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Thursday, December 23, 2004
Governor-elect Christine Gregoire
Posted by Bob BrighamGregoire wins by 130 votes. Happy Holidays Governor Gregoire!
Memo to Governor-elect Gregoire: When it comes time for re-election, please don't run such a cautious campaign. There is no excuse for you not having won in a blow-out. Learn from your mistake and be bold as you go forward to lead Washington.
Posted at 08:26 PM in Washington | Technorati
Comments
This Lady means business. Pity a few gentlemen did not have the patience to DEMAND a re-count. WAY TO GO Gov. GREGOIRE.
Posted by: Joyce A Vermaak at December 24, 2004 11:17 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Joyce, I don't understand your comment. Are you referring to Al Gore and John Kerry? Or are you referring to some other gentlemen?
Posted by: WisVoter at December 24, 2004 12:21 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Funny. When the recount goes the GOP way, the Republicans say, don't count any ballots that were rejected etc.. Now that Gregoire may be the winner..they want counties to reconsider counting ballots that may have been erroneously declared void.
Interesting.
Either way. Congrats to Gov. Elect Gregoire, she'll need it. Although, I worry that Maria Cantwell is in for a dogfight when Dino Rossi shows up in 2 years to challenge her for the Senate Seat.
Posted by: Manny at December 26, 2004 07:50 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Manny,
The GOP wants to count ballots that were previously thrown out before the Washington Supreme Court allowed these ballots to be counted. Do you think it is fair that only one county can count previously invalid votes ballots and others not?
Posted by: SOH at December 28, 2004 02:07 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Gregoire is an illegitimate fraud. What a disgrace for our state; King County is a den of thieves controlled by liberals who love power so much that they create voters in order to hold it. This bitch is not my governor...she is a corrupt whore to the union powers...she swallows for the union bosses. Hopefully this outrage will provoke the lazy Republicans in this state to move toward the truly violent revolution that we need in order to overthrough the tax-and-spend oppressors of the left. The only question is, when we string Gregoire up like Mousellini, whose penis will we put in her mouth (metaphorically, or course).
Posted by: Daniel Adams at December 30, 2004 08:20 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I was born and raised in this state. What the Democrats did, particularly King (or should that be Queen? county), with the permission of Christine Gregoire, is disgraceful.
I am truly embarrassed to say I'm from Washington State. The election process should never be abused for personal gain. The fact that they're willing to do what they did tells me everything I need to know about their character.
Posted by: ChuckT at December 31, 2004 03:30 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
What a shame this election process has been. I will NOT support Christine Gregoire unless she wins a fair election.
from a Seattle Voter
Posted by: Markus A at January 1, 2005 08:53 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
What a way to go. The Governor elect hopefully
can show the way for others in her party to fight for a election.
Posted by: Norm Beffert at January 2, 2005 03:32 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
What a way to go. The Governor elect hopefully
can show the way for others in her party to fight for a election.
Posted by: Norm Beffert at January 2, 2005 03:33 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
SOH: King County was not the only county to add votes that had been mistakenly omitted previously. 5 other counties had previously done exactly what Rossi was trying to stop King County from doing. Not surprisingly, all 5 counties added net votes for Rossi. Also not surprisingly, Gregoire did not contest their right to do so.
All along, the Gregoire team did nothing but request that all votes get counted. They encouraged all counties to fully and faithfully recount all votes. Rossi (who was ahead at the time) only attempted to stop all counting, protesting (and this is ripe) that a recount could taint his governorship. Well the recount has more than tainted it, it has prevented it (thank god).
The current election procedures were drafted and approved while Rossi was a senator. He in fact voted for them. They have worked correctly, with an automatic recount being triggered, and then a manual recount requested and completed according to state law. Rossi still has options available to him, and if he feels they are valid he should take them, and I support his right to do so. If those options end up making him the Governor, I will support him (although I would personally rather see him not in office).
The fact that the system worked, and that we don't have to have massive protests in order to get a fair election is a good thing. I have seen many people griping about how terrible King County is, but I have seen no evidence of election fraud. If you have any actual evidence, please show us - if you don't, please stop libeling the King County elections officials, accept the will of the people (I think this is obviously a 130 vote mandate) and get on with your life.
If you don't like the outcome, call your local party office and volunteer. The more people we have on all sides who are interested in the political system, the better.
Thanks for your time.
Posted by: Chris Mahnken at January 2, 2005 07:20 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Dino Rossi and his pitty-potty party are true flip-floppers. They were not asking for a new election when Dino was a mere 42 votes ahead, eh?
They had their reader board lit with "Christine" concede!
Washington does not want a pansy like Rossi for Governor.
Dem waces not go hims widda ways? Oh poor widda Dino. WAAAAAA!
P.S. I suppose it is okay to keep slaughtering thousands of innocent Iraqis to support the Bush agenda, eh Dino?
What B.S.
Posted by: Marko Polo at January 6, 2005 10:27 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Funny, How Gregoire pushes for numerous recounts until the campaign swings her direction. I think the most important votes are those of the many men and women on the front lines in Iraq, defending our HONOR and FREEDOM. It's sad that the democrats have no problem adding a few ballots, however ignoring the most important. It's not about moving on, it's about getting it RIGHT!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: terry at January 7, 2005 07:42 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Well, the comments on this one keep coming. What a shame the hateful and violent speech. What the rancor shows here is the Pandora's box that was opened in 2000.
To refresh our memories, the Supreme Court STOPPED a recound based on the fact that different counties used different recounting methods, violating EQUAL PROTECTION. The result was we have NO accurate count of Florida votes -- its anybody's guess who would've won. But the count was good enough for the Republicans. Instead of saying, "let's do everything it takes to count every vote and then accept whoever wins," we let a partisan process determine the winner. So now when it seemingly comes back to haunt Republicans, its bloody murder, right? If every county applied the same standard King County did, then fair is fair and its over.
We need professional, NON-PARTISAN methods of holding and evaluating elections, using the best available (i.e. msot accurate) methods and redundancy/qualtiy control. We need oversight and independent confirmation from the beignning, so that ballots are not misplaced and/or misread by ill-prepared volunteers and partisan secretaires of state, county clerks, etc.
Why do we allow our elections, our redistricting, our basic democratic processes be decided in a baldly partisan manner? I didn't see Republicans scrambling to fix things after 2000. Oh, wait, they did give states money to buy touch-screen voting machines -- the most unreliable and unaccountable technology on the market.
I know most people on this site are Democrats, as am I, but I hope people will agree our democracy sorely needs non-partisan reforms.
Congrats to Governor Gregoire.
Posted by: Marc at January 9, 2005 04:54 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Republicans-
Get your facts right.
The recounts were done exactly by the rules set up by Rossi himself.
Before when he was winning by a mere 42 votes in the initial flawed count- which had been done on unreliable machinery and had left out uncounted votes because of a mistake by the election personnel, he was saying the loser should concede and stop damaging the state with further vote counts. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, even though all the automatic recounts written in the process have now finally been concluded, and the mistakes have been corrected, he wants to drag this on, against his own previous rants that it is detrimental to the state, and wants to add even more recounts- that are NOT part of the process. Now that's a whiner!
Posted by: Pat at January 10, 2005 12:38 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I have no particular opinion about who won... but I tend to think that a run-off vote between JUST Rossi and Gregoire is in order. Run-off voting should be mandatory whenever no candidate hits 50%+.
Posted by: Sean W at January 11, 2005 01:16 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Good comment Marko! Let's get it RIGHT!
Norm and WisVoter...It's the Dems that CHANGED thue rules mid-stream...but ONLY for King county...Why don't we use the SAME rules for ALL counties??? Let's count those other county's rejected votes!!!
Interesting the Dems say "count every vote" up until the time the Gregoire is ahead...
She's not my Governor.
Posted by: ShesNotMyGoverner at January 14, 2005 08:59 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I am so tired of self-absorbed, hypocrytical, paranoid conservatives. I voted for Christine and would do so again. I would NEVER vote for anyone who felt it appropriate to plaster freeway reader boards with offensive messsages to the 50% of us who did vote for Christine.
Recounts are legal and appropriate. Rossi should have been respectful of ALL the voters, not just the ones who voted for him. Christine persued the rights of the voters without the need to post offensive advertisements.
I don't feel sorry for the soldiers whose votes weren't counted. A huge percentage of them vote Republican and want to be involved in a war far away from home. That's their choice but they still need to get their votes in on time like everyone else. I don't support the war so why should I make exceptions for those who do?
Posted by: Becky at January 14, 2005 11:25 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment