A federal judge yesterday denied a request by the state Republican Party to stop the King County recount of votes in the tightly contested race for governor between Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire.

Despite the judge's ruling, Republicans stepped up their attacks on how election workers in the heavily Democratic county were handling ballots. Gregoire, a Democrat, won King County with 57 percent of the approximately 898,000 votes cast, but she trailed Republican Rossi by 261 votes statewide. The small margin triggered an automatic machine recount.

Chris Vance, head of the state Republican Party, accused King County election officials of partisan decision-making in their visual examination of ballots rejected during the machine recount.

He said problems with the recount were reminiscent of the troubled 2002 county election that resulted in the firing of the county elections superintendent.

King County elections officials said they are following the same standards used across the state to determine voters' intent in cases where the optical-scanning machine rejects a ballot. The problems in the 2002 election involved absentee ballots mailed late to voters, officials said, and have no relation to this recount.

"The judge didn't rule in their favor, and now they're doing anything they can to disrupt the process," said King County Elections Director Dean Logan. "It's disappointing that they're reduced to the level of degrading the process."

In yesterday's court ruling, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said there would be no irreparable harm in allowing the King County recount to go forward.

In denying the Republicans' request for a temporary restraining order, she said ballots were not being destroyed and could be reviewed later, so there was no need to call an immediate halt to the recount.

She made the decision about 1 p.m. yesterday in a conference call that included attorneys for the state and national Republican Party, the state Democratic Party, the secretary of state and the King County elections division.

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES After a voter made a check mark in the circle for Dino Rossi, instead of filling it in, this ballot is enhanced below by an election worker yesterday as the recount in the governor's race continued in King County.

Pechman did not rule on the merits of the Republicans' lawsuit, which challenges how King County is recounting ballots. The case was expected to be assigned to another judge today, said Janine Joly, a senior deputy prosecutor representing King County.

On Saturday, Republicans filed the lawsuit and asked for a restraining order to stop the recount in King County, arguing that the ballots rejected by the optical-scanning machine were being treated differently from punch-card ballots used in 14 other counties.

They alleged that King County election workers were attempting to determine voter intent, even where ballots were unclear.

Election officials say workers enhance or duplicate ballots when they can clearly determine a voter's intent. For example, a voter may have circled a name instead of filling in an oval, or filled in an oval and also written in the same candidate's name. The machines may also reject ballots that were properly marked but torn or wrinkled.

The Republican Party did not file lawsuits in any other counties, although 23 use the same optical-scanning machines to read ballots as King County does. Two counties, Yakima and Snohomish, use touch-screen voting but optically scan mail-in votes.

The state director of elections, Nick Handy, said the standards for counting ballots are the same in every county. Both punch-card and optically scanned ballots are visually examined in questionable cases to see if a voter's intent can be clearly determined.

Handy said the state drafted new regulations for determining how ballots are counted in the wake of the close 2000 presidential election, in which the outcome turned on how election officials in Florida counted the hanging chads and dimpled chads of punch-card ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, ruled that states must use uniform standards in counting ballots.

The state-mandated recount in Washington's governor's race started Saturday, as King County began running nearly 900,000 ballots through vote-tabulation machines for the second time. Republican Dino Rossi emerged 261 votes ahead of Christine Gregoire on Wednesday at the end of the regular vote-counting period. The recount is to take four to five days in King County.

Vance said he was "very concerned" that partisan politics could be playing a role in how new, replacement ballots were being filled out by election workers interpreting questionable ballots.

Vance yesterday accused King County Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens, a Democrat, of ordering ballots that were "clearly and fully marked for Dino Rossi" to not be counted. Huennekens called that claim untrue, saying the ballots in question had been marked for both Gregoire and Rossi.

Vance said Huennekens has Democratic Party political ties and added that County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat, has a history of "hiring political hacks to run his elections."

Huennekens called the charges "insulting." Although he once was a Mason County Democratic precinct committeeman, he has been an elections-policy analyst under secretaries of state Ralph Munro and Sam Reed, both Republicans.

Logan, the county elections director, said Huennekens is a "professional-elections administrator" whose appointment was confirmed unanimously by a bipartisan King County Council.

Logan said King County is following state rules in recounting ballots. He said records are kept if a new ballot is created to replace a questionable one, and both ballots are retained. Any King County ballots for which election workers can't determine a voter's intent — for instance, where a voter's mark was outside a candidate's oval — will be reviewed by the county canvassing board over the next few days.

Among other complaints, Republicans said an improperly sealed box of ballots contained 201 ballots — two more than a receipt on the box said it should have had.

Logan said such discrepancies occur occasionally, and that in any such case, the box is set aside and counted again to make sure it has the right number of ballots.

Republicans also pointed to precincts in which fewer ballots were on hand when the recount started than on Election Day. At one point, as the county prepared for the recount, it appeared that 88 ballots were missing from one precinct, Vance said.

The ballots were later found in a polling-supply bag, which Logan said a poll worker used on Election Night because the ballots wouldn't fit into a box. He said the ballots had been in the custody of elections officials the entire time.

A mandatory recount in the governor's race was required because fewer than 2,000 votes separated the candidates out of about 2.8 million votes cast statewide. There's never been a governor's race this close.

Out of 39 counties, only little Klickitat County in Southwest Washington, with about 9,000 total votes, had finished its recount yesterday. Rossi picked up one vote there.

Many counties expect to complete their machine recounts today. But King County will not certify its results until late Wednesday, officials said.

Washington State 2004 General Elections

Vote.Wa.Gov » 2004 General Elections » Statewide Offices » Statewide Results By County

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Recount

RECOUNT RESULTS BY COUNTY

NOTE: Gain/Loss results are only available for counties with 100% of precincts reporting.

GOVERNOR
County	Christine Gregoire(D) (Recount \| Previous \| Gain/Loss)			Dino Rossi(R) (Recount \| Previous \| Gain/Loss)			Ruth Bennett(L) (Recount \| Previous \| Gain/Loss)
Adams	1529	1517	+12	3486	3459	+27	81	79	+2
Asotin	3525	3524	+1	4904	4905	-1	193	193	0
Benton	19831	19830	+1	44890	44888	+2	1118	1119	-1
Chelan	10077	10074	+3	18437	18436	+1	523	523	0
Clallam	16226	16225	+1	18832	18831	+1	919	919	0
Clark	72800	72797	+3	85894	85887	+7	4123	4123	0
Columbia	671	670	+1	1370	1370	0	37	37	0
Cowlitz	20207	20236	-29	20047	20087	-40	1094	1094	0
Douglas	4359	4357	+2	8666	8662	+4	219	218	+1
Ferry	1278	1275	+3	1900	1898	+2	118	118	0
Franklin	4967	4968	-1	10619	10618	+1	227	226	+1
Garfield	428	427	+1	840	839	+1	25	25	0
Grant	7826	7800	+26	17429	17385	+44	535	534	+1
Grays Harbor	13719	13713	+6	13449	13444	+5	575	575	0
Island	16888	16888	0	19997	19992	+5	814	814	0
Jefferson	10642	10641	+1	7289	7293	-4	466	465	+1
King	505836	505243	+593	351127	350779	+348	18936	18906	+30
Kitsap	56164	56149	+15	57693	57712	-19	3090	3097	-7
Kittitas	6125	6106	+19	9567	9541	+26	277	275	+2
Klickitat	3919	3919	0	4767	4766	+1	265	265	0
Lewis	10245	10243	+2	20842	20838	+4	756	756	0
Lincoln	1850	1850	0	3686	3685	+1	100	100	0
Mason	11788	11787	+1	12507	12505	+2	682	681	+1
Okanogan	6101	6100	+1	9450	9451	-1	465	465	0
Pacific	5210	5209	+1	4730	4730	0	295	295	0
Pend Oreille	2567	2561	+6	3366	3364	+2	179	179	0
Pierce	145199	144957	+242	157704	157443	+261	7241	7230	+11
San Juan	5872	5872	0	3660	3661	-1	321	320	+1
Skagit	23266	23195	+71	27224	27135	+89	1267	1260	+7
Skamania	2232	2232	0	2522	2522	0	178	178	0
Snohomish	139070	138939	+131	145553	145423	+130	6852	6842	+10
Spokane	90573	90452	+121	105569	105435	+134	3878	3872	+6
Stevens	6992	6992	0	12293	12293	0	566	566	0
Thurston	58955	58953	+2	49413	49409	+4	2574	2574	0
Wahkiakum	993	993	0	1100	1099	+1	61	61	0
Walla Walla	8006	7947	+59	14277	14240	+37	381	376	+5
Whatcom	44056	44053	+3	41978	41978	0	2177	2177	0
Whitman	7715	7724	-9	9363	9367	-4	457	458	-1
Yakima	24735	24735	0	46044	46044	0	1351	1351	0
Totals	1372442 (48.87%)	1371153 (48.86%)		1372484 (48.87%)	1371414 (48.87%)		63416 (2.25%)	63346 (2.25%)

Results last updated on: 11/24/2004 2:00:00 PM

Washington Secretary of State
520 Union Avenue SE, PO BOX 40220, OLYMPIA WA 98504-0220
(360) 902-4180

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Washington State 2004 General Elections