If you look in the dictionary under "Slimy" this is what you see:
Main Entry: slimy Pronunciation: 'slI-mE Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or resembling slime : VISCOUS; also : covered with or yielding slime
2 : VILE, OFFENSIVE
>
Posted on 12/17/2004 8:24:12 AM PST by Publius
Former Secretary of State Ralph Munro, a key supporter of Republican Dino Rossi during the contentious recounts in Washington's race for governor, says it may be time to toss out all of the votes and do the election over.
Munro, who oversaw the state's elections system for 20 years before retiring in 2000, said a new vote is probably the only way to restore voter confidence and get a clear winner.
His comments came as the state Republican Party prepared to file a lawsuit against King County seeking to stop the county's recount, and votes reported from Snohomish County further tightened the race between Rossi and Democrat Christine Gregoire.
"This thing could just degenerate and spiral downward," Munro said yesterday. "Whoever eventually becomes governor is going to have a very hard time governing, and we're going to go through four years of flopping around."
He suggested allowing new voter registrations for a few weeks, then holding a new election in February.
Democrats scoffed at the proposal, saying Republicans were raising it only because Rossi's whisker-thin lead appears in jeopardy.
"Last week the Republicans were saying we need to resolve this as quickly as possible," Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirstin Brost said. "This week they're saying we need another election."
State GOP chairman Chris Vance said he is warming to Munro's idea.
"Perhaps the only way we're going to settle this is to let the people of Washington vote again," he said.
Current Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, said a revote is doable and may be worth considering.
In the lawsuit Republicans plan to file today in Superior Court, they say that a new election could be called for if King County does not properly track 573 disputed ballots.
"If these disputed ballots are not kept separate from the sea of other tabulated ballots and kept with their security envelopes, a new election may be necessary," the suit says.
Rossi won the Nov. 2 election by 261 votes, but his lead fell to just 42 after a mandatory machine recount. He had been gaining votes in a second, manual recount that started last week. But his lead in the latest tally was cut in half yesterday after Gregoire made gains in Snohomish County.
With only three of 39 counties left to complete their recounts, Rossi has gained a net 32 votes over Gregoire. Pierce and Spokane counties are scheduled to report their recount totals today.
That will leave only King County, which is embroiled in controversy over 573 absentee ballots that election officials say were mistakenly rejected during the initial count.
That many new ballots in Democrat-dominated King County could hand the election to Gregoire.
County officials say the ballots were not originally counted because the voters' signatures had not been scanned into the county's computer system. Election workers should have checked paper files, but instead the ballots were rejected.
In a split vote Wednesday, the county's canvassing board directed election workers to verify the signatures on the ballots and prepare them for counting.
Vance said the party wants to stop King County from separating the ballots from their outer envelopes, which he said would make it harder to determine where the ballots came from, whether they were stored correctly, and why they had not been counted previously.
A Pierce County judge will hear the party's request this afternoon for a temporary restraining order that would prohibit King County from making any moves toward counting the disputed ballots. The party went to court in Pierce County because it is neutral ground in this case.
Republicans want King County to prepare a written report on "the circumstances surrounding the discovery and treatment of these ballots" before officials consider whether they should be counted.
The lawsuit alleges the ballots had not been properly secured since the Nov. 2 election and that an investigation is necessary because "the appearance of possible impropriety is troubling."
Republicans say their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection will be violated if King County counts the disputed ballots. They say state law prohibits the canvassing board from reconsidering the ballots.
"As a result of this unauthorized recanvass, voters in King County are more likely [to] have their votes counted than voters in other counties," the suit says.
Yesterday afternoon, two King County voters whose ballots were among those rejected joined Democratic County Councilman Larry Phillips, whose ballot was also rejected, on steps of the county administration building to ask that their votes be counted.
Cecily Kaplan of Shoreline and Johanna Landis of Seattle said they weren't notified by the county that it couldn't find their signatures on file and therefore didn't plan to count their absentee ballots.
Phillips, who learned Sunday his vote wasn't counted in the original tally or the subsequent machine recount, blasted what he called a Republican "disinformation campaign" orchestrated by Vance.
U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, also took part in the event.
"We really think both Democrats and Republicans should take a deep breath, relax a little bit and let everybody's vote be counted, and we can have a new governor by Christmas," Inslee said.
It's not only Democrats who want the 573 ballots counted.
Chantelle Weaver, a South Seattle resident, voted for Rossi and discovered this week she was on the list of people whose votes were disqualified.
"I did everything I needed to do to get my vote counted," said Weaver, who added it was her first time voting.
She disagrees with the Republicans' effort to block the ballots from being counted.
"I figure every vote should be counted, whether I win or not," Weaver said.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Reed said he still hoped the second recount would settle the question. He said there is nothing in state law that provides for a revote, but theorized the Legislature or the courts could order one.
"We certainly could do it," he said.
Reed said he would rather see a new election than see the race drag on in court. But he hasn't given up hope the race could be settled by Christmas.
"I'm still hoping that when we get done with this recount, we'll have a clear winner and can get on with the transition," Reed said. "I think we'd be better off if that happened."
"Unofficial word is that Rossi as gained 15 votes net in King County."
OOPS...I had my Carnac hat on backwards...make that the 2000 pres race...but it was still in New Mexico (yeah, that's the ticket!)
I think the fact that King county has repeatedly "found" hundreds or thosands of "missing" ballots suggests incompetence, if not corruption. The closeness of the race matters inasmuch as it establishes the importance of the incompetence.
"Competence" would seem to be the ability to correctly determine which candidate won the larger share. If the election is a blowout, it takes little competence to correctly determine the winner. As the vote gets tighter, the required minimum competence increases. Hence, "incompetence" is partly a function of the victory margin.
Electoral ties in Nevada are settled by the candidates drawing from a deck of cards. High card wins. Works very well.
And throughout all of this, it remains the FAULT OF THE DEMOCRATS!!! DEMOCRATS RUN King County. They run the King County elections. THEY MADE THESE MISTAKES!!! A DEMOCRAT MADE THESE MISTAKES. Have you noticed that all the areas around the country that seem to have these problems are RUN BY DEMOCRATS?? Florida ran the democratic counties that had all the problems, Columbus, Ohio run by democrats, Seattle, WA run by democrats. Is there a pattern here of total incompetence? Why in the hell would anyone vote for a group that cannot run a simple, free, open, untroubled election? They have screamed that EVERY VOTE MUST COUNT. Yet, when they started calling all those screwed up ballot casters, when asked if they voted for Rossi or the socialist, when they said the socialist they told them what they needed to do to get their vote counted. When answering they voted for Rossi, they said, Oh, Ok, have a nice day. They did not want the Rossi votes to get counted. Only later did the lazy republicans get off their asses and get these republican voters to correct their stupid mistakes. The absentee ballot here in WA state is simple and easy. A stinking number two pencil connects the middle part of an ARROW. The point is pointing at the name of the person you want to vote for, then the blank middle portion, and then the quill portion. You fill in the center portion with a #2 pencil to make a complete arrow. Then you stinking sign the envelope and date it. Then you put the danged thing in the stinking mail. Simple. Never had a stinking problem. Most morons can do it. Apparently many morons can't. Too stinking stupid to know how to cast a simple stinking vote. Stupid A-holes! Yup, let's fix the stupidity of the stupid from being stupid in the first place!
Nope. Rossi won. It's not in Rossi's interest for new count.
The federal government will be called in to combat this fraud.
Every legal vote should be counted. They all were, including some illegal ones the Dems got added in on the first recount. Rossi still won.
The Democrats are trying to steal this election and will succeed if they are allowed to keep changing the rules and adding more "uncounted" votes. If they fail in this one, I'm sure there is at least one "uncounted" ballot box still waiting to be discovered somewhere in a janitor's closet in Kings County!
There is a well-known anecdote about Abraham Lincoln (I say "well-known anecdote" because I'm not a historian and have no idea if it's an acutal quote or not) in which he claims that just about anybody can do an effective job of governing (at least that's how I read it). Maybe injecting a little randomness into our election process wouldn't be a bad thing. It would sure as heck be more fun, and would clean up all the nasty advertising and pandering and weak positions.
If you look in the dictionary under "Slimy" this is what you see:
Main Entry: slimy Pronunciation: 'slI-mE Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or resembling slime : VISCOUS; also : covered with or yielding slime
2 : VILE, OFFENSIVE
>
Sorry, you're a day behind. The Democrats found another hundred or so ballots last night. Apparently after checking the signatures on the 573 against the voter rolls, they determined that too many were from Republicans.
Considering how the USSC stayed away from the New Jersey illegal senate substitution 2 years ago, it's unlikely the USSC would even agree to hear an appeal of a Washington SC decision in this case.
Shhh...if they know we know, they might change tactics.
Not a new count. A whole new election for governor only. And Vance and Munro wouldn't be floating this trial balloon if they thought it wasn't in Rossi's interest.
According to the Auditor's website, http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/pc/abtus/ourorg/aud/elections/archives/gen2004/recount1.htm, there are 390 fewer "undervotes" in the manual recount compared to the machine recount (and two fewer overvotes) - with 200 added for Gregoire and 182 for Rossi (compared to the machine recount) and the net result is a net pickup of 18 for Gregoire.
Rossi had gained 19 votes in the first, machine recount.
As of yesterday, there were 67 fewer ballots counted in the manual recount than in the machine recount - which BTW, counted 9 more ballots than recorded in the original report on the general election.
General ballots - 317,002
Machine recount 317,011
Manual recount to date - 316,944
The canvassing board is meeting this morning, perhaps to made decisions on the remaining uncounted ballots. Can anyone add insight?
How much further down could it go? It's a mockery now, thanks to the Dems.
Washington State politics are hopelessly corrupt and now the whole nation knows it. The Democrats have no shame.
I heard someone on the John Carlson show say that the election workers that were responsible for the uncounted ballots should be charged with interfering with a federal election because those ballots were not counted in the presidential or senatorial election, either. Maybe the threat of indictment would wake up some of these partisan Democrats.
Another thought that I have been having about this election is that the people of King County should be forewarned that if they let the Democrats from their county steal this election, Seattle will never get any support from the rest of the state for any of their transportation projects. If they think that they have a difficult time getting approval now, just wait and see what a Gregoire governorship brings.
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