[alessandrofiaschi]

One of the first defenses the Dems and their supporters can come up for their own questionable behavior is with the hypothetical, "If you were in our position, you'd do the same." How about supporting your party's behavior on its own merits and not by claiming to be no worse than anyone else? Concretely, the real problem is that Washington Code is explicit about how to determine the validity of votes during the original count. BUT NOT THE RECOUNT - there is little definition of recounting except for the winning margin requirements for machine or hand recounting and the provision to allow a hand recount at the expense of the party requesting it. Maybe I am just too suspicious, but I have the feeling that the rats are stealing in all ways this election in WA. We must act, not only hope.

[wideawake]

Haruspication bump.

[RockinRight]

Gregoire will not stop until the count shows her winning by 1 vote. Then she'll demand a halt to additional recounts.

Fraud!

[ScottFromSpokane]

...after a partial hand recount in King County where election officials (aided by haruspices?) were allowed to use their own judgment to somehow "divine" the intent behind hundreds of improperly marked ballots.

Just one thing: All counties with optical scanners use ballot enhancing to make some ballots machine-readable, and in at least the vast majority of cases, no "divining" is involved. Admittedly, I didn't watch that many enhancements, but I didn't see a single ballot on which there was any question as to the voter's intent.

In some cases, in fact, enhancement has to be done even when a voter followed instructions to the letter, but the machine for some reason will not pick up the marks.

In Spokane County, this process was partially responsible for Dino Rossi picking up a few more net votes.

The process needs to be carefully monitored, but it's not a nefarious and unheard-of Democratic plot.

[lowbridge]

bump

[MD_Willington_1976]

She needs to drop the recount...shades of "How many fingers..." from Orwell's 1984.

[Tacis]

NEVER, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE DEM CAPACITY FOR DISHONESTY, THEFT AND PERFIDY!!

This looks like a perfect opportunity for the ancient "Lyndon Baines Johnson - Holy Smoke, Here's A Whole Ballot Box We Failed To Count The First Time" tactic. I can just see some dem party leader checking out the sewer lines (the dems love the sewers and, consequently, spend a lot of time there) and oozing into a little used storage room in the recount headquarters where he finds an official ballot box with all officials seals still fully intact. Even though the type fonts on the seal are identical to those in Rather's forgeries, the court orders that the mistake be remedied and the ballots inside be counted in the official, final recount. All, I repeat, all the newly found ballots are for Gregoire! NEVER, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE DEM CAPACITY FOR DISHONESTY, THEFT AND PERFIDY!!

[hunter112]

I'm still fuming mad at my county, Grays Harbor County. There was a startlingly large turnout, at least from what I've heard. Our criminal county auditor showed Rossi winning the county a week after the election, flipping it from Gregoire, then he claimed that the "numbers were just too high on turnout". Sure, I can accept the idea that we didn't have a 97% turnout rate, but his "revised" figures show a turnout of 77.1%, which is lower than all but four of WA's other 38 counties. Those four are quite rural indeed, and while GHC is mostly tree growing regions, the vast majority of our county's population lives within three miles of a major four-lane highway that runs through the entire county.

Where did the votes all go? And what sort of protest should I make to get the maximum coverage? I'm leaving this area at the end of the year, moving to Utah, but it would be nice to leave the People's Republic of Washington, and this corrupt county, with a bang.