Democrat Takes 10-Vote Lead in WA Governor Race

Two major developments in the apparently neverending Washington state governor's race happened on Wednesday. As the second recount wound down, with 38 of 39 counties reporting -- all but the heavily Democratic-leaning King County -- Republican Dino Rossi extended his lead from 42 votes to 49. Then, the state Supreme Court ruled that its December 14 decision which disallowed including new ballots in the hand recount did not preclude county canvassing boards from including new ballots, which paves the way for 735 previously rejected ballots in King County to be processed. Then, King County announced that its hand recount (not including the 735) swung toward Democrat Christine Gregoire by 59 votes, giving her a 10-vote lead statewide (1,373,051 to 1,373,041). More court challenges are likely to follow.

Comments

Who can you trust?

[drakethegreat]

Does this give you any faith in the system? I sure as hell don't want to blame a side as much as I want to say the american voting system just isn't good enough to deal with the fact that our nation is split 50/50. Everyone in Washington just wants a governor at this point. I may note that despite what you hear it was the Deomcrat Christina who decided to have the recount so its her fault that we are making this a big scene. I voted democrat in the fall but I sure as hell wish they would shutup right now.

Re:Who's crying now?

[jhigh]

The issue is the Democrats blatantly altering the election process to favor their candidate. What happened was that the ballots in King County were thrown out as a result of missing or mismatched signatures. The Democrats then tried (and succeeded) to get the ability to contact each of those voters individually to verify their signature and vote. This is a blatant abuse of the process. Some Democrat operative shows up your house wanting to know if you didn't really mean to vote for their candidate. And the Democrats are the ones always whining about voter intimidation??? Disgusting. There's a reason that elections aren't run like this...

Re:Who's crying now?

[jhigh]

So go back and count them! That's not what the Dems did. They tracked these individuals done, which is tantamount to intimidation and coercion. The entire process is dependant upon the voter's confidence that their vote will be a) counted and b) confidential. Having Democrat (I refuse to say Democratic anymore) operatives show up and ask you how you MEANT to vote is just ridiculous.