Rossi Challenges Washington Governor Vote

AP on Yahoo ^ | 1/7/05 | Elizabeth M. Gillespie - AP

[NormsRevenge]

BELLEVUE, Wash. - Republican Dino Rossi and the state GOP announced Friday they will contest the gubernatorial election that gave his Democratic foe, Christine Gregoire, a 129-vote victory.

Republicans have been building a case over the past few weeks, gathering evidence of voting irregularities, including illegal provisional ballots and a handful of votes cast by dead people. They are pushing for a revote, an unprecedented step in a statewide election.

"There are so many improperly cast and counted ballots that this election is invalid," Rossi said. "You cannot tell who won. The only way for us to get out of this problem is for us to have a revote."

Gregoire, a three-term attorney general, lost the first count by 261 votes to Rossi, a real estate agent and former state senator. Rossi won a machine recount by 42 votes but lost a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots.

Gregoire, whose inauguration is scheduled for Wednesday, has called the idea of a revote "absolutely ludicrous" but acknowledged Rossi's right to contest the election.

"I don't take any of this personally," she told a news conference in Olympia. "I respect the right of others to file an action in the courts. That is their right."

The party filed a lawsuit contesting the election in Chelan County, in north-central Washington. GOP attorney Harry Korrell said Republicans would not seek to block Gregoire's inauguration.

Democratic lawyers said an election challenge is unfounded and the state constitution will not allow a revote.

"No court will find this election should be set aside," Democratic Party attorney Jenny Durkan said. Even if illegal votes were cast, she said, "it would not change the outcome of the election."

Durkan said the constitution requires that the governor be chosen in the same election as state legislators and only in a November general election. She said a revote would first require a statewide vote on changing the state constitution next November and then an election in November 2006.

Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, a Republican supporter of Rossi, said he believes the GOP has enough evidence to support an election challenge.

Gorton acknowledged there was "no serious allegation of someone doing this deliberately or fraudulently" but said that does not matter. If enough illegal votes were cast for any reason, he said, the election results must be set aside.

"If it comes to that, it is better to have the electorate, not the court or the Legislature, decide," Gorton said.

Republicans highlighted a host of problems, including thousands more ballots than people credited with voting in several counties' records — more than 1,200 in heavily Democratic King County alone.

King County Elections Director Dean Logan and other county officials have said it's common for vote totals not to match up with their lists of voters who cast ballots.

Another problem in King County: Nearly 350 provisional ballots were fed directly into vote-counting machines before election staffers could verify whether they were valid, Logan said.

Any election challenge will certainly end up before the state Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Clerk C.J. Merritt said the court will wait until the filing period closes before deciding what to do with election challenges. The deadline is 10 days after the Legislature issues a certificate of election, which is expected to happen Tuesday.

Republicans said they also found cases of votes cast by felons whose civil rights had not been restored, and dead people credited with voting.

The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Friday that some people who died before absentee ballots were mailed had been credited with voting in the November election.

The Times found 24 examples of deceased voters in six of the state's largest counties. The Post-Intelligencer found eight such examples in King County alone.

Republicans said they chose Chelan County to file the lawsuit because they didn't want to sue in any county where they were alleging serious problems had occurred. Democrats said picking a county where voters backed Rossi amounted to "judge shopping."

State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt questioned the Republicans' contention that they don't need to prove fraud or misconduct — only that so many mistakes were made that no one could ever know who won.

"There's no smoking gun that points to the one issue that could get the election overturned," Berendt said. "They admitted for the first time in six weeks that there is no fraud. I think they're in big trouble."

___

Editors: Associated Press Writers Rebecca Cook in Seattle and David Ammons in Olympia contributed to this report.

[506trooper]

Well, I don't know about great, but thanks.

At least I draw better 'n' Turd Ball...that's not saying much....my cat can draw better than Rall.

[schu]

Absolutuely right, see my post and this link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1316493/posts?page=24#24

Fraud is not necessary, only that the election could change due to the problems. Rossi was very specific, his remedy is to have a re-vote. He does not want the most recent re-count overturned where he nows wins by 100 votes.

[Libertina]

And your subject matter is much better reasoned :)

[Libertina]

Thanks for the link, schu - I'm off to read it!

[NormsRevenge]

Republican Dino Rossi heads to a news conference and past recently-printed signs asking for a new vote, at his campaign headquarters in Bellevue, Wash., Friday, Jan. 7, 2005. Rossi and the state GOP announced Friday they would contest the election that gave Rossi's Democratic foe, Christine Gregoire, a 129-vote victory. Republicans have been building a case over the past few weeks, gathering evidence of voting irregularities, including illegal provisional ballots and a handful of votes cast by dead people. They are pushing for a revote, an unprecedented step in a statewide election. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

[jonrick46]

U.S. Senator Slade Gorton was also Washington State's Attorney General for three terms. He should know Washington State's Constitution. He says the case for a re-vote is called for when the election is decertified due to "mistakes" that could overturn the margin of victory.

[vaudine]

"Even if illegal votes were cast,...it would not change the outcome of the election."....unless it was Bush votes in Ohio or Florida.

NOTHING will come of this. The papers, tv media, etc. just yawn unless it is the Dems having a fit over voter fraud--then it is TV face time and big news.

Remember Loretta Sanchez stealing the election from The CA Repub Rep-Bob Dornan?---there was an investigation and all the evidence presented was treated in a careless, ho-hum manner, although it was very evident irregularities occurred. I really hate fraud. it is always the Dems stealing an election and accusing Repubs of stealing it if the Dems lose.

vaudine

[jonrick46]

I suspect this voting for the dead is a larger problem than anyone knows. One thing is happening: people are getting the absentee vote of their dead family member and using it to vote twice. Now that is what I call a real absentee vote!

[FreeKeys]

He said he would ONLY accept a re-vote. Believe me, Rossi was statesman-like! The people like him more and more, and Gregovych less and less. Only 29% of WA citizens think she won. And 56% of WA wants a recount! The rats have gotten their buns in a sling now!

Looks good. Besides, do you want to know another reason why a revote makes sense?  Because as it stands THE MARGIN OF VICTORY IS WAY LESS THAN THE MARGIN OF ERROR.

[MamaLucci]

I admire John Conyers more than I do those Washington pubs.

Good God, man.........get a hold of yourself. ;)

[Fishtalk]

this ought to tell you how much work has gone into this race...it ain't over.

To you and all who responded to my post with a more positive message, may you all please be right.

I find it hard to believe there will actually be a revote though I certainly think there should be.

[Fishtalk]

Good God, man.........get a hold of yourself. ;)

Well John Conyers alleged fraud against the pubs when there was none.

As I see it, the Washington pubs don't allege fraud when they know it exists.

But wiser posters have shown me the error of my thinking.

Because to steal a governorship simply should not be allowed.

[MamaLucci]

Because to steal a governorship simply should not be allowed.

I couldn't agree with you more. Here's hoping this mess in Wa. state can be resolved in a timely, fair and correct manner.

[conservative cat]

My former father-in-law passed away in July of 2000. She received his absentee ballot for the general election that year. She didn't fill it out, even thought she knew he would have voted an R ticket. I am sure the dead voting is more common than we would guess.

[jonrick46]

"What the hell happened to those hundreds of ballots signed by the same person?"

Don't worry. This "mistake" as well as about eight areas of concern will be brought out in the trial. There will be evidence presented and there will be witnesses. One thing that will doom the GreGore candidacy is the problem with matching each ballot with a voter. I heard there was about 5,000 total that need to be reconciliatory. Then there is voter substitution. When a voter goes into a polling area and finds out someone voted in his place, you have voter substitution. When this has happened greater than the margin of victory, the election has defaulted just in this one area.

Another area is when provisional ballots were printed out they were identical to the absentee ballots. It was found that over 300 of these provisional ballots were mixed into the ballot pool without considering their legitimacy. Once in the ballot pool it was impossible to call them back to check if they belonged to a real person. These were merely scanned in as a real ballot, which is grossly illegal by state law.

Another area is the activity of voter enhancement that was done during the first recount which had to be done by machine. In King (Ukraine) County, original marks on the ballots were covered over with black marker pens or eliminated with white out, thus destroying the original intent of the voter and eliminating the ability for later review. This is also a violation of state law. King County was warned about this practice two years ago by Secretary of State Sam Reed. They were told that if they were caught defacing the original ballot in this manner, it could decertify their count. Well Well. Just this "mistake" is enough to call for a re-vote.

Another area is the refusal of King County and other counties from receiving signature updates, when ballots were rejected because their signatures did not match the one on file. This is a case of unequal justice because King County won a State Supreme Court case to restore missing signatures for ballots that were originally rejected because of missing signature files.

Then there is the aspect of felons voting and their votes counting. By state law, felons may not vote. There are hundreds of votes by felons in King County that were allowed to count.

Then there is the problem of voters voting twice. The Rossi legal team has hundreds of voters who voted more than once. During the time when the DemonRATs had 400 affidavits collected over a weekend by Berendt and his house crawlers for ballots without signautures, there emerged what appears to be several forgeries.

[Carry_Okie]

Thanks for the summary.

[hoosiermama]

Looks like you've got a case.......Thanks for the synopsis.

[Gondring]

Has anyone made a really nice clean bullet list of the problems, or a clear timeline that can be shown to the Short Attention Span public who doesn't realize how many different problems there are? I mean, I know many people lump it all together and don't realize how many "but wait, there's more!" vote-discovery incidents there were, etc.

[Gondring]

Excellent listing

[MadIvan]

Gregoire and the Democrat Party are thieves. Rossi must stop this now. I am disappointed the White House has not said anything in particular about this.

Regards, Ivan