King County board votes to move forward with 573 ballots

[IAMREALITY]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002120738_webreccount15.html

SEATTLE — The three-member King County Canvassing Board decided today to allow signature verification on 573 newly discovered absentee ballots and then consider whether they should be counted in Washington's extremely close governor's race.
Still to be decided was the fate of 22 other newly discovered ballots.

The decision to move forward with assessing the validity of the 573 was a victory for Democrats, since King County is a stronghold of Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire.

The canvassing board voted 2-1 to move forward with recanvassing the 573 ballots. It's a two-step process. First, election workers will verify if the ballot signatures are those of registered voters. If so, workers will take the ballots out of their security envelopes and bring them back to the board for a final decision on whether they should be counted. The process will take several days.

[Liberty Belle]

1. That's great news!

[NMDemDist2]

2. self delete, the OP took care of it n/t

[MidwestTransplant]

3. It says Rossi now has a 123 vote margin

is that right? The article doesn't say it was a net gain of 82 for Rossi. One would have to assume that's the case but who knows.

[bemis12]

6. Almost

It was a 42 vote lead after the first recount.

He has added 79 net during the second recount.

[Matariki]

4. was i dreaming that the Wash. supreme court

ruled to NOT allow these votes to be counted? The other day?

[suffragette]

8. different issue

The 573 weren't counted because someone(s) checked the signature against a database and couldn't find it. They also needed to check against the paper signatures on file, but didn't. Clear error, so they need to be checked against the paper signatures, counted and included.

[rfrrfrrfr]

12. What the Washington Supreme court ruled on was.

A motion by the Democrats that ALL precincts should be FORCED to use the same set of standards and rules and be FORCED to re-examine the votes that had been initially disqualified.

Any of the county election boards can still re-examine any ballots the wish to on their own as they see fit. That has the potential to lead to incosistent rules being applied accross the state which is part of what the dems complaint was about.

The King county election board has decided to re-examine those 500+ odd votes that were mistakenly disqualified. They have every right to do so and the supreme court ruling has no bearing.

In short, no the courts ruling has nothing to do with these ballots as the re-examination of these ballots was done at the King county election boards own initiative.

[suffragette]

5. looking good

1 step done and 1 to go - then count those votes!

[GetTheRightVote]

7. This is a win for the American Voter first and for most, we all won

Victory for the American Voter, hurray

[IAMREALITY]

9. I just can't wait to see how many are legit

The repub's panties gotta be in a bunch over this one!

[floridadem30]

13. Agreed, I bet they are really twisted. n/t

[Carolab]

10. So King County

hasn't been recounted yet?

[bemis12]

11. Nope , not yet.

This looks really good for Gregoire.

[GetTheRightVote]

14. kick back up to the top,good news

[IAMREALITY]

15. Brickity Slickity Kick

[sabra]

16. I consider this a win! Kick n/t

[rehema]

17. Bush sends members of the Federal Election Commisison

"Meanwhile, two members of the federal Election Assistance Commission arrived in Washington today to observe the recount. Kay Stimson, spokeswoman for the commission, said the two members came here to observe the historically close recount for a report on "best practices" by the states."


I wonder why their happy behinds are not in OHIO

[bear425]

18. Excellent news - thank you. n/t