Right now, Republican State Senator Dino Rossi is leading Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire by just 137 votes out of over 2.7 million votes cast. Last night, Rossi led by just 19 votes as the race has see-sawed between the two candidates. I think Rossi's going to eventually come out on top in this one, but first they're going to recount, by hand, every last single one of those 2.7 million ballots in this state, in accordance with Washington State law. Partisan Democrat that I am, I voted for Gregoire, but if she loses this one, I have no problem acknowledging that it's her own fault for running an utterly craptacular campaign. The state GOP took the right-wing Rossi, who won kudos in Olympia for crafting the 2003-05 state budget, and packaged him as a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, and Gregoire did absolutely nothing to counter that. In fact, she let Rossi attack her for being an insider and blamed her for the budget problems that Rossi was supposed to fix. Gregoire tried to run as Gary Locke with a sex change, and cleared the field for Rossi to run as the fresh face who's going to clean house. Even in liberal Seattle, that has its appeal, as Seattlites have happily been chucking incompetent politicans out of office the past few years, from the mayor to the city council to the school board. Rossi certainly won't have any coattails: Democrats now control both chambers of the state legislature. Should be interesting to see what happens in Olympia the next two to four years.
Apparently, the latest count has Rossi up by 42 votes. Wow. The Democrats are apparently pushing for hand recounts. Brings back those lovely memories of four years ago.
Congratulations on falling for the GOP spin, guys. I'm insulted by the comparison to Florida. I could've told you what the recount rules were four years ago, because we've had them in place here for over a decade, thanks in large part to a Republican Secretary of State that I voted for each time up until his retirement (and then I voted for his GOP successor, too). You can read the rules for yourselves right here, but here's the short version: First, each county counts the votes. If it's really close, you count them again. Then, at 30 days, you certify the election. At that point, a candidate can request a hand count -- provided they plunk down 25 cents a ballot to do so. And if they plunk down the cash, a hand count will be done. Not "may," but "will." It's Gregoire's right to request a hand count as long as she plunks down the cash. If the shoes were reversed, you know and I know that Rossi would demand a hand count. And it would be his right to have one.
Very true, I'm not comparing Washington to the massive screwups that went on down in Florida. I'm just reminded of those fond days spent watching supervisors pore over every hanging chad (not sure what the voting systems are in WA). Should be an interesting hand recount.
I'm not sure we have chad systems anymore in this state -- if there are, I haven't been voting on them in years. Most counties have optical scanners. IIRC, Snohomish (north of Seattle), Yakima (eastern Washington) and Skamania (Columbia Gorge) counties (listed in order of population, with Skamania a very distant third) have touchscreens. Going to be interesting trying to recount those. However, a lot of people -- 70 percent, IIRC -- vote by absentee ballot nowadays. Any voter in this state can opt for a permanent absentee ballot, and in a lot of cases many precincts are now totally vote-by-mail precincts (like mine is). Which is great, as long as you don't misplace them, as happened with 242 ballots in Snohomish County (I think that batch favored Rossi by one vote). Oregon, BTW, is a 100 percent vote-by-mail state.
I eventually voted for Gregoire but for a while looked at Rossi for it because his campaign looked better and I thought he was offering something different.. Then I looked deeper and saw how he kept his nose clean in a real estate scam that took some cohorts of his down. Plus a couple of other things that didn't gell. It is going to be an interesting 4 years.
Should be interesting. Gregoire's "Count all the votes, or I concede" strategy may help her standing in the eyes of neutrals.
I guess they've updated since i voted in Snohomish county in 2000.. i used a magic marker. I was like what the hell??
It gets curiouser and curiouser... http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/washington.gov.ap/index.html Obviously, the Gregoire campaign has to be happy about extra votes in King County, which they carried (with about 58%, IIRC.)
I saw that jack@$$ rossi at a press conference the other day, and he was callling Gregoire a sore loser ( you know all the lovely Republican retoric). who's the sore loser now??? hmmm...
The final (?) tally: Eight votes. If news reports tonight are to be believed, that's the margin of victory for Gregoire in the WA state race. That's not a margin of victory, that's a dinner reservation. At this point, make the declared loser lieutenant governor. There's no difference between them, not even a statistically insignificant one. You could find eight Washingtonians who turned their ballots into origami instead of mailing them in.
Democrat Christine Gregoire now leads by 10 votes. http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_122204ELBrecount_gregoire_2EL.36796f6b.html
Amazing how quickly the candidates' tactics shift, once the lead changes . (Though, to my knowledge, Gregoire has yet to declare victory.)
Ten votes is double digits. She should declare herself Governor now and move into the State White House before Rossi sells it...!
Hundreds of belatedly discovered ballots helped extend what otherwise would have been just a 10-vote advantage... Those words instill a lot of confidence in this election.
It always amazes me how in every close election with a recount the heavily democrat major city always seems to discover a couple of boxes or piles of uncounted votes. So either these votes are fraud, or it is the democrats themselves who disenfranchise their own voters by constantly misplacing their ballots.
In light of this close but accurate recount I wonder if Florida could have handled it any differnently. I don't suppose the Republican political machine run by Kathleen Harris had anything to do with that coup, I mean vote rigging, I mean election..... BTW, merry christmas and Iraq seems to be going swimmingly. Instilling theocracy, I mean democracy is just around (a very wide) corner!