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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
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.
This seems to imply with a note of sarcasm that the state Supreme Court is ruling against itself. I haven't been following your state's results as closely as you have, but this does not seem true to me. From my skimming of the link you gave to the Dec. 14 decision, I see that decision was regarding whether the Supreme Court could order the Secretary of State to order counties to re-check previously rejected ballots. That the Supreme Court refused to order this to be done does not in any way mean it, as you write, "disallowed" it from being done. This seems to me a fairly trivial point.
From the decision you linked to:
And the Supreme Court goes on to address precisely the contradiction I think you're raising, in its second decision, making itself quite clear:
(My emphasis.)
The first decision seems quite clearly limited in its scope, in such a way that there is no contradiction in the second. The Seattle Times story you link to agrees with me on this. If you disagree, you owe it to our readers either to disclose that your disagreement is your opinion, or to explain clearly and factually what parts of the two decisions contradict each other. As I say, you've been studying this a lot longer and more carefully than I have, so maybe I'm all wrong on this. I'd like to see what you have to say about it -- in detail, not just implied in part of one sentence.
My suspicion is that "the Washington Supreme Court contradicted itself, so Gregoire's election is illegitimate" may shortly become part of the GOP's talking points, so this is no small matter.
* 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.
No. She is the winner if she has a 1-vote lead. You don't average out the previous counts. The result of the current recount is the result, period. It's simple law, folks.
* A survey of the voters in Washington showed that if Rossi wins, he should be declared the winner. However. the majority feel that if Gregoire wins, we should have a runoff election.
What the majority feel is irrelevant. What the law says is what matters.
* Everyone in Washington State now admits that King County has not been following state law in the elections process.
In some respects, perhaps, but the question is whether they are following the law properly *now,* and the Supreme Court just ruled in its favor, and the Republican Secretary of State is on the county's side in this matter.
...is a recount considered more accurate than the original count? If a recount doesn't agree with the figures from a prevoius counting, shouldn't they count it again until they get two countings that match? That way there couldn't be any dispute. Why is a "margin of error" tolerated, especially when the difference in votes is so close? The numbers should be *exact*.
Huh? Those are not 735 Democrat ballots ... and they were initially rejected because a *Democrat-controlled* canvassing board decided to reject them.
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.
The problem isn't Democrats vs. Republicans, it's honest people of both parties vs. corrupt people of either party.
I happen to be a Republican, but I'm quite willing to accept Democratic politicians when they win honestly. When they win by cheating, I want to see them (and/or whoever cheated on their behalf) behind bars. Likewise, when someone "of my party" cheats to win, I want them nailed.
The problem is, it's very hard to get the leaders of either party to take a stand on this issue because they know (as many of us are begining to realize) just how often there is cheating by both parties. Instead, they try to get is tangled up with us vs. them debates as if one side was pure as the driven snow and the other was corrupt to the core. That's not the way it is.
There are a lot of honest people in both parties. They are being run into the ground by the cheats, and "we the people" need to put a stop to it.
--MarkusQ
Ye Gods America, who is running your elections? The lawyers or the TV networks?
* 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.
You don't follow the news much either, do you? The election workers followed the same procedure they had in the primary. This was part of the way they did things, it was not a simple mistake.
And the Republicans were arguing to follow the previous Supreme Court decision that stated that the hand recount was to be a retabulation, not a reconsideration of previously rejected ballots. That the canvassing board had already rejected these ballots is not in question. The only question is whether the Supreme Court sill preserved all the discretion to the county canvassing boards, and they affirmed yesterday that they did.
Note that there's only one case so far in this entire affair where a judge has ruled to change the law, and that was in King County, where Judge Lam violated federal law by compelling the county to provide lists of provisional voters and their personal information to the Democrats.
I note that they don't think people who've had their legal votes rejected should be able to have some sort of redress
You note a lie. Goody for you!
How about this, ever legal vote should count.
No one ever disputed that. You're just showing your own abject ignorance by contending otherwise. The question is what constitutes a legal vote, not whether legal votes should count.
And legality shouldn't be determined by the convience of the counter, or the would-be victor seeking to preserve a margin, but by whether the voter did the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith.
No. It should be determined by the law. That's what "legal" means. And Washington law does not recognize "the minimum that was necessary to register their vote in good faith" as its standard.
For example, the law states, "A ballot is invalid and no votes on that ballot may be counted if it is found folded together with another ballot or it is marked so as to identify the voter." Even if the voter registered his vote in good faith, it is invalid under those conditions. Sorry. That's the law, and the law is what determines legality.
I would submit that anyone who suggest anything short of that test, is a fucking coward, a freind to tyrants, and a foe of freedom, deserving of only the inequities they would foist on others.
I submit that anyone who suggests anything different from the law as that test is an anarchist or a moron. You're spouting unintelligent rhetoric that sounds good to people who don't know any better (which may include yourself).