm |
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It also means the democrats have gone up one since before the elections. Unlike the senate and House where we went down
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CJ Cregg
Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 1254
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| Fri Dec 24, 2004 6:41 pm |
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Were up 130 Votes now! 
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Defiant
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 04 Jul 2001
Posts: 15946
Location: Oregon City, OR
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| Fri Dec 24, 2004 6:55 pm |
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I saw Democrats up by 8. 8 VOTES!
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Sat Dec 25, 2004 2:05 pm |
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There NEEDS to be a recount simply because it's SO DANG CLOSE! I don't care whose won, but there HAS to be a recount. (I've heard about this, but I'm not going to read the article because I know enough except who "won")
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Jeff Miller
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Joined: 22 Nov 2001
Posts: 23947
Location: Mental Ward for the Mentaly Unstable 6th floor, Saint John's 1615 Delaware Longview Washington 98632
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| Sat Dec 25, 2004 6:48 pm |
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I think theres been enough recounts theres been 2 that I know of. The democrat won by what I heard was either 130 or 150 votes I think thats good enough for me.
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| ~Tony Montana wrote: | | You know what you need people like me people for you to snub your nose at and point at saying there is a bad man. Well guess what This bad man is leaving. Say goodnight to the BAD MAN! |
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Sun Dec 26, 2004 8:04 pm |
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| Jeff Miller wrote: | | I think theres been enough recounts theres been 2 that I know of. The democrat won by what I heard was either 130 or 150 votes I think thats good enough for me. |
I only know of one...might as well check, being as it's SOOO close. Then, whoever wins the second one wins.
-------signature-------
"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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