Recounting those who set aside self-interest

Before I hang my stocking on the hearth – with energy prices so high, all that coal will come in handy – it’s time to single out the real winners in the Washington governor’s race recount: folks who acted against their own best interest to do the right thing.

I was particularly struck by Chantelle Weaver, a Dino Rossi supporter from South Seattle. Her ballot was among those King County elections workers mistakenly set aside during the initial tally instead of them being checked against signatures on file.

A rabid Republican partisan would be happy to see more than 700 valid votes disqualified in a county that went heavily for Democrat Christine Gregoire. But Weaver, a first-time voter, was more interested in participating in our democratic process.

“I did everything I needed to do to get my vote counted,” Weaver told the Seattle Times. “I figure every vote should be counted, whether I win or not.” It’s too bad the guy she voted for doesn’t seem to feel that way. Rossi’s spokeswoman dismissed Weaver and the other disenfranchised voters by telling the Associated Press, “That is King County’s fault. We cannot be held responsible for the fact that King County made a mistake.” Nice.

Ralph Munro is another West Sider who set partisan interests aside for the good of Washington. The former secretary of state, a moderate Republican who held the post for five terms, proposed a runoff vote last week when Rossi was holding onto his lead in the hand count.

In an essentially tied race, Munro reasoned, holding a do-over vote would give the eventual winner badly needed legitimacy. “I believe the public is fast losing confidence in this election,” he told the Bremerton Sun. “I’m afraid that neither of them is going to come into office with any kind of mandate.” Or, as Munro put it more bleakly to the Seattle Times, “Whoever eventually becomes governor is going to have a very hard time governing, and we’re going to go through four years of flopping around.”

Sensing that Gregoire was poised for an upset victory in the hand count, Democrats quickly rejected the notion of a runoff. But Munro’s idea made a lot of sense. (It would have been even better if the requesting party were required to pay for the $2 million special election.) Maybe the Democrats were afraid their candidate was too weak to energize the party’s majority in the state. Such fears likely would be well-justified – especially without a bitterly contested presidential race driving up liberal turnout.

Munro’s successor, fellow Republican Sam Reed, also seems to be guided more by the law and common sense than partisan passion. Reed called properly conducted hand counts accurate even as his party bad-mouthed them. In addition, he deemed Munro’s runoff idea worthy of consideration even though Rossi was in the lead. Maybe he wanted to give the 12 knuckleheads who wrote in Mariners greats Edgar Martinez and Ichiro Suzuki another shot at the ballot. Whatever his reasons, Reed’s been a true recount All-Star. It’s too bad there weren’t enough of them to make a whole team.

The man who cried fraud

Meanwhile, the most cynical player in the recount saga has been state GOP Chairman Chris Vance. Without a scintilla of proof, he insinuated to anyone who would listen that King County’s dysfunctional vote-counting process was tainted by fraud. He’s undoubtedly got a bright future in the national party.