[Vision2020] Washington State Gubernatorial Election: The Saga Continues

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (December 9, 2004) Spokesman Review -

 

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Court case may change governor's race results 

 

Justices to decide rules for recounting disputed ballots in close Washington
contest

 

Richard Roesler

Staff writer

December 9, 2004

 

OLYMPIA - As election officials across the state tally millions of ballots
in the razor-thin governor's race, election lawyers are girding for battle
before the state's high court.

 

The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear arguments next week over
whether county election officials should be forced to reconsider ballots
ruled invalid during the first two tallies. The hearing is slated for Monday
at 1:30 p.m. and will be carried live on TVW television, the state
public-affairs network.

 

"The recount . may commence under the rules and procedures now in place,
subject to later order by the court," Chief Justice Gerry Alexander wrote in
the court's two-page order Wednesday.

 

So it did. This third - and presumably final - count in the race started
Wednesday in six counties. The remaining 33 begin their recounts today. Only
one county - the one with the fewest ballots to count - reported results
Wednesday. Garfield County's tally stood unchanged: 428 votes for Democrat
Christine Gregoire, 840 for Republican Dino Rossi, and 25 for the rarely
mentioned third candidate in the race, Libertarian Ruth Bennett.

 

But things weren't going quite so smoothly elsewhere. Benton County Auditor
Bobbie Gagner said that Day One of what's expected to be a three-day recount
there turned up a few "minor discrepancies." They include punchcards that
were punched more than once or were marked with Xs instead of being punched.
Fewer than five such ballots have been found so far, she said.

 

 

In the court filings, Democrats - whose candidate, Gregoire, is 42 votes
behind - say that election procedures and deadlines varied from county to
county in this election. They want uniform standards for this round of
counting.

 

Republicans, backing Governor-elect Rossi, say that Democrats are simply
trying to change the rules of a game that they've so far lost twice.

 

Watching all this maneuvering closely is Erin Kolkmeyer, a 25-year-old
student at Washington State University in Pullman. She knows firsthand that
the state's election system doesn't always work as well as it's supposed to.

 

Kolkmeyer, a senior studying to become a teacher, has sworn in a court
affidavit that she registered to vote in September, when she got a
Washington driver's license. But when she went to her polling place in a
local Presbyterian church, election workers said they had no record for her.
She was handed a "provisional ballot," and was told it would be counted as
soon as they confirmed that she was, in fact, registered.

 

"They said not to worry. So I didn't," she said.

 

A week ago, she got a "Dear Voter" letter from the Whitman County auditor.
Kolkmeyer's ballot hadn't counted, the letter said, because she never
registered.

 

"I was furious. I really was," said Kolkmeyer. She'd volunteered throughout
the campaign season for Democrats, putting up signs and even registering
other people to vote from a booth at the county fair.

 

After a lot of checking, she got a call from a woman at the secretary of
state's office. For some reason, Kolkmeyer's registration never made it to
the county elections office.

 

"She said I was a victim of the system, and that mine had simply been lost
in the shuffle," Kolkmeyer said. "I understand, but still, that's their job.
I would have offered to help if I knew they were having that much trouble."

 

She had voted - or tried to - for Gregoire.

 

"It would just feel better if it was 41 votes, not 42," she said. "I just
want my vote to be in the tally. I didn't want to start a big ruckus. But I
voted."

 

Without a record of her registration, it will likely be difficult, at best,
to resuscitate her vote. But Democrats say that thousands of ballots across
the state were ruled invalid because of arbitrary deadlines set by local
county auditors, or because some counties checked registration signatures
closely. Others apparently didn't bother to check at all.

 

"Every voter has a fundamental and equal right to have his or her ballot
fairly and accurately counted," Democratic attorneys wrote in their brief to
the Supreme Court this week. ". Prior errors and inconsistencies in the
initial canvassing and machine recount of ballots must be reviewed and
corrected."

 

By reviewing all those rejected ballots, Democrats hope to pick up at least
42 votes for Gregoire.

 

Republicans say that it's too late to change the rules.

 

"The votes have been counted and recounted," their attorneys wrote. "Dino
Rossi is the Governor-Elect of the state of Washington." Trying to change
the rules five weeks after Election Day, they say, would "throw Washington's
election system into pure chaos for this election and every close election
to come."

 

Secretary of State Sam Reed - also a Republican - makes a similar argument.
Citing the famous 2000 Bush v. Gore presidential election case, Reed's
lawyers say that election rules cannot be changed after the election takes
place. A "recount," they say, is precisely that - a re-counting of the same
ballots that were counted the first time. The Democrats' real complaint,
Reed's lawyer say, is that they disagree with the decisions of some county
election boards when they "canvassed" the ballots, deciding which ones were
valid. Those individual decisions could have been challenged at the time,
the lawyers say, not as part of a wholesale reconsideration of all potential
ballots statewide.

 

Reed - like a lot of election officials - was hoping that the court would
hear the case today, rather than waiting until Monday.

 

"But they did tell us we can go ahead with the recount," he said in an
interview. "I view that as a good sign."

 

If the court rules for the Democrats, Reed said, it would likely delay the
results or perhaps even force a fourth count in the race. All counties are
now hoping to be done counting by Dec. 22.

 

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton was also surprised the hearing won't
take place until Monday. As more than a dozen workers sorted ballots in a
secured room behind her, Dalton said Spokane will just continue the process
as planned.

 

"I just hope that the court is timely" with a ruling after the arguments,
she said.

 

Spokane will start counting the votes for the different gubernatorial
candidates on Friday. It will be finished "a couple of days after the court
order, whatever it is," Dalton said.

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