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Democrat Certified Winner in WA Governor Race
Washington's secretary of state certified the result of the hand recount (the third count) in the governor's race, reversing the first two results -- which Republican Dino Rossi had won -- and making Democrat Christine Gregoire the election's second governor-elect, by 129 votes out of 2.9 million. The inauguration is January 12. Predictably, the two sides have switched arguments, too, with the Democrats saying Rossi should concede and the Republicans saying they have a duty to make sure the will of the people is followed. The next step may be an election contest, which could take months, and result in a court awarding the victory to a candidate, nullifying the entire election, or sending the matter to the legislature. Rossi is calling for the legislature to pass a special law calling for a new election, which would bypass a contest procedure.
We had an election under the laws as they stand. We followed the law and ended up with a result.
Yes, and the law is still being followed. This is where your political bias is providing for you a significant mental block. The rules, the law, is still being followed.
On what grounds could the leg possibly step in or Rossi contest the election?
I can't speak to the legislature stepping in, but rest assured, if it happened, it would be on reasonable legal grounds.
As to the contest: that is perfectly obvious. Hell, we've seen more than 129 examples of military people who didn't get their absentee ballots in time, and there are other forms of problems too, such as the counties who did not re-consider ballots with signature problems as King County did, which means their votes were not treated equally.
Legally he might contest or beg for a mulligan to be granted, but pragmatically you have to agree he should use this loss as a jumping off point for his next campaign.
If he had not won the first count and first recount, I would agree. But as he did, no, I don't agree at all with this. In every poll I've seen, the majority of people said Gregoire should concede, by a good margin, and even now, a significant number are saying they don't see Gregoire as legitimate (might even be a majority).