Judge rules against GOP in recount

SEATTLE – A federal judge denied on Sunday the state Republican Party’s bid to force one of the state’s most heavily Democratic counties to stop counting some ballots in the recount of the extremely close race for governor.

In a conference call with lawyers, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman denied the GOP’s request for a temporary restraining order barring King County from hand-counting ballots that optical scanning machines reject because they can’t be read electronically.

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance, noting that the lawsuit continues, said Pechman’s decision dealt with only one aspect of the case. He said the decision was based on King County’s assurance that all ballots in question are being kept separate from all others so they can be reviewed if any mistakes are made.

“We don’t believe King County,” Vance said. “Our observers have watched. Ballots are being altered. And we don’t believe they are being set aside.”

State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt praised the judge’s ruling as “a good decision.”

“It’s good for voters because it’s consistent with the standard we would like to see – that every vote be counted,” Berendt said.

After all counties reported their final tallies last Wednesday, Republican Dino Rossi led Democrat Christine Gregoire for governor by only 261 votes out of some 2.8 million ballots cast. State law requires a machine recount when the margin is less than 2,000 votes.

The recount began in a handful of counties Saturday, continued Sunday and is expected to wrap up by Wednesday. So far, Klickitat County in south-central Washington is the only one to post results, giving Rossi one more vote in results released Saturday.

Republicans sued Secretary of State Sam Reed and King County’s election division Saturday, arguing that ballots the machines reject should be excluded from the recount because they have to be checked by hand.

“This constitutes a clear violation of hundreds of thousands of Washington voters’ right to equal protection under the U.S. and Washington state constitutions,” the lawsuit said.

King County voters use paper ballots that are scanned optically. The Republicans’ lawsuit said most of the state’s 39 counties use optical scanners, while 14 use the punch-card system. Rossi got a majority of votes in 11 of the punch-card counties, while Gregoire led in King County, the lawsuit said.

King County Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens said the recount is being handled scrupulously with observers from each party watching closely.

“In an election this close, each side has an interest in pressuring and advancing its issues and concerns, and we have a duty … to conduct the recount according to law and our long-standing established policies and procedures,” Huennekens said.

Republicans said Sunday that Huennekens refused to send at least one ballot to a canvassing board for review even though the bubble next to Rossi’s name clearly was filled in while only a small mark was made next to Gregoire’s name. Huennekens said the mark actually was made in the Gregoire bubble, which made the ballot an “over vote” that can’t be counted toward any candidate’s total.

A former Democratic precinct committee officer in Mason County, Huennekens scoffed at Republicans’ suggestion that he is letting politics taint the process. “I’m not a PCO anymore, and I conduct elections in a nonpartisan manner according to state law,” he said.

Among other complaints, Republicans said a box of ballots that was supposed to be sealed was found unsealed and had 201 ballots – two more than a receipt on the box said it should have had.

Dean Logan, King County’s elections director, said such discrepancies occur occasionally and that in any such case, the box is set aside and counted again to make sure it has the correct number of ballots.

Another problem Republicans pointed out: precincts where fewer ballots were on hand when the recount started than on Election Day. At one point as King County prepared for the recount, it appeared 88 ballots were missing from one precinct, Vance said.

The ballots were found later in a bag, which Logan said a poll worker had used on Election Night because the ballots wouldn’t fit into the box.

But Republicans weren’t comforted.

“It’s case after case like this,” Vance said. “We have observers in every county, … and we’re not hearing about these kinds of problems anywhere else.”

The GOP lawsuit is the second filed over the counting of votes in King County.

Earlier this month, Republicans made a failed attempt to prevent King County from releasing the names of 929 voters who had cast provisional ballots that were questionable.

King County Superior Court Judge Dean S. Lum ordered that the names be released, clearing the way for the parties to contact voters and help them clear up any problems.

Pechman agreed to rule on the lawsuit filed Saturday on an emergency basis, and the case is expected to be assigned to another judge today, said Janine Joly, a senior deputy prosecutor representing King County.