Free Republic

Up to 162 ballots missing By Keith Ervin Seattle Times staff reporter King County election officials will enter a locked "cage" in a warehouse this morning to look for a plastic mail tray they believe contains up to 162 misplaced absentee ballots. Elections Director Dean Logan said the ballots, like 573 other ballots that were improperly rejected, were set aside because workers couldn't find voter signatures that corresponded to them. But unlike the other ballots, these apparently were left behind and forgotten. The original 573 votes were mistakenly identified as having mismatched signatures and then disqualified. If the ballots are...

The discovery late Monday of 561 votes in the still-ongoing Washington State governor's race had both state and GOP officials crying foul yesterday, with Secretary of State Sam Reed saying that vote fraud is a possibility. Asked if he thought the eleventh-hour vote find could be fraudulent, Reed told KTTH Seattle radio host Mike Siegel, "You want to look at that, just because it's so late in the process and the impact it could have on the outcome of this race." Washington State is currently undergoing it's second ballot recount in a race where Republican Dino Rossi won the initial...

Okay, here are some interesting excerpts: -------------- Republicans yesterday cited support for their position from the Attorney General's Office. They pointed to a 1996 memo from then-Secretary of State Ralph Munro saying the Attorney General's Office had advised that a recount should not include previously rejected ballots. The memo appears to put Gregoire in the awkward position of heading an office that is on record against the position of Democratic Party lawyers trying to help her win the election. However, Jim Pharris, a senior assistant attorney general, said the office hasn't "expressed a view" on the issue since 1990, before...