It’s Gregoire by 130; is it over? Rossi: This wasn’t a clean election
It’s a total sham. If Chris Gregoire thinks democracy was well served by this, she’s out of her mind. It hasn’t been fair. It hasn’t been consistent. It hasn’t been democratic.
- Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane
A lot of heated words have been said during this recount. But with the election coming to a close, I am confident that we can begin to move forward as one state…. This is the biggest display of democracy I have ever seen.
- Christine Gregoire
If any of y’all have been paying attention, the Governor’s race in Washington STILL is up for grabs. It’s beginning to appear as if the Emerald State may finally be reaching the end of the road, but here we are at Christmas, and the election has yet to be certified.
Almost two months after Election Day, Gregoire now leads by 130 votes out of something like 4 million votes cast statewide. Someone is bound to be unhappy here. Depending on which side of the political fence you happy to occupy, the current result is either proof that democracy works or that, if you work hard enough, it is quite possible to steal an election (see Florida, 2000).
Of course, being a Liberal Democrat, I am happy to see Christine Gregoire pull ahead. At this point, it does look as if Dino Rossi is out of bullets. Nonetheless, 130 votes our of something like 4 million cast is well within any margin of error- and certainly not enough to silence any controversy over the “final” result.
The problem now is that, no matter who ends up on top when the election is finally certified, someone is going to be crying foul. You just cannot drag out an election for more than seven weeks past Election Day without bruising some egos. Gregoire finally decided that enough was enough, and she had announced that she would accept the result of this final recount, regardless of the result. It might be time for Dino Rossi to do the same, but now that he is 130 votes down, he’s crying foul. I can’t blame him.
CAN there truly be a winner in a situation such as this? Or will there be so much anger and acrimony that governing the State of Washington for the next four years will be virtually impossible? Stay tuned….
Well, we'll spend the next four years tallking about stolen elections, how she was selected not elected, was appointed by the Washington Supreme Court in contravention of the laws of the state, fraud in Democrat counties, uncopunted votes in Republican counties -- and you guys will have to keep our mouth shut about "Governor-select" Gregoire because every single one of the charges will be true, and will mirror all the false arguments you made after the 2000 election and continue to make after you got your butt's kicked this year.
Uh, sorry, Greg, but you're way off base on this one. Unlike Florida in 2000, this recount appears to have been legitimate and above board in all respects. Unlike Florida, Washington made a concerted effort to count every legitimate vote cast. Unlike Florida, the process worked. If Dino Rossi had come out on top, you'd have been trumpeting this as a triumph of democracy. Give me a break....
So what you are saying is that we once again we have a Democrat-controlled major city that finds itself incapable of efficiently locating and counting all validly cast votes in a timely manner -- in other words they are incompetent, not corrupt.
Sorry, my life as a Republican in the Chicago area tells me that "oops, we missed 10,000 votes," "darn, we found another couple hundred," "shucks, would you know we just happened turned up another 500... make that 700 ballots" act is indicative of fraud, not error. One of these I would believe. Two might be plausible. All three in the same county, just happening to single-handedly close the gap between the candidates and change the outcome, makes any conclusion but fraud untenable.