Rossi gains four votes in early recount

[Freddie Stubbs]

The Bellingham Herald

Governor-elect Dino Rossi, who led Christine Gregoire by only 42 votes after a machine recount, picked up more four votes on his challenger today in the statewide manual recount of the Nov. 2 election.

With only four of Washington’s 39 counties reporting, Rossi has gained 14 votes and Democratic challenger Gregoire has 10 more than the previous totals. Libertarian candidate Ruth Bennett lost two votes.

more: http://cgi.bellinghamherald.com/cgi-bin/breakingnews/showstory.cgi?id=20041209085613&date=nil&ty=news_update

[LisaM]

1. So there are at least 24 additional votes already

in a 42-vote race. Well, that alone justifies this manual recount.

[Freddie Stubbs]

2. I agree, even if

the final outcome isn't what we are hoping for.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. How can the Libertarian candidate lose votes?

If those votes were there before, what happened to them?

I understand that some votes can be seen by the human eye that can't be read by the scanner, and op scan votes are often picked up, but how does the reverse work?

[Ediacara]

4. The counties coming in so far are

Garfield (no change), a low population Rossi county in SE Washington
Mason (Gregoire +9, Rossi +12, Bennett -2), a medium population Rossi county in western Washington
Skamania County (Gregoire +1, Rossi +3), a low population Rossi county in SW Washington
Wahkiakum County (Gregoire +0, Rossi -1), a low population Rossi county in SW Washington

So far, no big counties, and no Gregoire counties.

This info is at the SOS's office.

[PatsFan2004]

5. The big King county apparently has been kind of hand

counted already. I thought the overvote and undervote punch cards had been "enhanced" already during the first recount, so getting extra votes may be difficult unless the court rules that the canvassing decisions about illegal ballots can be revisited. Of course, if the ballot counters look real hard at the Repuke punch cards, those ballots can turn into overvotes. :)

[pfitz59]

6. Snohomish county won't print BBV votes.

Will let machine count stand. I was hoping for court challenge declaring paperless balloting null and void! 100,000+ votes lost in never-never land!

[Ediacara]

7. New totals

So far the counties in are:

Ferry (no change)
Gray's Harbor (Gregoire +10, Rossi +8)
Jefferson (Gregoire +8, Rossi +5)
Lincoln (no change)
Mason (Gregoire +9, Rossi +12)
Pacific (no change)
Pend Orreile (Gregoire +0, Rossi + 2)
Skamania (Gregoire +1, Rossi +3)
Wahkiakum (Gregoire +0, Rossi -2)

Total so far: Gregoire +28, Rossi +29

The largest county so far in is Gray's Harbor, which has a population of just about 68,000.

The margin of victory for Rossi is 0.0014955%

The new votes found in a manual recount is 0.052466%

The new votes coming in acount for a percentage 35x larger than Rossi's victory.

What should be interesting is King County. If trends continue, she could pick up almost 400 in that county alone.

ON EDIT: I want to add that if trends continue, the manual recount will find 1460 uncounted votes! So much for governor-elect Rossi....

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. 11 counties have now finished

Eleven counties finish hand recounts

By Associated Press
December 10, 2004

SEATTLE (AP) — Most of Washington's counties began their third and final tally of the governor's race on Thursday, scrutinizing stacks of ballots by hand to see if any mistakes were made in the machine recount of some 2.9 million ballots.

With 11 of the state's 39 counties reporting results by early evening, Republican Dino Rossi posted a net gain of 11 votes over Democrat Christine Gregoire. He gained 10 in Kitsap's recount.

Democrats are paying for a statewide hand recount that's expected to cost more than $1 million. Six counties started on Wednesday, and most of the others started on Thursday.

Election workers in King County, the state's largest, spent a second day sorting ballots by precinct on Thursday and expected to begin the actual recount Friday morning, starting with votes cast at the polls. That's expected to take several days, then absentee ballots will be recounted.

more: http://www.thesunlink.com/bsun/home/article/0,2403,BSUN_19081_3389648,00.html