Republicans file suit in King County, WA to stop hand recount, Governor

[WebeBlue]

Governor election. Republicans filed the suit over the weekend, it seems....found it at Daily Kos, but haven't seen much on it locally yet, in WA state. Any other Washingtonians out there know anything?



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/20/23404/959

Sat Nov 20th, 2004 at 21:40:04 PDT

Count every vote?

Not in Washington State, according to the Republicans. At least not in King County, home to Seattle and most of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire's votes.


Pathetically, the basis for the lawsuit appears to be the Bush v. Gore decision of 2000:


The Washington Republican Party filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Saturday afternoon to try to stop King County from including certain ballots in its recount for the governor's race.
The party is asking for a temporary restraining order against hand-counting of ballots that are rejected by voting machines and hopes to have a hearing on Sunday.

The ballots the Republicans want excluded include those rejected by a machine and checked over by hand. The party calls this process "human enhancement."

State GOP Chairman Chris Vance said Saturday evening that this hand-counting of ballots violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution in a way similar to vote counting problems in Florida after the 2000 presidential election.

Vance said the problem is that hand counting is not occurring in other counties where punch card ballots were used instead of optical scanning.


Chris Vance is a total xxxxxxxxxxxx and he is, of course, wrong that this happens only in King County:

Egan said hand counting is necessary and legal in several instances, including torn or crumpled ballots, partially filled in ovals, ballots where a candidate's name is circled or checked, and ballots where a voter changed his or her mind and crossed out one oval and marked another.
She said all counties handle these votes in the same way

[Us vs Them]

1. And they claim WE are the party of frivolous lawsuits.

This is the first lawsuit arguing FOR disenfranchisement I've ever heard of. I feel sorry for anyone involved in this case. If a registered voter made a legitimate effort to have their vote counted, and one can clearly discern which candidate they selected to vote for, I see no reason for that vote holding any 'enhancement,' regardless of the counting method.

Count every vote. Case fucking closed.

[glitch]

2. Swine.

Hopefully the judge will rule they all be hand-counted and none thrown out.
That would satisfy equal protection, just like in Florida. And I bet the Supreme Court would not take this case on, because Bush v. Gore was specifically not to establish precedent and they wouldn't want to further muck up their reputations with a Governor race.
That would teach these nasty :puke: s.

[AntiCoup2K4]

3. Not at all surprising...

Considering Dino Rossi worships the Chimp as Lord and Savior.