WA Governor Recount Ends With 42-Vote Difference

Republican Dino Rossi came out on top of the gubernatorial recount in Washington state, beating Democrat Christine Gregoire by 42 votes. He had won the initial count by 261 votes. King County (where Seattle is) gave Gregoire a 245-vote swing. It's expected that the Democrats will call for a partial hand recount, which they would have to pay for (25 cents per vote), unless they end up winning the recount.

Comments

Here is what I don't get...

[Keebler71]

so what happens now? Just keep recounting until the Democrat wins? And what then? Why not recount one more time? Where do you draw the line?

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[CokeBear]

When its this close, you make sure you get it right. If that means a statewide recount, then so be it. Whats the downside of recounts as long as its done by January 12th?

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[mothlos]

The first recount occured automatically because the difference was less than 2,000 votes (and less than a percentage, but in a WA statewide election 2,000 votes is less than that percent). The first machine count gave Rossi a lead of over 200 votes. Just running through the ballots through the machines again and the margin closed to 42 votes with many of the early counties reporting net increases for Rossi.

If the machine error between the two counts is greater than three times the current official margin then what possible problem can you really have with going back and triple checking?

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[Alaric42]

According to the Seattle PI this morning:
"But with the recount still favoring Rossi yesterday, Vance (State Republican party chairman) said the Democrats would only be dragging the state into a political quagmire. 'That's wrong,' Vance said. 'If Dino Rossi is ahead at the end of the day tomorrow, he is the governor-elect, this is over, and she (Gregoire) needs to do the right thing, the gracious thing and the honorable thing and concede.'

But if Gregoire is ahead, 'That's fundamentally different,' Vance said."

So, apparently, the line is drawn such that if a Democrat calls for a recount, it's political quagmire, but if a Republican calls for a recount, it's just... different.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[b-baggins]

They're not calling for a statewide recount. They're calling for PARTIAL recounts. Translation: We want to recount in precincts where we have the best chance of picking up votes, and let the counts stand where we have the best chance of losing votes.

It's the same crap that was pulled in Florida that got the US Supreme court involved in the mess.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[Carbonite]

Now I pick up a ruler and put it against the pencil.

This is where the problem lies. What you're doing doesn't make any sense. You're using a ruler to count a discrete value: the number of pens and pencils.

Counting votes is like counting pens and pencils. There are differences between the counts because errors can occur. Once a recount is requested, there's much more scrutiny and the vast majority of counting errors are eliminated.

You've stated that you believe we can accurately count three votes (2 pens and a pencil). What about 30? 300? 300,000? At what point can we no longer get an accurate count? What if we broke the votes into smaller groups? Can we count 100 groups of 300 without errors?

Being aware of error is important, but that doesn't mean we can't accurately count votes.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[Noksagt]

This is where the problem lies. What you're doing doesn't make any sense. You're using a ruler to count a discrete value: the number of pens and pencils.

No--this is an independent example. I am counting the length of the ruler by counting ticks on a ruler.

I put forth two different measurements requiring you to count to highlight differences.

Counting votes is like counting pens and pencils.

Possibly counting several millions of pens or pencils of different sizes and shapes and colors. Probably with a few of those multi-chamer contraptions which are both a pen and a pencil and a few highlighers which are neither. While some idiot pockets the pen you let him borrow and naother inadvertently leaves his pencil.

There are differences between the counts because errors can occur.

Is it or is it not possible for errors to change the count? How does one decide when an error has been made or when an error-free count has been made?

You've stated that you believe we can accurately count three votes (2 pens and a pencil). What about 30? 300? 300,000? At what point can we no longer get an accurate count? What if we broke the votes into smaller groups? Can we count 100 groups of 300 without errors?

I'm a scientist and there are no laws governing the counting of pens. I'd count a lot of times in order to estimate the error. I'd acknowledge that no individual count could be said to be dead-on accurate with infinite precision. With enough measurements, the estimate of error could be lowered enough to believe the result with some percentage of assurance. If such assurance was not met, a revote or some other mechanism could be used such that the impact of the choice is made less significant.

Being aware of error is important, but that doesn't mean we can't accurately count votes.

Errors change outcomes. There is no guarantee that with the current system the way people voted will actually dictate the outcome. It could be dictated by a flawed count.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[TheLink]

Sure but where's the proof that the machines are more accurate than hand counts in real world conditions esp in problematic scenarios? Machines are often very good when everything works fine but not so good when things are fubarred.

As I mentioned sometimes the ballots could be vague and subject to interpretation (to make voting less prone to such situations one has to be careful not to push the problem elsewhere or create a bigger problem (ala Diebold)).

If you have very slim margins deciding whether a voting result is correct/incorrect is not so easy nor simple. Any vague vote records become quite significant. e.g. is a selection considered shaded by a pencil or not etc?

Just assuming the machines are more accurate would do greater disservice to the voters.

Precision is not the same as accuracy. Accuracy is not the same as validity.

With such slim margins it's practically a draw. After all any slight "noise" could flip the result. It's hard to say which is the correct reading.

So I argue if that happens it's much better if you have the parties agreeing on the result even _if_ their mutual count is less accurate than a machine - since the signal is so close to noise level anyway. After all that, if they can't agree the "effectively-drawn" candidates might as well play rock-paper-scissors to decide.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[Anonymous Coward]

You seriously think the republicans wouldn't be doing the exact same thing if they were down by 40-odd votes?

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[goatan]

Mark parent up insightful. When there are only tens of votes difference any politician in any country in world would ask for a recount, this should to ensure the result is beyond reproach.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[jonadab]

> You seriously think the republicans wouldn't be doing the exact same
> thing if they were down by 40-odd votes?

If they ever do, they'll lose the respect of half their core demographic.
Conservatives (well, many of us anyhow) fundamentally don't think that way.
We think in terms of what's the right thing to do, *not* in terms of what
thing can we do that will obtain the outcome we want. (Philosophers call
these two ways of thinking about ethics "deontological" versus "teleological"
theories of obligation. It's fascinating to read up on, because they're
completely different paradigms -- and you really can't understand someone
coming from the other perspective unless you're aware of this issue. I had
absolutely no understanding of liberals until I understood how a teleological
theory of obligation works.)

I'm sure there are people in the Republican party who *would* do such a thing,
but I could not in good conscience vote for person whom I thought would behave
that way. (Yeah, I mostly believe in voting for the lesser evil, but there is
a point where the evil is too great to endorse, and an ethical system where
the end can justify the means is over the line as far as I'm concerned.)

You have to understand how conservatives think on this issue: it's *wrong*
for a candidate to deliberately undermine the election process just to get
himself elected. It's not just a bad decision or a poor choice; it's
fundamentally wicked. Liberals don't see things that way, which is why
Democrats can get away with pulling such schenanighans without alienating
their support base. If a Republican tried it, even if he *did* win that
election, he'd never win the next one, because his reputation with the
conservatives who voted for him the first time would be irreparable marred.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[joeyGibson]

Does this mean that conservatives are opposed to Jeb Bush's systematic disenfranchising of minority voters in Florida?

Again with this bullshit charge of Florida minorities being "disenfranchised." What is it with you people? There have been numberous investigations and calls for these supposed legions of disenfranchised voters to come forward and you know what the results have been every single time? Not one damned person steps forward. There have been no systematic "disenfranchising" of minorities. It's just a liberal canard that they can't get past.

Re:Here is what I don't get...

[jonadab]

> Does this mean that conservatives are opposed to Jeb Bush's systematic
> disenfranchising of minority voters in Florida?

We would be, very much so, if it had happened, or if there was any reason to
believe it had happened. However, it's been well-documented (and demonstrated
clearly in the last gubernatorial election) that Florida in general and
minority voters in Florida in particular have, since the 2000 election, leaned
to the right. The minority voters turned out for Bush in Florida. (This is
not quite as odd as if the minority voters in, say, Washington DC had turned
Republican. Most of the minority voters in Florida are hispanic, and a lot
of them are Cuban, and as a demographic they have never been very solidly
Democrat. Think of them as swing voters.)

There are a collection of theories as to why: discontent at the way the
Democratic party conducted themselves after the 2000 election, approval of
the way the whole hurricane mess was handled, views on foreign policy, a
combination of factors, ... we don't know which of these theories are or
are not correct, but it's clear that in 2002 and 2004 the minority voters
in Florida turned out for the Republicans. This was evident in 2002, and it
was evident in 2004 before the election, from the poll data. It surprised
no one who was paying any attention. Kerry was betting on picking up other
states that Gore had lost to make up for it.

The only *actual* evidence I have seen that could even be construed as an
indication of anything improper here is the fact that in certain counties,
people didn't vote the way they were registered. News flash: swing voters
*frequently* don't vote the way they're registered, and if there are major
current events influencing their vote they often swing like that in rather
significant numbers -- and this swing to the right in Florida is absolutely
no surprise; Florida has been swinging right for about four years now and
was already significantly to the right of party registration numbers in 2002.
The only way you can see anything improper there is if you believe that
it's improper or unlikely for a voter to change his mind and vote for
the other party, but in fact that happens all the time and has never been
regarded as improper by the law -- and if a law was passed that *made* that
improper, that should scare you to death.

> And to the "challengers" the GOP paid to prevent Ohio residents from
> voting if they looked like they were likely to vote Democrat?

Actually, I was opposed to that, but not to the same degree. Several
points are worth making here:
* At least on paper, the goal was to prevent voting fraud (i.e., people
voting more than once, voting on behalf of dead people, and so on and
so forth). Yeah, I know, whether that was the whole motivation is
suspect.
* Nobody was prevented from voting. At worst, voters were issued
provisional ballots that, if the election was close enough that they
could have an impact on the outcome, would be counted if it was
determined that everything was above-board and non-fraudulent. The
treatment of every case was observed by representatives of both parties,
as are *all* election matters in Ohio, and it is worth noting that the
people doing the complaining are mostly not the representatives of the
Democratic party who observed these matters on behalf of the boards of
elections. They are other people, poking into what they didn't observe.
Conspiracy theorists mostly.

> And to Kenneth Blackwell making sure that heavily Democratic areas of Ohio
> don't have enough voting machines? And to the Nevada Republicans shredding
> Democratic voter registration forms?

These allegations I had not even *heard* before, despite fairly regular
reading of slashdot, which leans rather far to the left on average (check th

just fix the system

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole recount thing is embarrasing. At least in the Ukraine it is a deliberate attempt to falsify election results. In the US it's just plain incompetence. The result is the same: the wrong guy elected.

You don't just lose hundreds of votes using modern technology. What kind of retards are doing the counting anyway? How can you guys preach democracy to others if you can't even organize an election in your own country?

Re:Tell Michael Mooron to change his electoral map

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I believe in the right to life from conception until natural death- and that we should support that right at any cost.

Why did you change from "I" to "we". If it's so fsking important to you, you defend that right at any cost, but don't ask "me" to. I don't remember ever signing up for that.

Margin of Error

[Noksagt]

I'm such a nerd. I really think that elections should have margins of error and something should happen if candidates don't win by at least that much. Something tells me that 0.0015% quantifies as sufficiently small to be below it.

Oh well--I really do think that this reflects the will of WA voters (and I am one). We didn't have a strong preference. Approximately 50,000 (2% or 1000x the margin of victory for Dino Rossi) more people voted for president than voted for our governor. Our divided state house & senat also bears out how moderate we are.

Re:Margin of Error

[Noksagt]

Not a "margin of error," but yes, that is precisely what does and did happen. The difference was less than 2,000 votes and under .5%, so they had a mandatory recount. This is what happened!

I was actually thinking that such a number shouldn't be arbitrarily chosen & that it should have consequences for the Governor's term in office (other than the implicit hard time he'll have getting any partisan issues steam-rolled through). Furthermore, this is a particularly interesting case. The initial spread of 261 was greater than 150, which would have required a manual recount. Yet on the machine recount, the spread dropped to less than this threshold. If such happens, they should really require a manual recount anyway.

Well, in fact, it does. There's no getting around it. It's not a matter of opinion. It's a fact. Whoever wins the legal vote is the choice that reflects the will of the people, by definition.

If you want to be curt, that is fine. I was actually saying that this debacle of a virtually non-existant spread is indicative of how we really don't have a strong opinion for either party. They were calling us a swing state for the presidential race, but the Kerry-Edwards 7% edge is orders of magnitude larger than this. It is also larger than the FL presedential race of 2000.

Yes, the one with the most votes legally wins the election. But if you think that the margin of voter error is larger than the marger of victory then no, you can't say that the choice scientifically reflects the will of the people (or even of the voting people).

Re:Margin of Error

[Noksagt]

So in your world, a close election means there is no democracy? That's nonsense. That is, it makes no sense. It's irrational.

No it isn't. I again pose the question: If you can't trust the counting of the votes, how can you say that it is the will of the people?

Since you can't wrap your head around simple statistics, let's simpify it. There are 11 voters. 6 want to vote for A and 5 for B. If 2 of those votes aren't counted, how can you say the will of the people is followed. Candiate A will not win if both votes that weren't counted happened to be for him. Candiate B would win 5 to 4. But that doesn't reflect the will of the people.

Fortunately, we don't have errors of 2 in 11. But the same kinds of problems exist when you scale up the number of voters. Not only do people not win by margins of 1 in 11 and not only are some votes not counted, but some are counted more than once. Some valid votes are lost or destroyed. Some votes that are counted shouldn't be--some are cast by people who aren't state residents, some people manage to vote more than once, it is a real mess.

We need to do as much as we can to make sure that that mess is small enough that it won't change the results of an election. We aren't there yet.

In my world, close elections remind us that we need to be as careful as possile to lower errors in the voting and counting processes. We can make laws that minimize the errors and can encourage candidates to both seek votes from as many people as possible and have an election which are as fair as possible. We have few such laws.

The error of any count is at least 219 votes.
You're making that up.

No. They counted the same votes twice & got different numbers. This was the difference in the two spreads. That's error. If there was no error, the counts would be exactly the same.

I realize the law behind recounts. I just say that the law inaccurately assumes no error.
Since the latter statement is false, it disproves the former.

What about the law behind recounts as it stands have I gotten wrong? Saying that the law should be some way is different than saying the law is that way. I think I've been clear with which I'm talking about. How does the recount law account for statistical errors? It is mute on error. It says if there is a spread of an arbitrary percentage or number of votes that there will be an automatic recount and that that the results from that recount will be legally certified. We don't report election results the way that people report pulls. We don't say so-and-so won with 53+/-1 %.

You said something clearly false. You said the spread is "virtually non-existant[sic]." The fact is there is a spread. It does exist.

Fine. The spread is most likely not statistically significant. Election laws don't account for statistics--they don't care about them. Dino won. That doesn't mean that statistics don't exist or that you can't apply them to this case--it just means that the state doesn't choose to do this when they put someone in office. This is why who is put in office isn't always what eh will of the people would have otherwise had. The will isn't perfectly communicated through the counting of votes.

Show me a law that says the governor will be the one who the people want. There is none. It says that it will be the candidate who has the greatest number of votes in the final count. Given that counts aren't perfect, there is a difference here.

No. Whoever legally wins represents the will of the people, period. There is no illusion. There's only ingrates who hate democracy, like you.

I don't hate democracy. I love democracy so much that I want the will of the people to ring loudly and clearly over and above the din and noise of fraud and mistakes. Look--the spread changed by 219 votes between two counts. That is gr

Voting on a large scale subject to fraud

[jgardn]

Now that I think about it, the electoral college is good for a reason. Can you imagine a national recount? It would be absolutely terrible. Even a state-wide election is hard enough to run.

Why don't we just have electors for the governor's seat? We can send one elector from each legislative district, and then have them choose the governor. This way, a recount would only be warranted in districts that are close. (Districts in WA are about 100,000 people). Since the voting is much more local, it is much less subject to fraud and thus the unwarranted accusation of fraud.