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Who is actually doing this recount? Who is watching what they are doing? Being a liberal area I would suspect the courts are tipped in the lib direction so are they able to get away with just about anything? What excuses have they given for their extra votes they come up with?

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/200635_gov22.html

Judge refuses to block King County recount

Ballots that can't be scanned will be included

Monday, November 22, 2004

By SAM SKOLNIK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Denying a last-minute bid for a freeze by the state Republican Party, a federal judge ruled yesterday that King County can continue hand-counting certain ballots in the recount of the governor's race.

The GOP had sought a temporary restraining order to stop the hand-counting, claiming the procedure violates state election law.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman sets the stage for a potentially protracted legal battle over the so-called "undervoted" ballots, on which voters' choices for governor could not be read by the county's optical-scan machines.

The decision was a victory by Democrats, whose gubernatorial candidate, Christine Gregoire, is trailing Republican Dino Rossi by the slimmest of margins.

Democrats blasted the weekend lawsuit as an attempt to quash the intent of hundreds of voters in King County -- where Gregoire's support is strongest.

"It's very difficult for me to think that any judge was going to interfere with an election process ... where standard procedures are being used," said state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt. "The Republicans are operating under the principle that certain people's votes should not count. We think everyone's vote should count."

State GOP Chairman Chris Vance played down the significance of Pechman's ruling, pointing out that it dealt with only one facet of the lawsuit.

Vance noted that the judge said her decision was based on King County's assurance that all ballots in question are being kept separate from the others so they can be reviewed to see if any mistakes have been made -- instead of being thrown back into the general ballot pool.

"We don't believe King County," Vance said. "Our observers have watched. Ballots are being altered. And we don't believe they are being set aside."

Pechman denied the request for a temporary restraining order during a 15-minute conference call with attorneys yesterday afternoon.

The suit was filed Saturday against Secretary of State Sam Reed and the King County Division of Elections. Today, a federal judge will be randomly assigned to hear the case.

Out of more than 2.8 million ballots cast, Rossi leads Gregoire by 261 votes. After the statewide counting ended Wednesday, an automatic recount was triggered. King, Pierce, Skagit and Spokane Counties started their recounts Saturday.

The recount in expected to wrap up by Wednesday. So far, Klickitat County in southwest Washington has been the only one to post results. In those results, released Saturday, Rossi won the recount 4,767 to 3,919 -- picking up one new vote.

"Undervoted" ballots are those in which the optical-scan machine didn't register a choice for governor because the voter only partially filled in the oval next to the name of candidate, just put a checkmark there or circled the candidate's name instead of filling in the oval.

In those instances, election officials say, workers have been inspecting the ballots to determine the voter's intent, and then duplicating damaged ballots or "enhancing" others so that the machine can read the vote.

The GOP suit claims that King County election workers are applying a "subjective standard" when evaluating ballot marks.

Though hand-recounting has been mandated in counties where optical machines are used, the suit claims that's unfair because the same process is not used in counties that use punch-card ballots.

The suit also claims that once those ballots are enhanced and recounted, they're being mixed back into the general ballot pool. "In other words," the suit alleges, "once enhanced, the egg cannot be unscrambled; and as each hour passes, more and more eggs are being broken."

As of late yesterday, out of about 300,000 polling place ballots recounted, 695 such "undervoted" ballots had been duplicated or enhanced and then recounted, King County Elections Director Dean Logan said. A small number of those ballots were votes counted for the first time, he said.

Election officials dispute the GOP's interpretation of the law, saying they've been conducting the process precisely as it's been laid out to them.

One of those who attended the telephone hearing, Tom Ahearne, representing the Secretary of State's Office, noted that Pechman told the attorneys that "no irreparable harm" could come by continuing to count the ballots as the suit was heard.

"We remain very confident that we've been following state election law," Logan said.