December 22, 2004
WHERE'S DEBOLD WHEN YOU NEED THEM?:
Democrats: Gregoire wins by 8 votes: Election officials dismiss claim as premature (CHRIS MCGANN AND CHRISTINE FREY, , December 22, 2004, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)
Democrat Christine Gregoire will defeat Republican Dino Rossi by eight votes in the governor's race recount when King County reports results today, state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said last night."We are absolutely confident that she is going to be the next governor of the state of Washington," Berendt said.
Both parties have been provided with daily tallies of the county's manual recount. Berendt said those updates and results from the county canvassing board's review of unclear ballots provided the data he needed to call the race.
King County elections officials said Berendt's victory claim was premature and that the data the parties are seeing hasn't been reconciled.
"I'm not going to call the election tonight," said King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan.
Doesn't Democratic Derangement Syndrome require that in an election this close the GOP will steal it? Posted by Orrin Judd at December 22, 2004 9:21 AM
The stock of Real Player's going to have to go through the roof in the next 18 months if Ms. Cantwell has any hopes of keeping her Senate seat in 2006. See Missouri and South Dakota for past examples.
Posted by: John at December 22, 2004 9:35 AMSee Soundpolitics for the latest information.
The Washington Supreme Court hears oral arguments today on the inclusion of the 500+ mystery ballots from Ukrai...King County, so I would interpret this more as an attempt to influence the legal proceedings by creating the media image of a done deal than actual reality.
Posted by: TimF at December 22, 2004 11:19 AM"You will count until you count correctly"
Posted by: X-ine G. at December 22, 2004 12:29 PMThe GOP might be better off to allow the Democrats to steal, or to "steal"(depending)... this election. That will pull at least a few teeth out of the 2000 whining, re-inforce Hugh Hewitts dictum of "If it ain't close, they can't steal it", further energize the GOP base in a similar though smaller way it did Dems in 2000, and basically not only give the GOP a "martyr", but show an reluctance to go crying to the courts when an election doesn't fo our way.
Meanwhile, we sacrifice a governor in a state few expected the GOP to pick up for that anyway.
Could be the strategic benefits of "losing" here might outweigh a winning scenario.
Posted by: Andrew X at December 22, 2004 1:39 PM[Bunk].
It only took them 48 days and three recounts to steal this one.
Posted by: pchuck at December 22, 2004 2:31 PMIt only took them 3 time to count correctly. It was the other side who tried to thwart the will of the people in this election. Every vote counts and every vote was counted until counted correctly.
Posted by: X-ine G. at December 22, 2004 5:43 PMWouldn't each subsequent count be correcter?
Posted by: oj at December 22, 2004 6:04 PMIt only took them 3 time to count correctly. It was the other side who tried to thwart the will of the people in this election. Every vote counts and every vote was counted until counted correctly.
Posted by: X-ine G. at December 22, 2004 05:43 PM
I don't think the (legal) votes have been counted correctly, until they show the Republican winning by 100,000. They need to go back and weed out all the illegal votes.
Posted by: Nicholas Stix at December 22, 2004 8:49 PMNo self-respecting Chicago ward-heeler would have ever allowed this to happen.
They'd have gotten the vote 'right' the first time on election night.
Posted by: Steve White at December 23, 2004 8:00 PMI never trust my math until I've counted at least three times with different results each time.
It's the third, different result that gives the first two credibility, and that is why it must be trusted over the other two.
Posted by: Randall Voth at December 24, 2004 1:02 AM