Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Big break for Gregoire

King County says 561 ballots accidentally thrown out by mistake

The Seattle Times and other media report that King County has discovered 561 ballots which were accidentally thrown out:
King County election officials said today they will count 561 votes that were rejected in the governor's race.

The recount of those ballots was prompted by Metropolitan King County Councilman Larry Phillips' discovery that his absentee ballot wasn't counted.

Those ballots were thrown out because the county voters' signatures didn't appear among the records in a computer database. Election workers erroneously threw out those votes before using voter-registration cards to verify signatures on absentee-ballot envelopes.
This is obviously good news for Gregoire, because it could swing the race in her favor. However, a recanvass is clearly needed: in an election this historic, we must catch all the errors, no matter how long it takes. The Republicans, especially Chris Vance, continue to whine that this will "destroy our elections process". Yeah, right - making sure every vote counts and is counted correctly will destroy the process. They'd rather stop now because they're in the lead.

More on this as it develops.

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