[aodhan20]

Demo leader says King County makes Gregoire winner

09:57 PM PST on Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Democratic State Party Chairman Paul Berendt says recount results from King County give Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-vote victory over Republican Dino Rossi in the governor's race.

The report is very preliminary, and neither King County nor the Republican Party can immediately confirm the hand recount results.

But if the Democrats' analysis is right, it's a stunning reversal of fortune in the closest governor's race in Washington history. Rossi won the first count by 261 votes and won the machine recount by 42 votes.

AP

Dwight Pelz, left, holds up a ballot as he and Dean Logan, center, and Dan Satterberg, right, try to determine voter intent on 1,627 King County ballots, Monday, Dec. 20, 2004, in Seattle. Observing behind the Canvassing Board members are Diane Tebelius, left back, a Republican, Will Rava, a Democrat, and Brad Henry, a Libertarian.

Berendt and Democratic party officials reached the conclusion after crunching numbers supplied by King County, and adding in 320 ballots that were considered during a meeting today of the county's canvassing board.

King County, which includes Seattle, has finished tallying its 900-thousand ballots, but election officials say they still need to reconcile differences in the precinct totals before formally releasing its results tomorrow.

Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane says Republicans are looking at the data but have not drawn any conclusions.

Rossi had been leading by a slim margin throughout the recount, but King County, the state's most populous county, is a Gregoire stronghold. All of the state's 38 other counties reported their tallies earlier.

Meanwhile, Berendt says Democrats will continue to fight to allow King County to include 723 newly discovered ballots in the recount. The state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a lawsuit over those ballots tomorrow.

The question before the court is whether King County should be allowed to add those ballots to the recount even though they weren't counted originally because of mistakes made by county election workers.

Rossi has indicated he may challenge the election results in court if he loses the hand recount after winning the first two counts.

 

[LauraLynne]

GOV. RACE HAND RECOUNT: With just King County left to report, Dino Rossi has gained 7 votes in the recount, which would net a 49 vote lead. (Thurston Co. adjusted 1 vote) /county by county

 

[aodhan20]

GOV. RACE HAND RECOUNT: With just King County left to report, Dino Rossi has gained 7 votes in the recount, which would net a 49 vote lead. (Thurston Co. adjusted 1 vote) /county by county

Note that King Co. was NOT included in that statement........with King Co included and all counties reporting, she won by 8 votes!.........now is Dino going to ask for a recount aswell?

 

[oldskooler]

Well hopefully he will go to the supreme court and get the entire worthless hand recount tossed out, but I have been down this road with this exact arguement already too many times so this is a pointless arguement.

 

[Sur_real1]

:rant

 

[761honda]

Good, I have never heard of this Dino dude before the race.

 

[aodhan20]

I hope dino wins!

 

[Naries]

gooooooo dino shake up washington state it needs it!

 

[JohnnyMonsoon]

Naries said:
gooooooo dino shake up washington state it needs it!

+1 i'd love to make it interesting
i just feel bad for whoever wins, i think the rest of the US is making fun of our state and i don't just mean the seahawks.

go dino go!

 

[eviltwin]

Every vote should count, Republican or Democrat. Just 'cause some incompetent election workers screwed up doesn't mean that the vote doesn't or shouldn't count! I'd be PISSED if it was MY vote that they threw out. :mad

 

[Bravo1]

eviltwin said:
Every vote should count, Republican or Democrat. Just 'cause some imcompetent election workers screwed up doesn't mean that the vote doesn't or shouldn't count! I'd be PISSED if it was MY vote that they threw out. :mad

+1

 

[RJordan23]

Every vote should count, Republican or Democrat. Just 'cause some imcompetent election workers screwed up doesn't mean that the vote doesn't or shouldn't count! I'd be PISSED if it was MY vote that they threw out. :mad

How do you know it was the election workers who screwed up? The votes that are not being counted maybe from the error of the person who filled out the form. IMO, if you can't fill the form out correctly, your vote shouldn't count. Allot of the ballots are not getting counted because people forgot to sign it, if you don't sign it, it's invalid.



Gregoire has already made this state spend so much money, I hope DINO WINS!!!!

 

[TLRMAN]

I said it a couple weeks ago we will have a new vote in a few months......

 

[Helmet_Hair]

I said it a couple weeks ago we will have a new vote in a few months......

:rant

Unfortunately, I think you're right. No one should win with 8 votes, or 42 for that matter. This sux.:shake

 

[dustinw]

Somebody should be able to win with 8 votes. The problem is that we've had 3 counts, all three have netted different total numbers.

At this point we need a run-off. It's the only fair answer to this problem.

 

[Mr. Clean]

If you count the three million, or however many ballots, by hand you'll come up with a different total every time I imagine.

 

[WheelieGeek]

Here's some key excerpts from the article

"..try to determine voter intent on 1,627 King County ballots."

"..and adding in 320 ballots that were considered during a meeting today of the county's canvassing board."

"..Meanwhile, Berendt says Democrats will continue to fight to allow King County to include 723 newly discovered ballots in the recount."

Quite frankly this state is so screwed up Jesus himself couldn't save it. You can bet Rossi will take this to court, as there were plenty of anomaly's to make a case but without a governer this state will only get worse.

 

[HeyDanNiceShot]

Mr. Clean said:
If you count the three million, or however many ballots, by hand you'll come up with a different total every time I imagine.

exactly....:rolleyes

 

[Hypnotiq]

That's why I said...they demoncrats will keep recounting until they get the #'s ahead.

:bs

 

[JohnnyMonsoon]

i guess my only question is: since gregoire's party is all about having EVERY SINGLE VOTE counted, would they be putting up the same kind of whining that they are right now if she were actually ahead and won in the first place?

I guess i shouldn't call it whining so disregard that but my point is, I can almost assure you that they would be doing everything they could to stop recounts if she were ahead in the first place.

So when they say they truly believe every vote should be counted, I think what they really mean is that "every vote should be counted as long as it gives me a chance to win over the other guy if I'm behind, but if I'm ahead, its unconstitutional and blah blah blah"

I hate politics and this is one more reason why.