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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Disputed vote trial to start May 23

The Republican Party’s challenge to Christine Gregoire’s 129-vote win in the governor’s race will go to trial May 23 in Wenatchee.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges also scheduled a May 2 hearing on any issues of dispute between the two sides in the case, such as the burden of proof the Republicans must meet on their challenge to ballots or the voters who cast them. Bridges may also rule on how results might be adjusted for votes that are successfully challenged.

Mary Lane, a spokeswoman for Republican candidate Dino Rossi, said the campaign was “very happy that the trial will move forward, since the Democratic Party has been trying to stall it indefinitely.”

Paul Berendt, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Bridges’ ruling was a victory for Gregoire supporters, because the judge is requiring the GOP to reveal all the votes it plans to challenge by April 15. “One of the things we wanted is to make sure all discovery is complete,” he said.

In one of the closest statewide races in U.S. history, Rossi led Gregoire by 261 votes when all ballots that were mailed in or cast at the precinct houses were counted. That generated a state-mandated machine recount, which trimmed Rossi’s lead to 42 votes.

Democrats then paid for a hand recount of the nearly 2.9 million ballots cast in the state. After several court challenges over ballots that should or should not be included in that recount, Gregoire won by 129 votes. She was sworn in as governor in January, but Republicans have challenged her election, contending that some votes were cast illegally by voters who had died, by felons ineligible to vote in this state or by people whose credentials should have been checked before their ballots were tabulated.

Many of the GOP challenges involve King County, the state’s most populous county, which found unopened ballots during the hand recount. The state Supreme Court ruled they could be included in the total because they were improperly set aside by elections officials. This week, King County elections workers found 93 more unopened ballots.

“I am troubled by the discovery of these unopened and uncounted ballots and the level of carelessness that would have been involved in order for this to happen,” Dean Logan, King County elections director, said in a prepared statement announcing that some workers had been reassigned and an investigation had been launched. “These types of mistakes are unacceptable and corrective action must be taken.”

The recently discovered ballots will not be added to the election results.