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

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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.