Rossi Hopes For Speedy Trial In Election Challenge (WA GUBERNATORIAL UPDATE)

Seattle Times ^ | February 7, 2005 | Rebecca Cook

[srm913]

BELLEVUE, — Dino Rossi was almost ready to throw in the towel, the Republican candidate for governor told reporters at a news conference today.

If a judge had ruled last Friday that Rossi's legal challenge to Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire's election had to go through the Legislature and not the courts, Rossi said he might have given up.

But the judge ruled the Republican's case could proceed. Today, Rossi said he hopes his election challenge will go to trial within a month.

"We'll be able to get to the bottom of these problems with the election," Rossi said. "I believe we have more than enough evidence to show, really, that we'll never know who won this election."

Democrats said the Republican's election challenge will probably take longer than that, quoting a December letter from Rossi saying an election challenge could stretch for months and would cause the state to suffer through a long, drawn-out process.

"Does he think it's worth it to put the state through this?" asked Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirstin Brost.

Rossi, a real estate agent and former state senator, won the first two counts in the governor's election last fall but lost a hand recount to Gregoire by just 129 votes out of 2.9 million cast. He has challenged the election in Chelan County Superior Court, in a case that's expected to make its way ultimately to the state Supreme Court.

Rossi and the state Republican Party argue the election was tainted by illegal votes and election workers' errors. Republicans say they've identified more than 300 votes cast by felons, dead people and double-voters, plus 437 provisional ballots that were mistakenly fed directly into ballot tabulators without being verified.

[Calusa]

ping.

[gop_gene]

Yes, I know that. I should have been clear and made that distinction--instead it sounded as if I were lumping all of them in the same category.