Rossi ended the day up 33 19(!) votes. This is net of today's reports from pro-Gregoire counties King, Thurston and Whatcom and the Grays Harbor recount. Assuming that any of the underlying data is reliable and barring any more wild surprises, Rossi is projected to win by about 600 votes. [Given the update below from the observer, Rossi's lead narrows to about 60. See the above post for details]
King County reported 3,300 votes, with a lower than expected lead of 14% for Gregoire. No flood of pro-Gregoire provisionals from college counties Thurston or Whatcom.
The gory details, in this post below.
UPDATE: A friend who's been observing the King County ballot counting e-mails:
We wrapped up at King County's MBOS facility at about 9:00 pm, after a day of duplicating provisional ballots. I should mention that the King County Elections workers and supervisors have gone out of their way to accommodate the large number of Republican observers.Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 16, 2004 06:35 PM | Email ThisKing County expects to tabulate around 1450 ballots tomorrow. Included in this number are the 600+ affidavit ballots, of which we can assume an overwhelming proportion will be for Gregoire. (However, a surprising number of provisional ballots have been straight Democrat, with the exception of the governor's race. In addition, many provisional voters failed to vote for governor. I do not expect that all 600+ ballots will be for Gregoire.) Of the remaining 800 or so ballots, our survey ran as follows:
Rossi: 127, or 36%
Gregoire: 190, or 54%
Other: 33, or 9%Head to head, Rossi's share is 40% to Gregoire's 60%.
So of the remaining 1450 (?) ballots from King County, I speculate that Gregoire will capture 1000 votes, and Rossi will capture 300. I hope I am wrong.
I have it from a good source that King has 1000 more ballots than reported. The tally at the beginning of the day showed 4000, when they actually had 5000.
I heard this from a volunteer downtown who has consistently delivered me the same counts as you have from your source.
Just something to consider.
Posted by: Larry on November 16, 2004 06:38 PMSo we are down to the wire and still don't have an exact count of the uncounted ballots.
Posted by: bt on November 16, 2004 06:43 PMRight now Rossi, taking the trends in each county into consideration, is going to win by 1,036 despite leading by a mere 304. This is all mathematical projection, but take a look.
I've got an Excel spreadsheet designed by my brother that tracks all counted votes, results by county, and ballots outstanding to project the winner. It updates every 10 minutes.
Available at http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/001729.html
Save it, open it, allow automatic updating, and watch it in real time, including projections.
The repbulicans think of suing as the Gregoire gets closer; the democrats sue when Rossi leads by more.
Hello Florida!
So...if this goes to superior court, whom will they (s)elect?
Posted by: ray on November 16, 2004 07:32 PMLet's get realistic...Sam Reed and his predecessor Ralph Montroe as well as county elections auditors run a very tight ship.
With regard to the judge saying unsigned ballots if not signed should be counted if the voter can be found to sign them there is no foul here. This is simply accurately inerpreting the state statutes. In our state, voting is a right not a privilidge, so a brain fart is not a reason to discount a vote.
An anlaysis shows based on outstanding tallies and existing percentages Rossi should eke out a win with about +300-500 votes. However, numbers shift on the last day in all counties on final runs due to double counting erros etc. before final certification. Therefore, any prediction is at this time is tenuous at best.
Whoever wins it was a true classic a great one to be remembered for a long time. As well as the fact that based on the miniscule difference, I have to admire the Washington State Elections system to ensure the counting goes so smoothly. So quit the cry baby stuff and just enjoy the race.
Posted by: Gordy Fowlds on November 16, 2004 08:44 PMOkay, this election is really starting to get to me.
Went to the grocery store- needed more Vanilla Coke. Decided if I got some Rice Krispies, they might tell me something about the provisional ballots over breakfast. The Rice Krispies on sale came with three packets of Strawberry Pop Rocks. Am seriously considering, if this whole thing goes kablooey tomorrow, to test that old urban legend about Pop Rocks and soda pop...
Except, one must outlive one's foes to get proper revenge...
Nineteen votes?! Nineteen votes! Geez!!!!
Posted by: Jim King on November 16, 2004 08:57 PMAnd the beat goes on......
Posted by: ray on November 16, 2004 09:00 PMSpecial sort of heaven indeed! Feh!
Posted by: Nathan on November 16, 2004 09:19 PMAs of 11/15, they had counted and recorded 33453 ballots (16276 G, 16507 R, 670 B). This does not include the 300 they had left to count.
Today, they say they double counted 508 ballots - ok, that means they should have 508 less than 33453 ballots (32945 ballots) ALREADY ACCOUNTED FOR.
They now show 25724 votes counted with 1221 left - a total of 26945 votes. Where did all those votes they already counted (less the 508) go??????
I'm not being a "cry baby" - but the numbers were not "estimated" they were actually counted. 508 double counted ballots does not cover this.
Posted by: Mary on November 16, 2004 09:33 PMI have been exploring what is going on in Washington from here in Calfornia. You sure do have a wild one going on up there. I think of King County as your Los Angeles County. I hope that Rossi pulls this off and gives those Dems up there a black eye.
Posted by: Efrem on November 16, 2004 10:04 PMAbout 2/3 of the people I met probably really did sign their ballots. It turns out this set of the people were older people who had shaky hands. Their signatures simply no longer were up-to-date on their signature cards. One woman was not able to produce the same signature twice on two documents, so I wrote a little note on her affidaivit to help explain. Her mind was fine though -- she was pretty irritated that she was finding out -- but not as a service of the County election officials -- that her ballot might be tossed.
Of the other people I contacted, the others all swore six ways till Sunday that they had signed their ballot, checked it twice, had the boyfriend check it, had the dog check it. Beats me what happened with these people. Possibly, they just signed the ballot in some odd way that didn't match the card on file.
I talked to a couple of Rossi voters. One woman was thoughtful enough about this whole thing that she decided not to visit the Records & Election office and correct her ballot -- she was pretty thankful of the Gregoire supporters for letting her know. Another woman who supported Rossi chose to travel on her own to the Records office in order to correct the problem. So you got 1 vote from me, but it was only fair to tell her why I had dropped by, I'm sure you agree.
I talked to about 90% Gregoire voters in the neigborhood I visited.
You all should have done something. The Dems showed that the list is public record. Did you know that whether or not you vote is in the public record?
Anyway, it looks like Rossi will win even though we busted our butts. I met some nice people who really care about this State, though. You have to really care if you want it enough to climb about 40 flights of stairs in two days, and walk over entire ZIP codes, Sunday in the rain. I won't spill the beans and say how many people the Dems had that I saw. I am not sure where the ballots which were being challenged are accounted right now.
I think one thing both sides of this heated argument are going to have to concede is this: this State is a mixed bag of opinion. No winner of the Governor's office should go off on an agenda as though they have 'political capital' from this. The closeness of this election should cause each side to try to compromise a bit more with the other.
If someone like the Sheriff of a County wanted to track down a person who did something like that, I would suggest that video-taped surveillance cameras at the apartment complexes would be a good place to start. More power to that.
I don't believe any official has resorted to fraud, or either campaign has deployed dirty tricks. I would believe that individual hot-heads have resorted to shenanigans, though.
Posted by: X on November 16, 2004 10:41 PMIf however, the republican party representative does not bother to call or show up at your door, then the fault is with the party leadership.
Posted by: Tim Ford on November 17, 2004 08:35 AMI disagree with your statement, "No winner of the Governor's office should go off on an agenda as though they have 'political capital' from this. The closeness of this election should cause each side to try to compromise a bit more with the other."
First, this is an overwhelmingly Democratic state. Your proof for this is the margin of Democratic victory in the Presidential race, Senator's race, etc. Both the State house and senate went D this year. But it does not seem to be happening in the Governor's race.
The conclusion is that voters reject the status quo of the Locke/Gregoire administration. It is a clear mandate for change at the top, even if by one vote.
The fact that a Rossi administration will have a Democratic house and senate will create dynamics resulting in gridlock and blame. Rossi can propose laws to enact real reform knowing that they won't be passed, and point the finger at an intransigent Democratic legislature. With the threat a line item veto, Rossi can extract a lot of concessions. Rossi does not need to find concensus.
Also, if you know anything about Gregoire, her skills are best as a fighter and not as a mediator. I don't expect her to try to compromise when she has a Democratic house and senate.
Posted by: Tim Ford on November 17, 2004 08:48 AMI appreciate those well-put points. You might be right about how it will play out in each scenario.
It struck me how much I agree that Gregoire is a fighter. My loyalty to her stems from her response to the Enron bilking. Many local jobs owe their absence to that "power shortage" that was created on purpose, one of my former jobs included. I doubt Gregoire will be able to get answers out of the Bush Administration, but I hope that Enron will collect no more fraudulently billed 'past-due' accounts. The State of Washington should not be paying its extrortionists their proceeds.
I listened to Rossi, mostly during the radio debate on NPR. He seemed to stand for everything that let Ken Lay and cronies into the 'free market'. The only specific 'change' he proposed was the removal of regulations, especially environmental regulations.
There is no reason to expect less from our state leadership -- regardless who wins the governorship. Anything less will further divide -- haven't we had enough of that?
My impression of Gregoire is that her only contact with businesses was suing them.
I agree that Houston, Texas-based Enron was getting away with murder before their bankruptcy shortly following the GWB inauguration.
The present situation, however, is pretty clear. A Republican administration's agency (FERC) is failing to pursue an effective investigation. It's been left to Patty Murray and Christine Gregoire to arrange for the *transcription of evidenciary tapes*.
Washington State got ripped off for $2B that people can easily show. Why didn't Rossi have an irate word to say in our defense?