With the deadline to certify the election only a few days away Dino Rossi is leading in the governor's race in 32 of the 39 counties and has come from a 16,000 vote deficit to a lead of over 3,000 votes. We may not know who our next governor is until next Wednesday and then if it is too close we may have to wait into December for atleast one recount.

Grandpa, I have been updating a spreadsheet since the Wednesday after the election because of the closeness of this race. My figures show Rossi winning by between 3 and 4 thousand votes. If that is true, there will be no mandatory recount - only one paid for by the loser. My guess is that the expense will not be worth it for the very slim possibility of change. The vote difference will have to be below 2000 before a mandatory recount is required.

On a side note, the Secretary of State will introduce a bill that will require absentees to be in the hands of the County Auditor on Election Day in order to be counted. I encourage everyone to contact their Legislators to support this. Although exciting, this is a ridiculous exercise. In the case of Cantwell/Gorton in 2000, we did not know who was elected until December.

As of 630PM tonight Rossi's lead has been cut to 2000 votes...Rossi leads in all but 6 counties with King County being the Democratic stronghold as usual. Funny how that happens...King County seems to decide most elections.

Grandpa, my spreadsheet still has Rossi winning after all votes are counted by about 3400 votes.

I got my new vote count from the Sec of State website...we'll see what happens by Tuesday.

King County... isn't that where about half the State population lives?

Kinda like Anchorage and Alaska... about half the votes of the entire State are in the city limits.

Rossi leads in all ut 6 counties in the state with King County giving Gregoire 150,000 more votes. All the other 5 counties Rossi trails in have extremely slim margins.

Of the 60,000 votes taken by the lesbian activist Libertarian over 18,000 of those came from King County (Capital Hill).

I was listening to the radio program (Call of the wild) on Saturday morning, and those guys seemed to have a much more favorable impression of Gregiour than Rossi. The reason given was a more definitized support position for sport fishing. I also heard the lobbyist for the Recreational fishing alliance. Good to atleast hear from a political player who is an advocate for sport fishing.

Jeff

I was there at the Rossi forum held by RFA and the PAC at the Edmonds Yacht Club...I was also sitting in the front row in Olympia for the Gregoire forum. I was impressed by Gregoire's grasp of our fishing issues and her pledge to populate the WDFW commission with appointees who are more sensitive to sports fishing causes. The PAC paid for a charter trip out of Westport for Gregoire and family with a representative of RFA as an escort. Because of this effort sports fishing issues are on all the radar screens in Olympia.
Either candidate will bring a change to the climate in Olympia as far as fishing issues are concerned. Saying goodbye to Gary Locke doesn't mean we say goodbye to his henchmen who still lurk in OLympia. Gregoire was Locke's hand picked successor if that says anything about her loyalties.

As of 4 or so this afternoon Gregoire retook the lead by only 600 votes or so. Dino still leads in 33 of the 39 counties with almost all of Gregoire's new lead coming from ballots in King County. At noon today Dino had a lead of 1900 votes. Only a day and a half left to count and then a possible recount.

I think a recount is a 75% probablilty. My spreadsheet has Rossi winning by about 1400 votes after all votes are counted, but anything could happen tomorrow.

Both sides are panicking now....searching for votes..beware of the Ron Simms appointees counting the votes...Must be awful for both candidates right now.

Gregoire is in the lead now. What is taking them so F-ing long to figure this out they new the president next day and we have been waiting 2 weeks for governer

------------------------------------------------------------


Imagine that, King County (Gregoire friendly) just 'found' 10,000 'missing' ballots.

The Democratic party tradition that encourages anyone (alive, dead or other) who votes for their candidate to 'VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN' now adds 'and AFTER THE ELECTION IS OVER' to their mantra.

stlhd drm'g, I agree. Just more reason why we need a comprehensive electronic balot system.

The rest of the story.......Here's the rub though: If the Republicans find a Democrat on the phone, they'll just hang up.

And if the Democrats inadvertently knock on some Republican's door, they'll just walk away.

In other words, your vote counts only if the right party gets a hold of you.

Republican Party honcho Chris Vance says it's combat.

He says his only job is to get Republicans elected, not every ballot counted.

He's fine with citizen casualties, just as long as they're Democrats.

RB,

Whatdya' mean, "missing ballots?" At the end of last week's counting, there were about 43,000 ballots statewide remaining to be counted, with about one third of them from King County. They had the ballots all along. There were no missing ballots. Why do you have to make up stories? Isn't real life interesting enough?

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

RB

We will just pretend you didn't say that :p

Rossi leads.

No, he doesn't.

Yes, he does.

No, he doesn't.

Yes, he does.

My head is spinning.

------------------------------------------------------------

If you'ld put down your Mother Jones magazine and pick up a local paper you too could see that 'real life' can be quite interesting.


Sincerely,


Rory b.
------------------------------------------------------------
Unexpected ballots give Gregoire slight lead; recount likely

By Ralph Thomas and Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporters


With her hopes of being elected governor slipping away, Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire got just the break she needed yesterday when thousands of extra ballots turned up in King County.

The unexpectedly large batch of outstanding ballots — nearly double what the county projected just three days earlier — helped push Gregoire back ahead of Republican Dino Rossi.

Rossi started the day yesterday with a nearly 2,000-vote lead, but by nightfall was trailing by 158 votes after nearly 30,000 more absentee and provisional ballots were tallied statewide.

Gregoire's lead represents about one one-hundredth of 1 percent of the nearly 2.8 million votes counted in the race.

It appears increasingly likely the race will go to a recount, which is required if the final difference is less than one-half of 1 percent and less than 2,000 votes. If the margin is less than 150 votes, the recount must be done by hand unless the candidates agree to another procedure.

In what has been an emotional roller-coaster ride for both campaigns, yesterday's count marked the fourth time the lead has changed hands in the two weeks since Election Day.

There are an estimated 21,700 ballots left to tally statewide — ranging from 4,000 in King County to less than five in some counties. Election officials have until tomorrow to finish counting and certify the vote.

Since Friday, King County estimated it had about 11,000 absentee and provisional ballots left to count. But county officials stunned both campaigns when they announced they were counting nearly 17,000 ballots yesterday and still would have 4,000 more to count today.

RB,

Thank you. Mother Jones doesn't publish daily, so there was no Tuesday morning edition whereby I could update my knowledge of current events. The increased number of outstanding King Co. ballots wasn't reported out here in the hinterlands. It's helpful people like you that make the world a better place.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Missing ballots? But these are ballots they FOUND, right? Well, then they aren't "missing", are they?

at about 5PM Gregoire was ahead by 89 votes with about 15,000 to go. Looks like some shenanigans may have been pulled at the last minute. I expect we will know who is governor by Feb or so.

Hell, this is to close to call. lets revote and add Edgar to the ballot. then it will be cut and dried. I mean he doesn't have anything goin on anymore!

Guys, if you look at http://www.vote.wa.gov and look at the uncounted ballots, they very clearly say that the number of uncounted ballots are estimates. Nothing missing, nothing found.

I think I am ready to call this race - Dino Rossi will win by 683 votes. There will be a recount, possible court battles and maybe there will be a Governor declared by Inaguaration Day.

Let the blaming begin!!! Pretty incredible that we have like 2 million voters and the candidates are separated by 89 votes. Obviously the Democrats have disrnfranchised alot of the dumb Republicans in this race...I say take it to the courts...Where's Al Gore!!! Patty Murray???? Jim McDermott? Let's get the smear campaign going now...

Actually it has been pretty civilized up until the Dems looked like sure losers ...then PRESTO...a **** pot of new Democratic votes drop out of the sky...just in time too.

Man, thats sour!!!!

sarcastic is the word

WOW

As of 7:25PM Tuesday...one hour ago...Rossi was ahead by 21 votes.!!!! Out of like 2.7 mil

That's hard to believe it's that close. Somebody's gonna say ".......missed it by that much!"

Of course, GW would call it a "mandate".

Well come to think of it..if a Republican takes the governor's job in Washington state and he is not gay or an extreme liberal I would say that is not only a mandate but a small miracle.

GP: Perhaps you and W need to take a look at a dictionary to find the definition of "mandate."

The "miracle" here is that the republicans put off the RWW's that dominated their party in Washington for years. They finally nominated someone who is not sooo far out there in right field. Remember John Spellman? I voted for him.

This state will elect an R if they don't believe God is whispering in their ear on a daily basis like Ellen Crasswell did.

Good one Dave! I couldn't agree more.

The need for a recount seems to be very evident... I think the candidates are both feeling lucky that one of them won't feel obligated to spring for the cost of the recount... of course they could still make this choice, and pay this bill after the Sec. State certifies the election in a few weeks. In fact, they could do it twice.... according to State law.

Who whispers in your ear Dave?

mandate was the wrong choice of words. As of this moment there is only a 12 vote spread with the 750 Benton County ballots still to be logged in...they are late.

What I was surprised at was the ability of ANY Republican to be competitive in the state of King County. So many years of the same old thing may have played a role in this election as Rossi talked about reviewing every agency and program etc etc...Gregoire had some great things to say on the fishing issues. If they were co-governors I think we would be better served than either one solo.

What a crazy process.

OK Benton County finally logged all their 750 remaining votes...All done now with Rossi ahead by 261 votes. Grays Harbor may have some legal challenges and will King County and others. The lawyers are off and running starting tomorrow. We may have to hold our breath until mid December.

Maybe the State Supreme Court should be enlisted and appoint the next Governor. What the heck, it worked once.......

I think the result may yet be engineered by one side or the other.

GP: Given that the race is a close to a dead heat as is possible, wouldn't it be equally as accurate to say Obviously the Republicans have disenfranchised a lot of dumb Democrats? Naw, that would require you to look at things from both sides. I'm pretty sure you can only see on your right side. Are all your shirts red too?

------------------------------------------------------------


Democrat and master politician Lynden Johnson once said,

"When it comes to tallying the results from the ballot box, just find out what the Rebublican total is and finish your count last."

I don't see any serious problems with the vote. (Although I sure wish we had some real audit trail with the Snohomish county machines.)

I assume that if Rossi wins GP and RB will forget about any possible vote tampering. God knows the moral majority would never do anything like that.

I voted for Gregoire, but I think Dino may do a good job. Let's hope he keeps his word on looking after sport fishing interests. If he does, he will get my vote next time.

One way he could prove his environmental concerns would be to immediately petition Bush to let Washington roadless areas remain roadless.

Dave..I heard the sec of state on tv last night talking about the recount to be done electronically and he said that the new Snohomish county machines did have a paper trail back up. Since I voted in Snohomish co. I think the new system atleast seemed to have some good cross referencing and safeguards. Now as far as all the provisional ballots go I am less confident.

The comment about disenfranchising was a sarcastic remark. I am well aware that both sides do some wierd things to win elections. I also know that it was the Democratic side that kept claiming that Republicans voted for GW because they are all stupid rednecks. If I were a betting man I would bet you might agree with that assessment.