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Brace yourself for 4 p.m., when, according to Dino Rossi (R) For Governor policy and communications director Mary Lane (to whom I just spoke), King County will release the tally of 100,000 absentee or otherwise uncounted ballots. Lane says King County will ALSO have another 250,000 uncounted ballots to tote up after that, which could take another day or two (I'm guessing). Though Christine Gregoire (D) has been carrying (and will carry) King County strongly over Rossi, Lane says all Rossi needs is to come out at 41 percent in King County to hold his slim lead overall.

I hope I'm wrong, but with the two candidates in a virtual dead heat, and King County going so heavily for Gregoire, I'd have to think another 350K uncounted ballots from King could swing it to her. If so, everyone better remember to heap abuse on the Libertarian candidate Ruth Bennett (or more precisely, her party) whose feel-good exercise in civics and utterly fruitless brand-building (along with their two percent of the vote) will have cost the GOP the Governor's mansion.

There are OTHER uncounted ballots from counties outside King to be tallied as well, some 350K to 650K more, according to some estimates.

UPDATE 1:06 PM, PST: In an e-mail responding to this post, Lane remarks:

Right now we're happy with the way things are going in King (Dino's doing well in non-Seattle King County), and we're expecting good things from other counties across the state. Remember, Dino's poll numbers started going up late last week and through the weekend, so we expect the later absentee counts to trend Dino's way.

Good to hear from you Mary, thanks.

UPDATE 5:07 PM, PST. 100K King County absentees stirred into the mix have yielded a 15,496 vote lead for Gregoire at the moment, out of more than 1.93 million counted so far. Hundreds of thousands more to come, many from climes less hospitable for Gregoire than King County, which she carried strongly.

Here's the vote tally link.

Talk about too close to call! FYI, an automatic recount is triggered if the final victory margin is less than half a percentage point. We could be headed that way.