Dems: Gregoire Wins Wash. Governor Race by 8 votes

How about a run-off election, as practiced in many European countries? Have the constituents choose between the top two votetakers.

A coin toss?

There was a race settled this way...someplace in Florida maybe?

At the end of the day, you have legal processes in place to handle such situations and there can't be new ones invented to appease one side or another. If there was a provision on the books for a runoff election or coin toss, that would be acceptable. If there isn't then both sides can bring their arguments to court if they so choose, as is the legal right in this country, and all of the legitimate ballots counted.

Allissa, the courts haven't decided one way or the other on those 700+ ballots. I'm not sure why there is so much venom directed at one of the parties utilizing the legal system. Would you have the same ire if it had been the democrats raising the issue to the courts? Or would that have been completely justified against a right-wing conspiracy? If there were no legal basis about those ballots, the state Supreme Court wouldn't even be considering it.

Regardless, this truly shows how every person's one vote can definitely make a difference!

Living in King County myself, I have REALLY STRONG feelings on this. I have always been Democratic in my heart. I align with those ideals and rarely have voted for ultra-conservatives, HOWEVER, Christine Gregoire smugly thought she had this election in the bag and zipped about a year ago. Nobody saw Dino Rossi coming. But when he started to speak and really deal with the devastation of our high unemployment out here (2nd in the Nation --what recovery??) a LOT of people started to listen. Gregoire mis-calculated the need for jobs, jobs, jobs and what can really turn our state around.

10 years ago Seattle was the Land of Milk & Honey. We had Pearl Jam, we had Nirvana, we had grunge, baby. We were the center of the universe. We had the entire dot.com revolution right here; we had Starbucks, Nintendo, Real Networks, REI, Boeing, and a bevy of other huge corporations that came to our state to set up shop. Then the Democrats put thick, red tape on new businesses and taxed the living daylights out of existing ones....so much so that Boeing fled to Chicago, closing the 747 and 757 plants by attrition and taking over 73,000 jobs with them.....and a huge peripheral of prosperity on their coattails. The dot.coms became dot.bombs, and unemployment spiked to the highest in the nation. Our schools are way over budget, nobody without a good job of at least $35K here in Seattle can afford health insurance; and the average commute time in King County is 47 minutes on a good day! For 20+ years Democrats have controlled everything in this state focusing great time and effort on criminal rehabilitation; gay marriage; needle exchange; a corrupt light rail system and one of the largest percentages of "much needed social programs" on a per capita basis in any one city over 500,000.

Dino Rossi was a moderate. He lived in a very nice house in the glitzy area, but came from Washignton State stock - his parents raising him just 4 miles from where my house is in a coal town down the street. he never forgot that. His father was a teacher and his mom worked outside the home. His values and vision resonated with ALL of Washington State NOT JUST KING COUNTY and because of that, he won 38 of 39 counties by difinitive margins. Chris Gregoire now will hand the entire state a bill for $1million+ from this latest recount, instead of absorbing it herself, when 38 of 39 counties do NOT want her in there.

I voted from Rossi and am proud of it. The past month has seen a myriad of new job postings on Monster and Hotjobs...you could feel some excitement in the air - that maybe we would have a chance to truly get ahead instead of just barely survive as a state. I voted for Rossi because sometimes all change is not a bad thing; sometimes stale government needs to be aired out every now and then to become effective again and not rest on the laurels of a guaranteed paycheck for mediocre work; and regardless of which party was in power, I would have probably voted for the other one. Rossi made a lot of sense to a lot of people.....as in since when is "recovery" having about 40% of what you had before? And if you don't have a working farm and a decent job, all the social programs in the world (that Gregoire supported) don't really matter at the end of the day.

I feel much better now. OH, and the real reason Rossi is so mad (as is everyone else) is that they have no issue with the canvassing board ruling to count the 730 "disputed" ballots. The real issue is that the other 38 counties never had that chance and certified their count, therefore closing the books on the election in each county. King County remained uncertified and will still be uncertified until tomorrow. The other counties never really had a chance to go back and re-open their elections and now it's sooo expensive they neither have the manpower nor the money to do so.

No, the issue is that there were two recounts. There were anomalies found after the tallies were certified--therefore closed-- by each county. The counties that had anomalies were aware of them but their votes had already been certified. King County had not certified their votes, being a "Gregoire county" and were looking for every available vote. My issue is to not demean or lessen any votes in any fashion, rather it is to let ALL counties be treated the same, which they were not. King County gave Gregoire the election, everyone knows that. However, if the other counties had included their anomalies at that time, in hindsight, then Rossi may have still been ahead. And hindsight is 20/20. Basically, it will come down to saying the Gregoire won an election bought by DNC money. Unfortunately, it will not be easy to heal the divide. I hope it will heal, because you didn't dispute my points on the candidates platforms, just the recount issues.

Here is the article from the Times today which explains that the Canvassing Board made the final say, not the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court applied legal precedent only, therefore giving the CB the final say. The election itself was never argued before the Supreme Court.
>>>>>Gregoire's victory margin grew from 10 to 129 after the King County Canvassing Board voted late last week to count 566 ballots that had been mistakenly rejected. The county had not yet certified its results, though the state's other 38 counties had.

Republican State Chairman Chris Vance said last night he was disappointed in the canvassing board decisions.

"I don't think it makes sense to people that King County is allowed to go back and look at ballots and no one else can," Vance said. "All these legal technicalities aside, I just don't think people understand that." (SeaTimes122904)>>>>>

What is done is done. Everyone needs to live with th results and move forward now. But I wanted the facts to be heard and if you don't live here it's all very confusing in the media. I can only hope that Gregoire's term here will have the same ignition for jobs and business as Rossi's may have.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...anvass29m.html

Yes, the entire election was a fiasco. But the crux of it is that nobody in our state wants to account for the massive incompetence shown by election officials, supervisors and procedure monitors (do we even have any?). That is at the core. An election that is won and then re-won and then changed to win again for another no matter what, is not the way to fix it. I wish we could all just vote again. I think there would be a huge turnout and low margins of error. Then the $1 million that taxpayers will burden might be put to better use.

I wish we could vote again too. I'm so sure we are now going to end up with a state income tax...

http://www.npr.org/news/national/ele...southwest.html
Platform of Change
Morning Edition, March 10, 2000
The election was a toss-up -- or make that a coin toss. Garth Boyce and Jimmie Taylor were both running for the Town Council in Clayton, New Mexico. But after the re-count, they each had 341 votes. So, they turned to Lady Luck to determine who would win. They settled the election with the toss of a new Sacajawea dollar coin.

Knew I'd heard it someplace! The votes were tied. But it wasn't Nevada or Florida. It was New Mexico.

Nope...no one really knows who won. I sincerely hope we get a re-vote, as I do not accept Gregoire as having won.

Well maybe you have information I do not. But I live in this state, I am aware of the problems with the 1st and second recounts, I don't believe a count of 129 ahead is outside the margin of error given what is being found...more votes cast than registered voters, felons who voted, double votes, dead folks voting, provisional ballots put through without the required checks, and much more. I'm not saying fraud, I am saying massive enough errors that it throws that final recount into question.

I want to be sure who won the Governorship of WA state, after an election and first recount went to Rossi (and a machine recount is considered more accurate than a hand recount) and then a hand recount with errors such as I listed above went to Gregoire, I want a revote, and I want to see real voter reform in this state. This should never happen again.

But I'm not here to discuss your feelings about Bush or the national election, that's not what this thread is about.

To answer though, I did and would stand in line, and fwiw, elections are always on a work day for most folks. Voting is a privalege, hard won and fought for, and I would hope everyone would take advantage of that privalege and vote.

In so far as WA state is concerned, I'm talking about serious, documented errors, enough to justify taking it to court.

I really don't have more to say on this, I hope there will be a fair and accurate hearing in our courts, I hope there will be a revote.

Now, I'm unsubscribing since I don't wish to get into discussing national politics, I commented in this thread because it concerned my state. And the seahawks just lost a playoff game, again, with another dropped pass.