Free Republic

OLYMPIA — The state Supreme Court threw out a Washington's estate tax today, causing a potential loss of $430 million over the next two years at a time when lawmakers are already facing a $1.8 billion spending gap. The unanimous decision by the nine-member court concluded that "when an estate has no federal estate tax, there is no obligation to pay any state estate tax." It ordered a refund of estate taxes collected from the Department of Revenue since Jan. 1, 2002. The refund could be as high as $150 million, said Mike Gowrylow, a spokesman for the state agency....

REVOTE RALLY PLANNED FOR GREGOIRE’S RECEPTION WHEN: Wednesday, February 2, 2005 WHERE: 605 Barnes Road, Vancouver, WA (Red Cross Building in the Vancouver Historic Reserve) TIME: 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. (Let’s try to get a large there crowd by 5:30p.m.) Bring your REVOTE signs – printed or otherwise, and wear something ORANGE. This will be a peaceful rally . We want to remind Ms. Gregoire, Mayor Pollard and the City Council that we aren’t happy with this election and are insisting on a revote. (This reception is hosted by Mayor Pollard and the City Council for the “invited business...

The Washington Democrats appear to be scared out of their wits by the prospect of a revote. If they were feeling confident in their prospects, their message would be along the lines "of course Christine Gregoire is the legitimate governor and enjoys a sold mandate". But it's not. The message is now to criticize citizens for exposing election fraud. Drawing attention to their reputation as the party of distributed vote fraud is obviously not a smart move. This can only be another sign that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for arguments against a revote. A link to this...

Out in Washington state, the Republicans are trying to discriminate against dead people. Now I say if the dead people are registered to vote, let them vote. How many times have we heard since the 2000 election, that every vote should count? According to the state Republican Party, around 44 dead people voted in the Washington gubernatorial race for Democrat Christine Gregiore. So, what should the Republicans learn from this? Well, for starters, they need to campaign more in cemeteries. Have you ever heard the saying, two out of three ain’t bad? Well, in the case of governor contender Republican...

More fascinating revelations from Snohomish County Elections which admits to counting hundreds more ballots than voters. Bob Williams of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has been following up on some of my Public Disclosure Requests with more detailed requests of his own and and here is some of what he learned. 1) The Secretary of State apparently failed to do his duty to verify whether Snohomish County actually documented its errors and discrepancies prior to certification. 2) Snohomish claims that it never learned about the SoS "emergency rule" issued in August that required poll site ballot reconciliations, which could well explain...

"Clark County will soon quit trying to balance the number of ballots with the number of people credited with voting in the governor's election", the Columbian reports. As of Friday, there were 225 more votes than identified voters a disturbing sign of something, according to the Republican Party. ... Auditor Greg Kimsey, a Republican, said he doesn't know how much smaller the number will go, but he's adamant the discrepancy does not equate to illegal votes. "Not at all," he said. What makes him so sure? The article doesn't say. Clark County went to Rossi overall, but it also has...

OLYMPIA — Secretary of State Sam Reed filed court papers this week siding with Republicans on key legal issues in the lawsuit over the governor's election, saying, for example, that the dispute should stay in the courts and not move to the Legislature as Democrats want. Reed said that in court, the Republicans' effort to have Gov. Christine Gregoire removed from office and to force a new election can be decided in "a prompt, orderly, and non-partisan manner." Reed is a Republican and the state's chief election official. In the nearly three months of legal wrangling over the Nov. 2...

Guest columnist King County voters in good hands By Corky Mattingly Special to The Times I've been particularly troubled by one recurring comment regarding the gubernatorial recount in King County. It pertains to county Elections Director Dean Logan's professionalism and integrity. There also have been suggestions that Logan's decisions are based on partisan politics and are without justification or regard to Washington state law. As president of the Washington State Association of County Auditors, I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. All 39 counties conducted the recount process according to the rules currently in place, which are...

Much has been said about the role of talk radio and the "blogosphere" in whipping up public opinion and bringing to light the errors in the 2004 election. However, members of our local mainstream media deserve a great deal of credit for uncovering many of the flaws the new media — talk radio and blogs — have been discussing. On Nov. 16, our local newspapers reported on King County Superior Court Judge Dean Lum's decision to release the names of 929 provisional-ballot voters whose ballots were not counted because they either had mismatched signatures or had no signatures at all....

I've finished the massive project of trying to reconcile the King County voter list to the vote count as accurately as humanly possible. My conclusion: their numbers are off by at least 3,748 votes, or roughly 30 times former Attorney General Gregoire's alleged "victory" margin. The previously reported discrepancy of 2,150 (348 unverified provisionals + 1,800 unexplained more ballots than voters) represents only the net difference between ballots and voters. While many precincts counted more ballots than voters, a lot of precincts counted more voters than ballots. When you add up all the voterless ballots and all the ballotless voters,...

I'll be co-hosting this Saturday on Republican Radio, KOL 1300 in Seattle 11am - 1pm and on other fine stations around the Northwest. In the first hour we'll get a status update on the election contest and revote effort from Mary Lane (a kind of preview of her Monday dinner talk), and I'll be discussing election reform with Bob Williams of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (see the EFF's new proposals on the subject), and with Rep. Toby Nixon (R-45), the ranking Republican on the House State Government Operations and Accountability Committee . Also on the program, highlights of President Bush's...

A Comprehensive Timeline of the Governor's Race The following links will take you to 3 timelines for the governor's race, with links to the stories as SoundPolitics broke them. November Timeline December Timeline January Timeline

Christine Gregoire dropped her inaugural speech on the ears of the state. The new governor said one thing. I heard and thought another. Gregoire told the crowd in Olympia the other day that "we all have a chance to have a positive influence in the lives of others" because "we all leave personal legacies for the people we know and love." //snip As president of Kappa Delta sorority more than three decades ago, she tolerated a "whites-only, Christians-only" rule. She presided over rituals with hooded white robes that even reminded some of her own sorority sisters of the Ku Klux...

Friday, January 7, 2005 · Last updated 2:34 p.m. PT Gregoire: 'Healing to be done' By DAVID AMMONS AP POLITICAL WRITER OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Gov.-elect Christine Gregoire on Friday pledged to tour the state to begin a healing process after an election that deeply divided voters and the political parties. "It's my job to help the state of Washington heal," she told a Capitol news conference called primarily to introduce an initial round of key appointees. She is keeping outgoing Gov. Gary Locke's chief of staff, Tom Fitzsimmons, for at least six months and his budget director, Marty Brown, will...