Has this been on the news anywhere besides our state?

The initial election produced the Rep candidate, Dino Rossi, winning by around 250 votes. After a partial recount, he leads by 42. 42!
Today, the state Democratic party will decide if it is going to fund a full statewide hand recount. Rossi has already been certified as gov-elect but our wacky wacky laws allow for recount after recount until infinity apparently.

It's the closest election in US history, has anyone noticed?

Gregoire wants full recount — or none

By David Postman
Seattle Times chief political reporter


OLYMPIA — Democrat Christine Gregoire says she will concede the governor's race to Dino Rossi today unless her party raises enough money for a statewide recount.

"I'm done with the shock of Nov. 2 and I have moved on, and I am ready to do what the law provides" and have a final statewide manual recount, Gregoire said yesterday.

But the party says it'll do what it wants.

Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said he will request a recount in only a few selected counties if that's all the party has money to pay for when the 5 p.m. deadline hits today.

He said Gregoire can concede the race to Rossi, a Republican, if she wants.

"That would be irrelevant. Concessions have no legal standing," Berendt said.

Berendt said yesterday he had raised $650,000 of the $750,000 needed as a deposit for a statewide hand recount of the nearly 3 million ballots. He said he was optimistic he would raise the rest today.

The prospect of a political party fighting a battle its candidate has already given up was one of several new twists in what already is one of the strangest elections in state history.

Gregoire spokesman Morton Brilliant responded with little more than a sigh and a long pause when told what Berendt had said.

"If that's really where we are tomorrow, then we'll have something more to say," Brilliant said.




The race is already the closest in state history and perhaps the closest in the nation's history; the most expensive governor's race in Washington; and Republicans' best chance to win the governor's mansion since last electing a governor in 1980.

There also was another sign yesterday that the Democratic Party and Gregoire were following different strategies as the election turned 1 month old.

Gregoire, a three-term attorney general, said she knew nothing about a letter a party lawyer wrote to Secretary of State Sam Reed hinting at an imminent lawsuit. The letter suggested the Democrats might go to court before a recount to settle what ballots should be counted.

Then, if the results still were in dispute after the recount, that dispute should be settled by the Legislature, not the courts, the Wednesday letter from party attorney David Burman argued.

Handing the issue to the Legislature "would inevitably drag into the early months of next year," the letter said. That would mean the new, Democratic-controlled Legislature would be in power to back Gregoire.

Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance called the letter "ominous."

"We have a letter from the Democratic Party's lawyer to the secretary of state which is explicitly threatening to blow up the process," Vance said.

Rossi, a real-estate agent and former state senator, declared victory Tuesday after being certified as governor-elect. He held a party that night to celebrate.

Rossi won the first count of the Nov. 2 election by 261 votes. A statewide machine recount tightened the gap to 42.

At issue now is the scope of the hand recount.

Reed maintains that only ballots counted in the initial count should be included in the hand recount. That means ballots disqualified by county canvassing boards would stay disqualified.

Democrats want all those ballots reviewed again. Burman wrote that county elections officials made decisions "that were legally erroneous ... and that varied dramatically from county to county."

Vance said the Democrats are "flat-out trying to steal the election with illegal votes."

While Gregoire said she didn't know the letter had been sent, she agreed that previously disqualified ballots should be looked at again in a recount. Counties handled questioned ballots differently, she said.

"For voter confidence, you have to handle it the exact same way," she said.

But Gregoire said she has grown increasingly concerned that the Democratic Party would request only a partial recount of the state. The party brought in a national expert who pinpointed which of the state's 6,686 precincts would be the most fruitful for her in a recount "and turn the race around," she said.

If a partial recount put Gregoire in the lead, the state would then pay for a full statewide count.

But Gregoire said she would not stand for Democrats requesting a partial count on her behalf.

"At the end of the day every vote counts and it counts the same, whether you are in Oroville or Seattle," she said.

Republicans have been pressuring Gregoire to concede since soon after Election Day. But she says a hand recount in a close race is a legitimate request.

"This is exactly the circumstances that this law anticipated when it was passed by the Legislature," she said.

And as much pressure as she has gotten from Republicans, she said, she has gotten as much or more from Democrats around the country telling her not to give up.

"They say there is a price to pay if I don't go forward ... and, 'Don't you dare give up until every vote is counted,' " she said.

Gregoire said that is fueled by Democrats' concerns that they not look weak after Vice President Al Gore's concession in his contested election with George W. Bush four years ago and Sen. John Kerry's concession this year while some Democrats were wanting him to demand a recount in close states.

"They're saying Democrats cannot be seen as giving up," she said.

Gregoire has been calling for a statewide recount, but yesterday was the first time she issued an ultimatum that she would end the race rather than see a partial recount.

Gov. Gary Locke, a two-term Democrat who endorsed Gregoire as his successor, also called Tuesday for a statewide count.

Gregoire's campaign has delegated the fund raising for a recount to the party.

Berendt said Kerry donated $250,000 to the effort from his left-over campaign funds. The Democratic National Committee gave $250,000.

And Berendt said former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean made a pitch to his supporters for donations. As of yesterday afternoon, more than 3,000 people had responded, donating a total of more than $100,000, Berendt said.

"With all due respect to Chris, we'll pay for whatever we can," Berendt said. "I'm not going to get in a fight with Chris. If we have the money, we'll do what she asked us to do."

I just posted that article in the Recount Thread.

I must tip my hat off to Gregoire for insisting on a statewide recount instead of a partial one.

If she'd been that ballsy in October I may have voted for her.