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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.
Before this latest gain for the Dems, the Republicans where telling the Dems to quit crying and just give in, that resorting to the courts was proff they where all cry babies. I wonder if their tune will change now.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What's the big problem?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
... about WA state is its geography. King County is very big population wise and very Democratic. The counties to the west of the Cascades (which divide the state N-S about 1/4 of the way E from the ocean), are all blue to purple and then all of the counties to the east of the Cascades are blood red republican. Rossi won most of the counties in the state, but King County's population (along with neighboring Snohomish County) almost has the power to make all of those moot. It's like Texas, California and New York all rolled into one. So when Gregoire does win - which I hope she does - it'll really set the stage for a Seattle vs rest-of-the-state animosity that will take years to resolve.
It seems that if there is such a close race that there is only 10 votes in it, then it's not really democracy that's deciding the winner of this. Instead it comes down to combinations of random events. How many car accidents statewide were there on the day of the ballot... How many people couldn't get to the polling booths due to bad health etc. Why not just flip a coin to decide who gets in, it would probably have just as much meaning.
Uhhh... statistically speaking.
Statistics apply when you are *sampling.* We are not sampling, we are counting.
I thought republicans were supposed to be the dumb ones, too.
Are you implying I am not a Republican?
Does the majority have a right to change the law to reflect their desires or not?
Of course. But not in the middle of the process. Change it for next time, if you like.
You mean the part where they don't even verify signatures on the absentee ballots? Or the part where they allow people to list office buildings as their primary residence? Or the part where they allow people to register and vote multiple times under the same name at the same address? I didn't know the Supreme Court ruled on those matters.
All counties have similar issues. Obviously, the Republican Party didn't think there was a significant enough legal case to bring about any challenges to these relatively minor problems.
That is not obvious at all. Most other people in this and previous discussions on the matter who have argued along similar lines have asked why we don't do X *now*, regardless of the law.
Anyway, the recount is considered more accurate because *most* of the difference in a recount is the inclusion of ballots that were not properly counted the first time around. Note that very few counties subtracted votes in the hand recount. It's not merely a matter of making sure you got the count right, it's a matter of correcting mistakes made the first (or second) time around.
I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's the general idea.
* Statistically speaking, Rossi is still considered the winner unless Gregoire pulls out with a 300 vote lead. This is pure math, folks, nothing more, nothing less.
Statistically, mathematically, and legally, the winner is the person who has the most votes after the recount. Period.
As for me, it's obvious. The democrats have successfully stolen the election, and I have proof.
Winning on recount isn't "stealing the election". The real question we should ask is why Republican leads seem to fall apart so frequently when one actually checks the ballots. Think about that for a moment.
The vast majority of Republicans are good and honest people. Our party has been usurped by a small, vicious band of "Neo-Cons" who claim to speak for us, but do not. This exactly parallels the national situation; the vast majority of Americans are good and honest people, but their country has been usurped by the same jerks.
Now, in addition to being dishonest the usurpers are also devious. One of their favorite tricks is to sow conflict amongst their enimies. Presently, they have the good and honest Americans divided into two roughly equal camps, and have them convinced that they have nothing in common--so there's no point in banding together to route out corruption. Besides (as they paint it) the problem isn't really corruption, it's red vs. blue, and which ever colour you got assigned you should blame everything on the entirety of the other team.
I, on the other hand, am doing my best to convince people of both parties that the real enemy is the corrupt politicians of both parties. We can always go back to fighting amonst ourselves about who should pay for health care, and how much, once we make sure we won't be living in a police state run by the people who "count" our votes--or a glass crater created by other nations holding us all accountable for the acts of a few, just as you want to hold all Republicans accountable for the acts of a few.
--MarkusQ
Absolutely nothing, though I'd argue that the first recount would probably be more accurate than the original count for the simple reason that the people doing the counting are likely to be a little more careful at that point. Anything after that and you run a higher risk of people getting tired and bored and just going through the motions on autopilot, IMHO.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
The reason the poor do so poorly in washington is that we have not just a sales tax, but a high one. Which isn't necessarily completely unfair until one notices that most services, which are what rich people spend their money on, aren't taxed. The poor in washington really take it on all sides, which likely has to do with the high mean incomes in the population centers, and a combination lack of understanding and zoning in the more sparesly populated areas.
I would submit that in Washington the death penalty is a little different, it's not so much a final stick with which to be poor with, but really more of a way to just kick the disproportunate number of serial/spree killers we seem to generate off the planet. I would rather just stop spending money on crimes where people are just hurting themselves and use the largess to return a little interity to the criminal justice system.
You'd also have to make it illegal for the government to sell debts owed to it to other people in make money fast realestate programs. It might be interesting to see if Rossi ever did any of that, seeing as he's a realestate agent. Which is actually a pretty good way for the state to handle things from at least a logistical perspective.
I think Sam Reed was in favor of that for the primary. The top two candidates no matter the party, advancing to the election. I believe it was voted down. I have my own qualms about it, but, especially when it comes to voting, I'd really hate to see something crammed down the throats of my fellow Washingtonians without the majority of them backing it. And personally, I think the way the do recounts now, even given the spectical, is pretty good. The gross machine count, the careful machine count, and the exhaustive hand count that the people only have to pay for in the event the election results are changed. It's great, it even includes a strong disincentive for political parties to gamble, and annoy the people just because the can. In the rare instances it comes up, it sucks, but that's just because any careful hand recount takes forever.
Since the democrats are so obviously evil for their role in this, it might be fun to note the turn things have taken not that Gregiore leads by 130 votes.
The Republicans did something similar. They tracked down people who voted for Rossi, but didn't sign the affidavit of a voter on their absentee ballot. No. They're not the victims of less than dilligent election workers, they just can't read clearly printed instructions on what they must do in order to properly cast their ballot. And somehow the view the situations of these voters as somehow similar. Further more, they only propose to count the votes of the limited number of people they've found, not the entire population of absentee ballots without a signed affidavit. But no, they're not hypocrits, and it's unfair to characterize their championing the cause of institutionalized unfairness as anything but filled with charity and christ love. What a joke.