NationStates Jolt Archive

As some of you know, Republican Dino Rossi beat Democrat Christine Gregoire by 262 votes in the first tally for Washington's Governor, prompting a mandatory machine recount (by state law), which shrunk the margin to a 42 vote win for Rossi (out of around 2.8 million votes).

The Democrat Party paid for a hand recount. It's been going on for a week or so now.

The results are posted as they come in here: http://www.vote.wa.gov/general/recount_resultsbycounty.aspx

The odds are looking good that Gregoire will win, especially after some 500 votes in a strong Democrat county were found to have been improperly discredited (one of them being the county commissioner's own vote!)

But imagine the Republican response. This is gonna get real ugly if Gregoire manages to overturn the initial Rossi victory.

I'm just curious how the population will respond if elections continue to be decided by lawsuits, recounts, court decisions, and other legal wrangling.

I imagine the population of Washington will be okay with it, because everything has been done out in the open. Republican talking heads will spew their usual vomit and try to discredit Gregoire, but I imagine they'll be a nit more concerned with the ongoing Ohio recount, especially if that one gets close. It would be nice to see the Supreme Court fucked over by their own rulings in Bush v Gore. I have no real hopes that it will happen, but it would be nice.

The odds are looking good that Gregoire will win, especially after some 500 votes in a strong Democrat county were found to have been improperly discredited (one of them being the county commissioner's own vote!)


They don't use a secret ballot system in Washington... is it not a part of the US anymore? To be able to single out the county commissioner's ballot is either a lie or a sign that something much more wrong is going on.

They don't use a secret ballot system in Washington... is it not a part of the US anymore? To be able to single out the county commissioner's ballot is either a lie or a sign that something much more wrong is going on.
In this particular case, the article was talking about an absentee ballot, which had to be signed. An absentee ballot is, by necessity, not secret. The person in question obviously waived his right to privacy for the story. No conspiracy here.

In this particular case, the article was talking about an absentee ballot, which had to be signed. An absentee ballot is, by necessity, not secret. The person in question obviously waived his right to privacy for the story. No conspiracy here.

Ah, they do it different in my state... you have to sign an outer envelope, but not the ballot itself. So once the ballot is removed from the envelope and run through the machine, it is unidentifiable from any other.