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Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Washington Governor's Race
Posted by Tim TagarisKOMO TV (ABC) in Seattle Reports:
Democratic State Party Chairman Paul Berendt says recount results from King County give Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-vote victory over Republican Dino Rossi in the governor's race.
The report is very preliminary, and neither King County nor the Republican Party can immediately confirm the hand recount results.
The official results will be released tomorrow at 3:30 PST. The ABC affiliate continues:
King County, which includes Seattle, has finished tallying its 900,000 ballots, but election officials say they still need to reconcile differences in the precinct totals before formally releasing its results Wednesday.
Eight votes. Amazing. I am going to look into whether or not this is the closest state-wide race ever. I imagine it has to be. Who says every vote doesn't count?
Closest Statewide Elections (will add as I find):
Ohio: Lee Fisher (D) vs. Paul Pfeifer (R) for State Attorney General in 1990: Fisher wins by 1,234
Utah: Herbert Maw vs. J. Bracken Lee for Governor in 1994. Maw wins by 1000 votes.
Minnesota: Karl Rolvaag vs. Elmer Anderson for Governor in 1962: Rovlaag wins by 58 votes.
Pennsylvania: Susan Gantman (R) vs. John Driscoll (D) for State Superior Court in 2003: Gantman wins by 28 votes.
Michigan: Mike Cox (R) vs. Gary Peters (D) for Attorney General in 2002: Cox wins by 5,200 votes - making it the closest statewide election in 50 years (best I could find).
New York: Elliot Spitzer (D) vs. Dennis Vacco (R) for Attorney General in 1998. Spitzer wins (looking for total)
Posted at 11:57 PM in Washington | Technorati
Comments
Wow.
2006 just got interesting if Gregoire did win. Get ready for Maria Cantwell vs. Dino Rossi.
Posted by: Manny at December 22, 2004 09:52 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I hope Gregoire wins but it should never have been this close. She ran a lousy race. And, hopefully, Berendt is out as State Chair. What the heck is he doing talking about the vote count before it becomes official? It taints the whole process, IMHO, when the results first come from a partisan. Of course, this isn't the first time Paul's suffered from "foot in mouth" disease.
If Rossi runs against Cantwell, then she needs to hammer him on his strong, anti-abortion stance. Gregoire never even touched it. I could never figure out why not. He pulled a LOT of Dem votes and I don't think he would have if she would have made his position known.
Posted by: Judy at December 22, 2004 10:40 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
1998 NY AG Race (PDF):
Spitzer: 2,084,948 Vacco: 2,059,762 Margin: 25,186 Percentage of total: 0.58% (not including spoiled ballots)
I worked on this campaign - it was a serious nailbiter. We had a recount in all 62 counties. It was just like Florida, only two years before Florida and not nearly so crazy. But Vacco (unlike Al Gore) refused to concede, and the Republicans actually wanted to send state troopers banging on doors to check voter registrations. Of course, there was no fraud, and we won.
During the recount, we got a call from Sen. Moynihan. He told us, "This reminds me of the close race we had for Governor Harriman in 1954." (1954!!! Talk about a blast from the past. I believe Moynihan worked on that campaign.) In any case, Tim, you may want to research the results of that race to see how close it was.
Posted by: DavidNYC at December 22, 2004 04:33 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
BTW, I think announcing the results beforehand is smart - it sets up the media to report things as "Gregoire wins by eight votes," and forces the Rossi camp to fight against that entrenched idea.
Posted by: DavidNYC at December 22, 2004 04:34 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I agree, completely.
Now the message is Gregorie won the re-re-recount. It was the message on TV, in newspapers, radio, etc...
Fight against that.
Mars, bitches! (Chapelle Show)
Tim
Posted by: Tim T. at December 22, 2004 04:40 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
More good news for Gregoire (from news.yahoo.com)...
"OLYMPIA, Wash. - Washington state's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that more than 700 belatedly discovered ballots from Seattle's King County should be counted in the extraordinarily close governor's race..."
King's County is reportedly heavily democratic. So the the margin of victory could end up being even more than 8 votes. Let's claim mandate.
Posted by: WisVoter at December 22, 2004 05:43 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Bring on Cantwell Vs. Rossi.
Posted by: Manny at December 22, 2004 06:12 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Why isn't Gregoire calling this third count a tie as she did for the first two counts?
Rossi won 2 out of three times. Both times Rossi won, Gregoire said it was a tie. So, by her own reasoning, this third count must be a tie as well.
Since Gregoire thinks the first two counts were a tie, and therefore must think this third count is a tie as well, then we should have a run off election.
With all the voter disenfranchisement and election count problems, the only way to make a clear winner is to do a run off of the two (Rossi and Gregoire). It should be done by the end of Jan. That gives government 4 weeks to set up the voting places and send out the absentee ballots.
It is "funny" that in the first two counts paid for by tax payers, Rossi won, but in the count paid for by Democrats Gregoire won. Hmmmm....funny indeed.
There should be a run off to restore confidence in the system. If not maybe there will be a re-call election as there was in CA last year.
Darla Sampson
King County (aka Fraud County)
Posted by: Darla Sampson at December 29, 2004 02:05 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Both sides will always only argue that which helps their cause, and conveniently omit the rest. It's the nature of politics, and both sides will always be guilty, from now to eternity. A lingering question I have is how do we know, based on percentage of population (a "moral" equalizer), that other smaller counties in this state didn't have the same sorts of issues as King county throughout the many steps of these recounts? We'll never know because the media won't cover it because all the trained monkeys are throwing their feces in King county. There has been ZERO proof of any organized fraud in this county. Just honest oversight and individual instances of poor judgement. But by focusing on us, and ignoring the hinterlands, it focuses the ire, suspicions and conspiricy theories present above on the honest people of King county. The Republicans were legally outmanuevered by the Democrats during this election. FYI...our state ranks at the top for effeciently run state governments, and our unemployment rate is dropping twice as fast as the national average. Makes you wonder why I should accept the only argument Rossi seemed to be able to muster in the debates, that it was "time for a change". I have to admit though, if I voted Republican I'd be mad too.
Posted by: Anthony Von at January 12, 2005 04:31 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment