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.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

King crowns Gregoire

King County has reported +59 votes for Gregoire, giving Gregoire the overall lead in the statewide manual recount by 10 votes. This does not count the 725 ballots the Supreme Court said can be counted.

The 10 vote reversal is a stunning development in this two month old saga: finally, now, Christine Gregoire is winning the governor's race! And her lead should increase with the counting of those formerly disputed ballots tomorrow.

The especially good news about all of this is it shows Democrats are willing to stand and fight. We won't be intimidated by the GOP....No more stolen elections! Christine Gregoire has held on for almost two months now - and we believe she will emerge from this as our state's Governor.

UPDATE: The AP has a story now. You can read it at KOMO's website, or get it at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

NEW! The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has released its editorials for tomorrow online. This is an excerpt from one of their latest and greatest editorials, "Gregoire this time".
Regardless of the election victor, the [state Supreme] court's ruling was laudable. Allowing an error by county elections officials to disenfranchise hundreds of voters who had cast their ballots correctly would have been a defeat for the democratic process.

And claims that partisanship drove county election officials to "conveniently find" new ballots to benefit Gregoire were plain silly. Gregoire partisans would have found it far more convenient had those ballots -- not "found" but always accounted for -- been counted in the first place, giving Gregoire the initial victory and preventing all the recount turmoil.

There will be much to tell the new governor-elect in the days to come. For now, congratulations will suffice.
It's hard to say it any better than they did.

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