Recounting the options
I'm a just a little sickened.
No, I'm not referring to the fact that Gregoire has apparently won in the third "count" of ballots. No, I'm not referring to the snickering from King County. No, I'm not referring to the pathetic Democratic mantra's regarding counting every vote. I'm not even referring to madam ridiculous's quote after she deciding that we finally have an accurate count: "The election process is working exactly as it should." (see AP story)
Wow. God help us if this is the way the election process is supposed to work! How thrilling.
No, my reason for being a little sickened is the way the rules were changed along the way. The State Supreme Court decision to include 700 extra ballots from who knows where, is just the culmination of the matter. The reason the Republican don't have the nerve to take on that decision is because it would not win them the election--you see King County is hardly the only Democratic leaning county to find all sorts of new votes. While the focus may have been on King's infamous blunderings about for new votes, there were plenty of other counties with the same idea--and less attention from the media.
So the Republicans have instead embraced the court ruling and decided to abide by it:
"The Supreme Court just changed the rules," State GOP Chairman Chris Vance said. "Now we will aggressively fight by those new rules." (AP) This translates into a new effort to find all the excluded Republican ballots and fight for their equal inclusion. True, this might work but it is still a sad state of affairs when the Republicans start thinking short-term. Vance should have been much more on the ball all over the state. He could have nailed these people to the wall on every election board decision to include extras. If he had done so, and the State had ruled against him, then an appeal to the US Supreme Court would have sealed the deal. They already established precedent in 2000: no rule changes during the election!
*sputter*
How exasperating can one thing get? All the media coverage has been on Gregoire: "Should Rossi concede? Do you believe this is a conclusive victory? blah blah..."
The most anyone asked Rossi when he was governor elect was "how are you feeling?"
No, I'm not referring to the fact that Gregoire has apparently won in the third "count" of ballots. No, I'm not referring to the snickering from King County. No, I'm not referring to the pathetic Democratic mantra's regarding counting every vote. I'm not even referring to madam ridiculous's quote after she deciding that we finally have an accurate count: "The election process is working exactly as it should." (see AP story)
Wow. God help us if this is the way the election process is supposed to work! How thrilling.
No, my reason for being a little sickened is the way the rules were changed along the way. The State Supreme Court decision to include 700 extra ballots from who knows where, is just the culmination of the matter. The reason the Republican don't have the nerve to take on that decision is because it would not win them the election--you see King County is hardly the only Democratic leaning county to find all sorts of new votes. While the focus may have been on King's infamous blunderings about for new votes, there were plenty of other counties with the same idea--and less attention from the media.
So the Republicans have instead embraced the court ruling and decided to abide by it:
"The Supreme Court just changed the rules," State GOP Chairman Chris Vance said. "Now we will aggressively fight by those new rules." (AP) This translates into a new effort to find all the excluded Republican ballots and fight for their equal inclusion. True, this might work but it is still a sad state of affairs when the Republicans start thinking short-term. Vance should have been much more on the ball all over the state. He could have nailed these people to the wall on every election board decision to include extras. If he had done so, and the State had ruled against him, then an appeal to the US Supreme Court would have sealed the deal. They already established precedent in 2000: no rule changes during the election!
*sputter*
How exasperating can one thing get? All the media coverage has been on Gregoire: "Should Rossi concede? Do you believe this is a conclusive victory? blah blah..."
The most anyone asked Rossi when he was governor elect was "how are you feeling?"
posted by Mark at 3:00 AM
A rule is changed when you redefine "recount." There is no such thing as including new ballots in a "recount" because that would be a new count. The office of the Attorney General even acknowledged as much.
There is a reason that new ballots should not be counted after being previously rejected. There is just no safe way of doing that without risking serious abuse of discretionary actions. This should not be allowed and the 2000 precedent should have been enough to make this clear.
Whatcom County had their own batch of extras which they included. I believe that was a mistake as well--even though the majority of them went to Rossi and I'm a Republican, I still believe that was a mistake.
You are right that the US Supreme Court is outside of its jurisdiction if there is no unconstitutionality at work. However, I'm fairly confident that a US Supreme Court case could be built.
If there is concern about unfair exclusion of ballots, then there ought to be other methods used to "fix" the problem. We do have laws regarding challenging elections. There are many different cases that can be made in order to overturn the results and initiate a new vote.
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