Governor revote not the answer

In calling for a revote in the Washington state governor’s race, Republican candidate Dino Rossi states that the winner of the current election will have a governorship that is “shrouded in suspicion.” He then goes on to stitch the seams for that shroud by calling the election “a total mess” and implying that it wasn’t cleanly run.

During the course of his letter to his opponent, Christine Gregoire, Rossi approaches the proper solution for determining the credibility of the election but ultimately backs away: “The law allows me to contest the election. An election contest would bring every questioned aspect of this election before the Legislature or a court for review. It would take many weeks, perhaps months, to complete. At the end, even if the results were to change back in my favor, the state would have suffered from the long, drawn-out process.”

The best course would be to follow the law – a law that was reworked while Rossi was in the Legislature. Time considerations weren’t viewed as a hurdle back then, and they shouldn’t be now. Plus, a revote would not address the questions Republicans are raising about the current election. If the allegations are valid, it would be beneficial to the state in the long term to expose the problems and reform the system.

Washington state has a reputation for running clean elections. If Republicans think this one is dirty, they should make that case. State law provides them – or any voter, for that matter – the avenue to do so.

Republican complaints are not confined to the manual recount that put Gregoire in the lead. They hint darkly about the ballot enhancement that took place during the machine recount. Rossi had no trouble overlooking that suspicion and accepted the results, which kept him in the lead. It’s only since he’s fallen behind that he’s called the election into question.

Rossi ran a refreshing campaign and would make a fine governor, but his trashing of the process and his call to skip the next step calls into question the veracity of his charges. If the state truly conducted an irretrievably incompetent or corrupt election, he should want to get to the bottom of that. A revote wouldn’t accomplish that. Instead, it would raise a variety of questions that wouldn’t be easily resolved.

Would a revote be confined to only those who voted the first time? What about voters who have died or registered since then? Would candidates be allowed to raise money and campaign during the interim? What if the margin is once again paper thin and disputed?

In North Carolina, more than 4,000 votes were lost because of a computer glitch. The statewide race for agriculture commissioner fell within that margin and the trailing candidate refused to concede. A flurry of court battles have followed and the political parties couldn’t reach bipartisan agreement on how to conduct a revote.

The complications of a revote aside, such a move would set a precedent for all close elections in the state. Few candidates would concede close races, because they could point to the 2004 election and ask for a revote. This would be a particularly troubling scenario if the party of the trailing candidate controlled the Legislature.

It must be painful for Rossi to see his lead slip away after three counts, but those counts were provided for in state law. So is the next step. If he feels he can’t concede, he should follow the law and contest the election, not try to change the rules.