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Judge upholds washington 2004 gubnatorial election Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-06-washington-governor_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-06-washington-governor_x.htm
Judge upholds Washington governor's election
From staff and wire reports
WENATCHEE, Wash. — A judge on Monday upheld Washington's 2004 gubernatorial election, rejecting Republicans' bid to nullify the 129-vote victory of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.
The victory means Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire will stay in office.
John Froschauer, AP
Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges denied Republican claims that election errors, illegal voters and fraud stole the election from GOP candidate Dino Rossi.
Republicans were seeking a new election in November. They have said they plan to appeal Bridges' decision to the state Supreme Court.
Gregoire took office in January, after a third count of 2.8 million ballots overturned two previous counts that gave the election to Rossi. But the Republican Party sued to have the election, the closest in state history, set aside.
The suit claimed that so many illegal ballots ended up in the final count that Gregoire's whisker-thin, 129-vote margin would disappear if those ballots were discarded.
Bridges' ruling came after a two-week trial that turned over rocks in election departments around the state, exposing flaws and quirks that usually don't matter because the results usually aren't so close. But in an election decided by 129 votes, every little mistake has the power to change the outcome.
"This court is not in the position to fix the deficiencies in the election process," Bridges said in his ruling. "However, the voters are in a position to demand of their legislative and executive bodies that remedial measures be taken immediately."
The election challenge focused on King County, which aggravates divisions in the state. The county has 1 million voters, compared with the 650,000 voters in all of eastern Washington combined, and Gregoire outpaced Rossi in King County by 150,000 votes.
Republicans complained in court papers about how King County's election was run. Former U.S. senator Slade Gorton, who lost his seat in a squeaker in 2000, recently declared that King County "has the worst elections administration" anywhere in the country.
Republican lawyers drew a list of 1,335 ballots cast by dead people and felons, as well as provisional ballots they allege should have been disqualified. The majority of those were cast in King County.
"This is the biggest mess I've ever seen," GOP attorney Dale Foreman said in his opening statement as the trial began last month. "The system is broken and it must be fixed."
Democratic attorneys scoffed at the GOP claims, saying they lacked the clear and convincing proof needed to justify overturning the election. The election errors that Republicans characterized as "sinister," Democrats described as innocent mistakes that happen in every county, in every election.
"It's not enough to show a mistake, it's not enough to show a bad mistake, and it's not enough to show a really bad mistake," Democratic attorney Jenny Durkan said in her closing argument last week. "In order to prove their case, they still have to show that Gov. Gregoire did not receive the highest number of legal votes."
In filing the lawsuit in Chelan County, where not a single Democrat holds an elective office, GOP lawyers had been looking for a more receptive ear. The Republican Party's choice of counties, which voted 63% for Rossi, underscores the deep divisions in state politics between urban and rural areas.
After the recounts, Rossi got some sympathy from voters. Stuart Elway, a Seattle pollster, says that when Gregoire took office, 56% of voters did not consider her the legitimate winner.
But that was then. A new Elway Poll last month indicates voters have moved on. Two-thirds say they accept the result and don't want a new election.
Rossi, a commercial real estate agent and former state senator, was considered a long shot against Gregoire, a three-term attorney general who was the anointed successor to Democratic Gov. Gary Locke. But Rossi's promise of a fresh start in Olympia left Gregoire struggling to define herself.
Rossi won the first count by 261 votes, then watched his lead shrink to 42 in a machine recount. In a hand recount of nearly 3 million ballots, Gregoire won by 129 votes, and her margin was the smallest in percentage terms of any governor's race in the nation's history. Five days before Gregoire's inauguration, Rossi sued to contest the election.
Contributing: The Associated Press and USA TODAY's Laura Parker.
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