Posted on 12/30/2004 5:46:19 PM PST by TheEaglehasLanded
SEATTLE -- The day after King County released a list of nearly 900,000 voters who cast ballots Nov. 2, Republicans prodded election officials to explain why the list appeared to have about 3,500 fewer names than the number of votes that were actually tallied.
In a response that all but said, "Settle down!" county officials stressed the list was preliminary, noting that records of voters who cast certain write-in ballots and people who wanted their addresses kept confidential still had to be reconciled with election data.
King County Election Director Dean Logan said a full, updated list is expected to be complete by the end of next week - what might seem like an eternity to Republican Dino Rossi and GOP leaders who are mulling whether to contest the hand recount that made Democrat Christine Gregoire governor-elect by a mere 129 votes out of more than 2.8 million cast.
"We want those names now," Rossi told a news conference at his Bellevue headquarters about a half hour before Gregoire's victory speech. "You can't certify an election with 3,500 mystery voters."
Yet Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, did just that Thursday morning.
After officially declaring Gregoire the winner, Reed said he was surprised by the King County discrepancy, but not concerned enough to withhold certification.
"We have no reason to believe the votes were not properly cast," he said.
In all, King County tallied 899,199 votes on Nov. 2, while the preliminary list the county gave Republicans and others who had requested it credited only 895,660 people with voting.
"If they never explain this adequately, that's a huge bombshell in this race," state GOP Chairman Chris Vance said.
Gregoire's spokesman Morton Brilliant said Republicans were acting like children watching a batch of cookies baking, reaching in too early, then complaining that they're still gooey.
King County, home of heavily Democratic Seattle, was among a handful of Washington's 39 counties that backed Gregoire. It's been under intense scrutiny since election officials discovered hundreds of mistakenly rejected ballots during an unprecedented hand recount - the third tally in the closest governor's race in state history.
Republicans convinced a Pierce County judge that King County should be blocked from adding those ballots to the manual recount, then Democrats appealed, and the state Supreme Court ruled that state law calls for such mistakes to be corrected before counties certify their results.
Before more than 700 ballots were added to King County's total, the hand recount gave Gregoire, the state's three-term attorney general, her first victory - by just 10 votes.
Rossi, a real estate agent and former state senator, won the first count by 261 votes, triggering a machine recount that slimmed his margin of victory to 42. King County's tally of the newly discovered ballots gave Gregoire a 129-vote statewide edge over Rossi.
Rossi has called for a complete re-do of the election.
"The water have been so muddied, and it's such a mess that to really have confidence, I think we're going to have to go back and ask the voters again, 'What do you want to do?'" he said Thursday.
Wednesday night, he asked Gregoire to join him in asking the Legislature to pass a bill calling for a special election. She said no, so Republicans are scouring election records for evidence of wrongdoing.
"I think we need to examine what's right and what's wrong," Rossi said, "and let's see if we can correct it."
Vance said party operatives would be on the lookout for votes from dead people, felons, people who illegally voted from a post office box service, or other illegalities. "If we find 1,000 illegal votes, 500, 200, that's it. We have a compelling case to carry forward."
"We want those names now," Rossi told a news conference at his Bellevue headquarters about a half hour before Gregoire's victory speech. "You can't certify an election with 3,500 mystery voters."
Yet Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, did just that Thursday morning.
What they should have done is run the ballots in the box that mysteriously appeared just when all appeared to be lost to the Dems thru a finger printer. I bet the ballots have a lot of finger prints on them that are hard to explain.
May a 'tsunami' of righteous outrage break forth over Washington. Both the state and D.C....and the whole country, So Help Us GOD!!!
Gregoire's spokesman Morton Brilliant said Republicans were acting like children watching a batch of cookies baking, reaching in too early, then complaining that they're still gooey.
Brilliant at vote fraud, all kinds of gooey votes in king
He may have some trouble from here on, but he always has the option of switching to the Democrat party if things get tight -- he's always been one in reality.
Confidential? Public voter records?
If I was a democrat fraud voter I'd want confidentiality too!
That stuck me as strange also. I've never heard of registered voters having that option.
This just keeps gettin' better an' better!
I don't think he's a RINO....its a strategy used by the RATS all over the country...(I saw it here during the election in Michigan)....the RATs get a "plant" inside the Republican party....and use it for they're advantage. There were a number of RATs posing as "Republican Challengers" at the polls.
Or perhaps I'm just being paranoid.....NOT!
PING!
King County tells GOP to drop dead. Whaddaya gonna do?
We can't allow these lying b@stard RATS to steal the election -- the "voters" were guzzling down Thunderbird in one hand and filling out ten ballots with the other...
Washington state Republicans are probably best off if they find a way to let Rossi concede gracefully while still investigating this discrepancy. If it turns out they have a clear case of fraud, they should exploit it as a PR bonanza, if not they should play it cool, so as not to look like Al Gore and company.
and people who wanted their addresses kept confidential
I don't believe that a voter is allowed to keep their address confidential. Just another way to perform fraud in an election.
Reed said he was surprised by the King County discrepancy, but not concerned enough to withhold certification.
Now if the demorats had been leveling this charge, RINO Reed would really be concerned.
Gay Olympic medalist Morton Brilliant?.
I think Rossi should be talking about the 700 ballots that were added to King County's total, and the hand recount that gave Gregoire the win.
Have you ever tried to manually hand count something that was even in the thousands? It’s very hard to get the same number twice. I would bet that they wouldn’t get the same number if they had another recounted. But they won’t take this into account, and they won’t worry about 700 spoiled ballots that will be allowed in King County.
People need to understand that the State of Washington has two ways to vote. If you’re a Republican and your ballot is deemed spoiled, that’s it. Yet, if you’re a Democrat in King County, election official are willing to look the other way.
This is the type of thing that causes uprisings-the beginning of a rebellion.
Face it, the Washington GOP doesn't have a clue and is incompetent as they come.
I said from the beginning .. the whole reason they counted King last was because they would then know how many votes they needed to win - with nothing but democrats running the precinct - what did people expect.
Actually, I don't think it's legal to have all members be of one party .. even in CA you can't get away with that.
And then you'll set the precedent of watching the Dems steal every close election and tossing in the towel without a fight.
With all due respect I could not disagree with you more.
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