Washington State Governor's Race--Certification (Live Thread)(Rossi (R) wins by 261 votes!)

Washington State Secretary of State ^ | 11/17/2004 | The Conservator

[TheConservator]

This is a LIVE THREAD for discussion of the impending certification of final results in the Washington State Governor's race, between Dino Rossi (R) and Christine Gregoire (D).

The Secretary of State is required to certify the final results this evening. As of 4:28 P.M. PST, Gregoire leads by 29 votes with 2521 votes from 4 or 5 counties left to be reported. King County (the Dem's stronghold) has apparently made its final report.

Washington State law requires a machine recount if the certified results show a difference of less than 2000, which now seems almost certain. It also requires a manual recount if the difference is less than 150 votes. A machine recount is estimated to take a week, a hand recount a month or more.

If the final result were a tie, the winner would be decided by lot.

[Soul Seeker]

Right now they'll cling to the fair hope the Libs can steal this election through the recount procedure and/or lawsuits. Should Rossi survive that process, every right thinking individual will need to evacuate Seattle as Federal Agents are sent in to restore order.

[Splatter]

Optimist? Wish I could be, but it is WA. Still have my finger crossed. It's not over until the fat lawyer sings.

Here is how it works in WA,
You can work as a State, County or Educational employee, with little chance of succeeding in life but have the benies,
or you can work in the private sector that pays the wages and benies of the State, County or Educational employees.

Its called Socialism. Drag down one to prop up another.

[rogator]

Two questions.
Can't we do the same with their voter signatures?
Can we find out if our vote has been tossed out?

[goodnesswins]

AACCCHHHGGGHHHH....that's ONLY 1.5 weeks away.....but, what the hey, that's fine. You all will have to really help us clean up after, cause our house may be shown the next day....LOL. (I think I'll delay the rug cleaning until AFTER the party.) We've been removing furniture already, and got some boxes around....but everyone always hangs out in the kitchen anyway!!! We still have a TV....but sold our old tuner….no music except a boom box…and a bose radio. Will they work? Probably won’t be able to hear it over the raucous voices anyway. WE WILL have access to FR in the kitchen, on my old portable, however! Let’s see…..Dec 4th……2 days after the FINAL certification of GOVERNOR ROSSI, I predict.

[Splatter]

Yes to your first question.
As for your question, "Can we find out if our vote has been tossed out?", I don't know. Can anyone else answer this?

The only way to avoid the "invalid signature" scam is to go to the elections office before voting and fill out a new voter registration form. If you have changed your signature you may be outta luck. I know mine has changed over the years.

[Splatter]

See you all l8ter!

DINOCRATS WIN IN WA

[cherry]

I can write letters in two differant ways in one sentence.....what does that say about me?...shiz?

[Wphile]

I'm back now - kids need the computer for schoolwork.

Anyway, WE DID IT! Rossi wins by 261. Woo hoo!!

[Route101]

Machine recount will occur...not hand recount. Hand recount occurs when less than 50 votes difference I believe. If either candidate then wants another recount...they must pay for it....In any case...Congratulations to our new state CONSERVATIVE governor!!!!...He will win....unbelievable...No tri-bi this time!!

[Maigret]

there's been a movement for some years now to split off the northern and eastern parts of King county into a new "Cedar" county.

You can't do that till those of us in Eastern WA get to become part of Idaho!

[steve8714]

No, because all Libertarians really want is legal marijuana.

[topher]

Is this thread dead? Is there a recount -- I saw
that Rossi had over 250 Vote lead... I come in
the middle of the thread, so I could not browse
all 630+ posts...

[topher]

Never mind... I am blind... Rossi won by 261 and
there will be a recount -- by machine... We should
know by Turkey day I guess...

[BohDaThone]

If you voted a provisional ballot under the federal HAVA ("Help America Vote Act"), the state has to set up a system to let you know if your provisional ballot was counted or not. The Sec state or county clerk probably has the info on how -- some have a web site, some a phone line, etc. If your vote was under a purely state procedure, it would be up to the state.

[BohDaThone]

Grays Harbor double counted a LOT of votes. On tuesday, they were showing 16,507 to 16,276 for Rossi. Then it dropped to 12, 682 to 12,518 for Gregoire, a loss of about 8,000 votes. Then the final absentees brought the final total to 13,713 to 13,444.

It did switch the winner in the county, but the Rossi percentage only fell from 50.4% to 49.6%, which is not an implausible difference for double counting an area that was slightly pro-Rossi ( about 3989-3594). Just as with the "mysterious" Ohio precinct that had an extra 4,000 Bush votes, it really does seem to be a clerical error that was caught. The original GH count would have given them the highest % turnout in the state by a wide margin, so it should have been obvious that there was some error at work.

[jonrick46]

You are correct. The double counting did cause a loss of about 8,000 votes when the error was fixed. The margin between Gregoire and Rossi in Grey's County was small throughout the counts I saw. I did remember that the county went in Rossi's favor on the 12th of November. Then, when the correction was made, Gregoire was ahead.

The real question I must make is the situation in King County where 10,000 votes found in the latter part of the counting. We figured that the 10,000 ballets, if stacked in their original envelopes, would reach a height of 27 feet. Such an unusual error to miss that count estimation. The 59.0% Gregoire advantage held, meant an approximate 1,800 vote advantage for Gregoire. Of course, King County Election officials tell us those votes were there all along... and those same officials see nothing fishy about Baghdad Jim McDermott landing an incredible 80.7% of the vote in the 7th District.

For now, Rossi has a 261 vote lead and our machine recount ought to be complete by Wednesday of next week. Let's see how much that final tally changes and whether King County's apparent 505,243 to 350,779 final tally doesn't swing significantly in favor of Gregoire to magically deliver her the win.

I was also told by two of the observers at the King County counting facility, that the people doing the absentee ballot counting were walled in cubicles. When the observers went up to the partitions to peer over into the cubicle, the Seattle police were called to move the observers away from the counters. The counters said that the observers were too close and it was making it hard for them to do their job. Officials said they insisted on keeping observers at a distance so workers wouldn't be distracted and so observers wouldn't see confidential information such as voters' date of birth. Democrats accused Republican observers of attempting "to skew the election results in King County through harassment and intimidation of elections workers." The Democrats knew they could use the partitions to their advantage by pushing the observers at a far enough distance to perceive any vote tampering.

[Olympian]

How is it that King county can disregard procedures and do hand counts rather than the required computer recounts? I've heard that those doing the recounts are allowed to make a new ballot which is then counted based upon who they think the voter intended to vote for on the ballot the computer won't count.

[jonrick46]

I am having trouble getting information about the strange things going on in King County. I know that the Demonrats will use their arsenal of tricks if they can get away with it.