Posted on 12/22/2004 3:30:54 AM PST by CGblue
Democrats: Gregoire wins by 8 votes Election officials dismiss claim as premature
By CHRIS McGANN AND CHRISTINE FREY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
Democrat Christine Gregoire will defeat Republican Dino Rossi by eight votes in the governor's race recount when King County reports results today, state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said last night.
"We are absolutely confident that she is going to be the next governor of the state of Washington," Berendt said.
Both parties have been provided with daily tallies of the county's manual recount. Berendt said those updates and results from the county canvassing board's review of unclear ballots provided the data he needed to call the race.
King County elections officials said Berendt's victory claim was premature and that the data the parties are seeing hasn't been reconciled.
"I'm not going to call the election tonight," said King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan.
Mary Lane, a spokeswoman for Rossi, said, "All we know is it's close, and we're still crunching numbers."
King County will be the last of Washington's 39 counties to report results in the hand recount of 2.8 million votes.
If Gregoire does win the statewide hand recount, it will mark an incredible turnaround for the attorney general.
She had faced pressure to concede after losing the original tally by 261 votes and the mandatory machine recount by 42 votes.
In the hand recount, Rossi was leading by 49 votes with only King County left to report its results, which consist of about 900,000 ballots.
Egan said the information the parties have is an unreconciled list of precinct data. It does not include more than 1,600 ballots that the canvassing board looked at yesterday and Monday, she said. However both parties had representatives closely observing the canvassing board this week.
Asked what the Republicans would do if Gregoire wins the hand recount, Lane said, "We will cross that bridge when we get to it. We've said all along if the election is overturned, we will reserve all our options."
As with nearly every twist in this incredible race, the Democrats' victory claim left many questions unanswered -- including what effect today's Supreme Court hearing could have.
The high court will hear arguments about whether King County should be allowed to add to the recount 700-plus ballots that weren't counted originally because of mistakes made by election workers.
Berendt's victory claim did not include those ballots, and it's unclear what their inclusion would do to the outcome, though Democrats are hopeful Gregoire would pick up votes. Berendt said Democrats would still argue that those disputed ballots should be included in the hand recount.
Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the state Democrats, said the uncounted votes are a wildcard and that it's possible they could, in fact, swing the lead back to Rossi.
If that were the case, Brost said the Democrats would accept that outcome.
A Pierce County judge ordered King County to stop counting those ballots. King County, the state Democratic Party and the Secretary of State appealed to the state Supreme Court.
The court will be asked to interpret a state recanvassing law and their own ruling on another recount case last week.
In that ruling, the justices said a recount should simply be a retabulation of previously counted valid ballots -- subject to the provisions of the recanvassing law.
The recanvassing law says county canvassing boards can reconsider votes when there is "an apparent discrepancy or an inconsistency in the returns."
TODAY
The state Supreme Court hears an appeal about hundreds of disputed King County ballots at 9:30 a.m. The hourlong hearing will be broadcast live on TVW, channel 23 on most cable networks. Also, King County plans to announce its recount results by 3:30 p.m.
This report includes information from P-I columnist Joel Connelly and The Associated Press.
The DEMS say they want every vote counted. The Republicans want every LEGAL vote counted (only one per person).
"Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the state Democrats, said the uncounted votes are a wildcard and that it's possible they could, in fact, swing the lead back to Rossi.
If that were the case, Brost said the Democrats would accept that outcome."
She said that because they already know what's in that pile. Just enough manufactured votes to give their girl the win.
PLEASE all Freepers...please STOP ...and ask all your acquaintances to STOP calling the Democrat Party their contrived Democratic Party... It is NOT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY...it is the DEMOCRAT PARTY.....the party is made up of DEMOCRATS and is thus the DEMOCRAT PARTY..it is not made up democratics...nor is it an espousal of any kind of democracy...but DEMOCRATS make up the DEMOCRAT PARTY...
the Republican Party is a party made up of Republicans therefore it is the Republican Party...It is NOT the REPUBLICANISTIC PARTY just as the DEMOCRAT PARTY is NOT the Democratic Party
Please correct this 500 million times a year repeated spin.
"There is nothing democratic about the democrat party." --Rush Limbaugh
Paging the DOJ....
Every vote must be counted, real or imagined
Seems like a clear equal protection case to me. Did they recount "found" votes in every county and precinct?
This would have been the result in Florida 4 years ago if SCOTUS didn't blow the final whistle.
King County, Washington, eh? Why do the results not surprise me?
They called for, and got, a revote in the Ukraine. Is Seattle more backward than Kiev?
At least there is no evidence that either of the candidates in Washington State was being fed dioxin in his (or her) soup.
Just how many recounts will it take for the dems to win?
Has many has it takes.
This is a fix from the Lyndon Johnson school of politics. After he lost his first Senate primary when his opponent stuffed the ballot box, Johnson learned that the person who controlled the last ballot box wins.
In a later race Johnson (either a Senate race or the 1960 presidential race), Johnson was losing until the Democrats produced the last ballot box which pulled Johnson to a slight victory. When the ballot box was opened, the ballots happened to be arranged in alphabetical order and there were just enough votes for the win. There is a great picture of a couple of “poll workers” holding the ballot box that won the race.
This is what would have happened in Florida. First the FSC ignored all rules and laws to allow the fix to go on. They would have recounted and recounted until they could “find” enough votes.
Have you ever noticed that whenever there is a recount, the Democrats always end up with more votes? In Florida, Bush was originally ahead by a couple thousand votes. In this race Rossi was originally ahead by a couple hundred votes before people started “finding” more uncounted ballots. Seems like just one time, the Republicans might get more votes. Wishful thinking I guess.
You know how your car keys are always in the last place you look? Same deal. The 'Rats always seem to win the last recount...
"She's ahead by 8 votes. Now we can stop counting."
I predicted on another post a week or so ago that Gregoire would "win" by about 10 newly manufactured "votes." I also predicted that the media would get all breathless about the huge "mandate" Gregoire now has. The Dems think people are so stupid that the Democrat machine can be blatantly corrupt. It would be great if all this created a backlash -- surely there are some "moderates" out there who don't like being treated like idiots and who resent the system being abused like it was. Maybe they will vote Republican next time, in numbers too large to hide.
Sounds like a mandate to me. 8 votes ahead. How could she possible govern with that kind of an outcome. When Rossi was ahead 42 votes Gregoire said it was a tie. So what is an 8 vote lead?
Thanks for the picture.
Was this a Senate race or the 1960 Presidential race?
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