Reed says recount not likely to alter governor’s race outcome

It’s very possible – but not probable – that a recount will change the result of Washington’s governor’s race, Secretary of State Sam Reed said Friday.

Some minor changes in the totals for Republican Dino Rossi, the current winner, and Democrat Chris Gregoire are almost inevitable as the 39 counties re-tally some 2.8 million ballots by running them through their respective vote-counting machines, Reed said at a press conference in Spokane.

A recount has never reversed a statewide race in Washington, Reed noted. But none has been this close, and no statewide election has ever had this many ballots to count.

“It almost shouldn’t happen,” Reed said of the 261-vote margin that separates the two candidates. “But it has happened” this year.

A recount in the 2000 U.S. Senate race between Maria Cantwell and Slade Gorton resulted in a shift of 276 votes out of 2.4 million cast.

But Cantwell started that recount 1,953 votes ahead of Gorton, so the recount didn’t change the result. A shift like that in the 2004 governor’s race in favor of Gregoire would put her on top.

Reed said he expected the changes to be less this year, because counties that had new optical-scan voting machines in 2000 are more familiar with that technology now. There were relatively few changes in the 2000 recount in counties that used the old punch-card voting machines – like those that caused problems in Florida during the 2000 recount of the George Bush and Al Gore race.

Washington has also adopted statewide standards on counting questioned punch-card ballots. There will be no questions about “hanging chads” or “pregnant chads,” Reed said. If a square has at least two of four corners separated from the card, it’s a vote for that candidate; if not, it isn’t.

Counties like Spokane, which switched to optical scanners to count ballots in 2001, might have one machine that is slightly more sensitive, and read a lightly marked ballot that wasn’t read before, said Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton. Or a machine might be slightly less sensitive and not read a mark. The machines will “kick out” any ballot they read as having no candidate marked for the governor’s race. If it is marked too lightly to be read, or with an ink color the machine doesn’t detect, election workers will examine it and can remake the ballot so it can be read by the machine and counted.

Spokane’s recount will begin at 8 a.m. today at the Elections Office, 1033 W. Gardner. It will continue Sunday, and Monday if necessary.

Other Eastern Washington counties will start, and probably complete, their recounts Monday, Reed said.

If the recount gives Rossi a bigger lead, Reed doubts the Democrats will challenge the result. If the recount shrinks his lead significantly, Reed believes State Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt will, as stated Thursday, call for the ballots to be recounted by hand.

Reed said he expects that if Gregoire pulls ahead of Rossi in a recount, Republicans will also call for ballots to be counted a second time, by hand – something he called “a horrendous undertaking.”

While the candidates are out of money, the national parties and the Democratic and Republican governors’ associations are likely to fund a second recount, which could cost about $700,000 and stretch beyond the Dec. 2 deadline for the state to certify its elections.