Recount Changes Minimal Gorton Still Trails Cantwell By More Than 1,900 Votes

Democratic challenger Maria Cantwell picked up four votes on Slade Gorton in Spokane County, but the Republican incumbent gained 38 votes statewide as nearly half the state’s counties completed their recount of the nation’s tightest U.S. Senate race.

That’s only a small step toward the 1,953-vote deficit Gorton must overcome to keep his seat.

After nearly six hours of feeding ballot cards into counting machines Wednesday, Spokane County recounted a total of 175,041 ballots cast for the Nov. 7 election.

Cantwell’s new total was 73,565 votes, up 17 from the official report the county sent to Olympia one week ago.

Gorton had 93,633, up 13 from last week.

Libertarian Jeff Jared had 4,228, down two votes from last week.

Cantwell led Gorton by 1,953 votes out of some 2.5 million cast after all counties reported their ballot counts last week. That margin of 0.08 percent is well under the standard set by state law for recounting any race that’s within 0.5 percent.

Democratic and Republican observers debated whether the Spokane County machine recount was as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow. But they agreed the process was fair and went smoothly. The county used two machines that count as many as 1,000 cards per minute.

Chads - the small paper rectangles that are supposed to detach from the ballot cards as voters punch their choices - occasionally jumped from ballots as they were moved from their sealed storage boxes, flexed and stacked for the machines.

Each small square represented a vote for one candidate or issue that may not have registered in a previous count, Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton said. Some of them may have been for Cantwell or Gorton, which would explain some of the changes in the candidates’ totals.

The recount also registered 23 more ballots than previous counts. Dalton speculated the difference was a result of a ballot card occasionally getting stuck behind a programming card that tells the computer which precinct is being counted.

Poll watchers checked the total ballots reported from each of the county’s 389 precincts and each grouping of absentee ballots. They concluded the extra ballots were scattered throughout the county, not concentrated in any voting district.

Spokane plans to certify its recount results today, Dalton said.

Eighteen other counties finished their recounts, certified their results and reported them to the secretary of state. Most were counties that gave Gorton large margins of victory, so he finished the day with more votes than Cantwell.

County officials throughout the state have said they expect to be finished the recount by Friday, but by law have until Dec. 7 to complete the process and report their results.

The counties also are recounting votes cast for secretary of state because Republican Sam Reed leads Democrat Don Bonker by just under .5 percent of the votes cast. But Reed is more than 10,000 votes ahead, and Bonker has conceded defeat.