The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is spinning like a whirling dervish to help Christine Gregoire arrogate a legitimate victory. "Third time may be a charm for Gregoire"
Riding two huge wins yesterday, Democrat Christine Gregoire appears to have undone Republican Dino Rossi's victory in the closest governor's race in U.S. history.Please. If Gregoire is any kind of a "victor" here, she is a Victor Yanukovych.
The Lost-Intelligencer's editorial page goes so far as to call Gregoire "Governor-elect", which even Gregoire isn't calling herself yet. But she is laying the groundwork for claiming a mandate
Keep the faith," she told cheering supporters. "The election process is working exactly as it should."To be consistent with her belief that the process is working exactly as it should, she will have to change her name to Christine Rossi.
The election will inevitably be contested by some of the nearly 1.4 million citizens who voted for Dino Rossi.
At yesterday's court hearing, justices and lawyers made reference to the state law that allows elections to be contested in a court trial where evidence of fraud or legal error can be heard. The law allows election results to be set aside, and new elections ordered, under certain circumstances.Precinct 1823 is only the tip of the iceberg of questionable activity.
If the formal election contest determines that everything was kosher, then fine, I'll live with the outcome. Until then, Christine Gregoire will not be the Governor-elect. If she tries to assert otherwise, she will be known here as Governor-pretend Fraudoire.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 23, 2004 12:00 PM | Email ThisTrot out for me the numbers of people from that precinct who actually VOTED, and then I’ll start listening to the fraud allegations.
Funny, x-tine didn't say the election process was working exactly as it should when Dino was governor-elect and she was still 'tying' him. But I know what she means now...'working exactly as it should' means that here in Ukraine state, Republicans are NEVER allowed to win close statewide races. And she has continued enforcing that rule.
And she does have experience enforcing rules-- for example when she was president of her sorority and was charged with enforcing the no-blacks-allowed rule. Apparently, she enforced THAT rule quite strictly.
Posted by: Michele on December 23, 2004 12:40 PMWhere do I send my check?
Posted by: Tina on December 23, 2004 12:41 PMI went and re-checked his original post, but all I can see is postings about registrations, not actualy votes.
Being serious: if I am missing something in his post about stats on actual votes vs registrations, can you point it out to me?
Posted by: Dustinjames on December 23, 2004 12:47 PMFor the same reasons that the Democrats insisted on a manual recount to ensure that all valid votes were counted, I'm going to insist on a contest to ensure that all counted votes were valid. If it turns out that there is insufficient evidence of fraud, I'll live with the outcome.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on December 23, 2004 12:51 PMBut, I’m placing a wager when the numbers do come out, that the numbers will be much lower than the turnout rate of registered vs voted for the rest of Seattle.
Posted by: Dustinjames on December 23, 2004 12:56 PMThe King County Canvassing Board reviewed around 1,600 ballots during the manual recount that were forwarded to us by the recount boards for determination of voter intent. The vast majority of those questioned ballots were resolved by a unanimous consensus of the Board. There were probably only about 20 contested votes, though I did not keep track of the number. While the split was always 2-1, of course, I was not always on the losing side.
So 20 were in dispute, he was not always on the losing side of the argument, so meaning that in some of the cases, it was 1 dem and 1 pub for and 1 dem against.
It would be interesting to have the results whittled down further, but it's sounding less and less like the conspiracy theory everyone is talking about, about a democrat majority ramming through all these questionable ballots...
Posted by: DustinJames on December 23, 2004 12:59 PMAs for the people in precinct 1823 with foreign mailing address, any United States citizen living in another country (called an overseas voter in federal law, even if you are in Canada) has the right under federal law to vote in the state or territory in which they were last a legal resident. Granted, the overseas voters should more properly be registered in the precinct or neighborhood where they last lived. Registering them at the elections office precinct would be a mistake in almost all cases. However, if otherwise qualified, they would still have been eligible to vote *somewhere* in the state of Washington.
It would be more productive to focus on other matters. For example, exactly how many people in each precinct (as shown by individual voter records) cast votes at the polling place, by absentee, and by provisional? How does this compare to the numbers of ballots counted in each category? If a list of names is not yet available, what are the variations in each precinct in each category (remember they counted 336 extra ballots the second time, and 59 more extra ballots the first time)? Are there people registered more than once in this state (and did they vote more than once)? Are people registered in this state and another state (and voting more than once)? Is it possible to compare the list of registered voters to a list of noncitizens or convicted felons?
Finally, there is the military ballot issue. If you have a list of everyone in King County, including the mailing addresses, you should be able to sort out those people with foreign or military addresses for the whole county. Your computer expertise should be able to do the same for the entire state, if you can get those lists. The state GOP needs to contact those military voters to see if they got their ballots in time, and whether their ballots were counted if they were sent in.
Posted by: Richard Pope on December 23, 2004 01:00 PM1. What if there is an election contest, and it is resolved along party lines? Will you accept her legitimacy then? Somehow I think not.
2. If she isn't the governor, who is? Dino? Fairly or not, he lost at the Supreme Court. Legally he is not the governor. Or don't you believe in the rule of law.
3. Was George W. Bush YOUR president between 2000 and 2004? How is it different? You just disagree with one court, and agree with another, even though you aren't the proper authority in either case?
Posted by: Christine G on December 23, 2004 01:00 PMhttp://mytwocommoncents.blogspot.com/2004/12/rossi-fights-fire-with-fire.html
Posted by: Dirty Harry on December 23, 2004 01:18 PMThe 91 votes in question were reviewed and rejected by the canvassing board this afternoon.
Posted by: Dustinjames on December 23, 2004 01:21 PMThat was great, I spewed the coffee...
Posted by: chris muir on December 23, 2004 01:35 PMThere is a problem with the suggestion in your original post. If one is to assume that there is a non-trivial chance of intentional fraud in a particular jurisdiction one must assume that since this a criminal act that the person (or persons)who perpetuated it take into account obvious discrepancies in order to better have a fraudulently vote counted and thus effect an election. Say, for example, that someone registered a number of fictitious voters at a particular address, it is only rational to register more persons than will "vote" so that the turn-out rate is not suspiciously high.
Indeed, a well organized attempt to defraud the election system might even include a small number of obviously bad "red herrings" to divert attention from a much larger (and more effective) block of well hidden/documented fraudulent voters.
I for one, think that with increasing numbers of elderly citizens who are afflicted but degenerative mental conditions that is real danger of their spouses and/or children voting their ballot "on their behalf." After all, if anyone has access to enough handwritten documents to believably forge the signature of a voter it would be their close family.
So even if precinct 1823 turns out to be legit. as a matter of course, we should be comparing the absentee voting records with a list of citizens who are literally incapable of exercising the franchise.
As for ChrisG's comments: Well she/he/it is obviously a troll so it is probably a waste of time but... If we are going to re-canvass the King county ballots in question we have to under Bush v Gore allow for a state wide re-canvass of disputed ballots. Plus, since the clear timeline in the statute was thrown out by the WASC I don’t' see how we will avoid litigation over late absentee ballots. The only fair and honest way to determine the legitimate Gov. would be to have a special election with special scrutiny to ensure that this mess is not repeated (especially in King County).
What's to prevent this all from happening once again once a special election is performed?
What happens if we find out that Xtine won by the same margin all over again?
Then the charges go out of fraud in precincts, like 1823, and that we need to get the rolls cleaned and if there weren't these illegal votes (which there is no proof of at this point) then Dino would have won.
And then, there'd be another call for another election because of suspected illegal voters.
It just wouldn't end, in my mind.
Posted by: DustinJames on December 23, 2004 01:47 PMI dont see much polticial capital to be gained if the republicans carry the fight forward--it may engender more ill will against Rossi than were to to drop the fight--Thats why I think the Thune-Daschle case is good. Rossi is a young man and can certainly mobilize the republicans over the coming two years should he decide to run against Cantwell or rechallenge Gregoire if she ends up as governor.
In short, if the hand recount goes against Rossi,accept the results and prepare for the next campaign. Is the process "fair?" nope, but it is the process, and Gregoire looked pretty foolish calling Rossi leads a tie when she isnt likely to win by those margins she called a tie.
Just my .02
Posted by: RogerA on December 23, 2004 01:48 PM2. Are there groups to appeal the WA Supreme court ruling to the US Supreme Court?
Seriously a do over is really probably the only real outcome. Election unfortunately are not accurate enough to determine a winner in a race this close.
Posted by: Seattle Todd on December 23, 2004 02:02 PMI too am an eastern Washington Rossi supporter - my problem with the Thune - Daschle example is that this is not South Dakota - we are a blue state (unfortunately).
The only way this thing can ever be resolved with some amount of confidence is a new election - with strict voter guidelines, followed by all counties - no exceptions! In addition, all military ballats must be counted as long as they are received prior to the county certification. All counties need to report their "official" tallies on the same day, and same time - or perhaps report only after King County has reported their official tally. No recounts allowed following this second election.
I doubt a second election would be quite as close, and I'm not too certain that Rossi would win (due to the nature of the libertarian candidate's positions) - but I believe it is the only way to wrap this one up with some sense of legitimate closure.
Posted by: Ed Luebben on December 23, 2004 02:31 PMBut... the Dems will never let it happen.
Posted by: Erik on December 23, 2004 03:20 PMThe D's have absolutely stolen this thing.
No WAY is CG my governor...
Posted by: Brian on December 23, 2004 03:36 PM
My disgust at their display of "journalism" is somewhat tempered by the knowledge that the JOA will be broken at some point. For many P-I employees, the only questions they will be qualified to ask will be "Would you like fries with that?"