Spokane County gets ballots sorted for recount

Spokane County’s recount of the Nov. 2 gubernatorial votes didn’t involve any actual counting Wednesday of votes cast for Republican Dino Rossi or Democrat Christine Gregoire.

Instead, it was a day of sorting, stacking – and watching.

The stacking and sorting was done by more than a dozen members of the county Elections Office staff, who began preparing more than 203,000 ballots by first separating them into the five legislative districts in the county, and then into groups of 10 precincts within those districts. Then they separated the ballots into the stacks of ballots voted in each of the county’s 286 precincts, and recorded the number of ballots in each stack.

The watching was done by local volunteers from the Democratic and Republican parties, who watched with varying degrees of intensity as the stacks of ballots moved in a steady progression from box to table to bin.

“It’s pretty impressive that they have a solid corps of people who are pretty much unflappable,” Republican observer Mike Casey said.

By Friday morning, the ballots will be sorted so elections workers can sort each precinct for Rossi, Gregoire and Libertarian Ruth Bennett, or a write-in candidate. They will also make separate stacks for ballots with no candidate marked in the race, with more than one candidate marked in the race (which means no one gets credit for that vote) and with some question about the mark the voter made on the ballot.

Any precinct with one or more ballots with questionable marks will likely not be counted until the state Supreme Court decides a lawsuit over that very topic. The court hears arguments on Monday, but the timing of a decision is unknown.

As some of the elections workers broke for lunch Wednesday, a group of about 15 Republicans gathered in the courtyard of the nearby Spokane County Courthouse to show support for Rossi.

Spokane County GOP Chairwoman Robin Ball said Rossi has come out on top twice, and should be declared the winner.

“We don’t run a marathon three times to determine a winner,” Ball said.

But Ball said she was confident that Spokane County’s ballots will be recounted properly, and when County Auditor Vicky Dalton, a Democrat, walked by the two talked briefly and hugged.

“The people who are working there are doing a stand-up job,” said Casey, who took a break from observing to attend the courtyard rally.

Diane Baxter, a Valley resident who came to the rally with her 11-year-old son Blake, said she felt Democrats would push for a recount until they won and she wanted to make sure Republicans weren’t “just laying down and dying.” She volunteered to serve as a recount observer later in the week.