Wenatchee keeps revote trial arm’s length from Sound
Reading the stories about hearings for the gubernatorial revote trial has prompted some readers to wonder about one of the more basic aspects of this legal battle – not the what or the why, but the where.
As in, we’re having a trial where to decide whether we keep saying Gov. Gregoire or switch to Gov. Rossi? Wenatchee?
We’re assuming that these readers mean no disrespect to the Chelan County seat. It’s a fine little city, on the west bank of the Columbia River, in the middle of apple and cherry (not to mention applets and cotlets) territory. But how did it wind up with the revote road show?
The short answer is that’s where the Republicans filed their lawsuit.
Technically, they could have filed it in any of the state’s 39 counties. They said they wanted to avoid King, Pierce and the other large Pugetopolis counties where they might be alleging serious voting problems. But they wanted one contiguous to King County, and picked Chelan.
The contiguous part may come as a surprise to people from Seattle, who travel more than two hours to get to the courthouse for hearings. But the two do actually touch, in the middle of the Cascades, and there is a spot along U.S. Highway 2 between Skykomish and Coles Corner where one can stand with a foot in King and a foot in Chelan (and hope not to get hit by a logging truck.)
Democrats accused them of going judge-shopping in a red county. But Chelan County Superior Court John Bridges, who has been on the bench for nearly 20 years, has shown a remarkable ability to cut through the bull and distribute his rulings fairly among the various parties.
Score card needs to be three-way
Most press accounts of last week’s revote hearing described the pre-trial rulings as a split decision for the Democrats and the Republicans. That’s true, but it ignores the fact that the day was a major win for one other party to the case, the Secretary of State’s office.
Attorneys representing the state’s elections officials came down on the winning side of all the motions. They agreed with the Republicans that statistics mavens should be allowed to explain a way to refigure the election results to account for illegal felon votes, and the court could decide how much weight to give it. Right, said Bridges.
They agreed with Democrats that anyone challenging a voter’s right to cast a ballot has to present “clear and convincing proof” and that the trial has to be open to looking at errors that favor either candidate, not just Rossi. Right again, the judge said.
Riding the storm out
Speaking of victories for the Secretary of State’s office and the late, sometimes lamented, election, there are folks who think Washington’s top election official did a pretty good job, all things considered.
Counted among them is Gonzaga University Law School, which this weekend gave its highest honor, the Law Medal, to S-of-S Sam Reed.
“Reed has shown exemplary character and legal judgment during the ongoing political maelstrom involving the state’s gubernatorial election,” the university said in the press release that announced the award.
Maelstrom. Yeah, that’s a good word for it.
How long did you say?
The gubernatorial revote trial in Wenatchee is scheduled for nine days once it starts on May 23, or a day shy of two work weeks because Memorial Day falls within that fortnight. But for a brief moment at the pretrial hearing Monday, it seemed a good chance the trial might last longer. Much longer.
Dale Foreman, an attorney for the Republican side, was arguing against the need to take testimony from each felon the GOP suspects of voting illegally. The Republicans have a list of 946 felons they say voted illegally, many of them from King County and other places that leaned toward Christine Gregoire; Democrats are threatening to bring in another 400 or so felons from counties that went for Dino Rossi.
Even if they could handle each felon suspected of voting illegally with just the basic questions, they probably couldn’t do more than 20 witnesses per day, Foreman estimated. At that rate, just taking testimony from the GOP’s felons would take 50 trial days, just by themselves, he said.
“This sounds like an extortion argument,” Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges quipped.
Democrats’ attorney Jenny Durkan told Bridges later she doubted the situation would be as dire or time-consuming as Foreman predicted. Both sides are likely to stipulate – legal talk for reaching some sort of agreement to help cut to the chase – on most of the illegal voters, as soon as they know what the standards of proof will be.
Whew. For a minute it seemed as though everyone was going to have to pack for spring, summer and fall.