Rossi to be certified as the winner

OLYMPIA – Break out the magnifying glasses.

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed today will certify the results of the Nov. 2 election, which show Republican Dino Rossi winning – barely – the governor’s race.

With such a razor-thin margin, Democrats plan to call for a manual recount of thousands – and perhaps millions – of ballots later this week.

They’re hoping to pick up enough votes so that Democrat Christine Gregoire comes out ahead. Rossi won the initial count by 261 votes, but that margin of victory shrank to 42 in a machine recount last week.

“There will be a hand recount in part or all of the state,” said state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt.

“The experts say a hand recount is the only way you’re going to get an accurate count. There are many things that machines just never pick up on these ballots that the human eye does.”

Berendt’s Republican counterpart said Monday that he’s still hoping that Gregoire “will do the right and honorable thing and concede.”

“We’re going to have the silly spectacle, like in Florida, of people holding punch card ballots up in the air, staring at them and trying to figure out what they (the voters) meant,” Vance said.

“It’s just chaos.”

But he’s clearly not expecting a Gregoire concession.

The Republican National Committee has dispatched attorneys and other staffers to Washington to analyze the race and decide where Rossi’s best prospects lie for picking up votes in a hand recount.

“We have the top Republican lawyers in the country on this sort of thing, and the top statisticians,” Vance said.

Democrats are doing the same sort of math, and pressing counties to turn over detailed election reports so they can comb the numbers for signs of problems.

In Franklin County, for example, some precincts reported more votes than voters, according to Democrats.

The apparent software glitch isn’t thought to have affected the vote count, but Democrats worry that there are other, more serious “anomalies” with election results.

It’s hard to know, Berendt said, because half a dozen counties are balking at providing detailed election information, although the reports are required by law.

To give Democrats more time to look for voting problems, Gregoire wants Reed to delay certifying the election results until the legal deadline: Dec. 2.

“It’s more important to get it right,” said Morton Brilliant, a Gregoire spokesman.

“If someone snaps their fingers and says ‘It’s over,’ you’re going to have half the state believing the person sitting in the governor’s office isn’t legitimate.”

Once Democrats – and perhaps Republicans – launch a recount, hand-counting nearly 3 million ballots could take weeks.

No statewide election in Washington has ever gone to a hand recount, and some of the procedures – like how close party observers can stand – remain unclear.

“Since we’ve never been here before in history, it’s not like there’s guidelines to follow,” said Trova Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Reed.

“If it turns into a full statewide recount, it will go ‘til Christmas,” said Vance.

“And that’s if everything goes smoothly and nobody goes to court to get an injunction.”

With inauguration day looming in January, both Gregoire and Rossi have transition teams working on lining up staffers, policies and budget plans. But it’s all speculative until the election is finalized.

“It’s worth trading three weeks now for four years of legitimacy,” said Brilliant.