http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/25/national/25gov.html?ex=1102374687&ei=1&en=df8ee0dec0c82f85
The New York
Times
November 25,
2004
Margin Now
Just 42 Votes in Washington State Race
By Sarah
Kershaw
SEATTLE,
Nov. 24 - The election was already achingly close, but the recount in the race
for governor of Washington State was almost absurdly close, the results showed
Wednesday. Former State Senator Dino Rossi, the Republican who was declared the
winner last week by 261 votes, won the recount by a mere 42, of almost three
million cast.
And the
bizarre contest is anything but settled. Democrats said the vote - 48.8717
percent to 48.8702 percent, as recounted by machine - was far too close for
their candidate, State Attorney General Christine Gregoire, to concede. They
said they would request a third count, this one by hand, possibly featuring the
inspection of, yes, chads.
Ms. Gregoire
said Wednesday evening that her party was challenging specific results in
several counties, but she declined to say whether the recount, which the party
is guaranteed under state law, would be held in only some counties or in all of
the state's 39. The Democrats have a week to decide.
"Well,
the race continues," she said at a news conference in Seattle. "It's
a 42-vote difference. My friends, it is a tied race. Some folks have suggested
we ought to flip a coin or stage a duel with Senator Rossi. My personal
preference is we ought to recount every single vote."
Mr. Rossi, a
commercial real estate agent, was on vacation but issued a statement saying,
"This process has lasted a lot longer than anyone thought it would, but
I'm grateful that the people of Washington have placed their trust in me."
The election
has been by far the closest in the history of this state, which has various
types of voting systems, including punch cards and optical scanners.
"I've
been in the election business for 33 years, and I'm astonished," Secretary
of State Sam Reed, an elected Republican, said Wednesday afternoon at a news
conference in Olympia, the state capital. "When they gave me these
results, I must admit I was stunned. We are talking about such a small
percentage of difference that it is almost unbelievable."
Bitter
feuding between the two parties, which had already sparred in court over the
vote count here in heavily Democratic King County, was renewed only seconds
after the final results of the five-day recount came in Wednesday afternoon.
Democrats maintained that the voting machines were fallible. Republicans
accused the Democrats of plotting to cherry-pick, suggesting that they would
seek a hand recount only in Democratic-leaning counties.
"The
most important thing is that people have confidence that their governor was
elected and was credibly elected," said Kirstin Brost, a Democratic
spokeswoman. "People have to have confidence in the process. If we were
talking about a difference of 5,000 votes it would be a very different story,
but we are talking about a difference that is less than one one-hundredth of 1
percent."
Several
members of Mr. Rossi's transition team held a news conference outside his
campaign headquarters in Bellevue, east of Seattle.
"The
votes have been counted twice," said one team member, Kathy Lambert, a
King County councilwoman. "We know very clearly who won."
J. Vander
Stoep, Mr. Rossi's transition chief of staff, said, "A lot of lawyers are
either buying plane tickets or they are here already, on both sides."
"That's
Christine Gregoire's choice," he added, "whether to unleash that and
turn this into Florida the Second, or whether to say two counts is
enough."
Mr. Rossi's
261-vote victory last week, coming two weeks after Election Day and delayed by
the counting of hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, automatically
brought a machine recount under Washington's election laws. Any political party
can then request a further count, by machine or hand, but the party must
shoulder the cost. That cost would be some $700,000 if the Democrats demanded
that the new recount take place in all 39 counties.
If that
recount, even if held in only one county, were to change the outcome of the
election, making Ms. Gregoire the winner, then Secretary of State Reed would be
required to order another, final, statewide count, this one by hand since that
was what the Democrats demanded Wednesday for the second recount. The cost of
the final count would be paid by the state, Mr. Reed said Wednesday.
The next
count could last weeks, even though Mr. Reed said he and the current governor,
Gary Locke, a Democrat who decided not to run again, would certify Mr. Rossi as
the governor-elect on Tuesday. The parties have until three days after the
certification to request a recount.
The results
of both the initial count and the recount were stunners, because Ms. Gregoire
had been expected to win easily. The state's voters here had not sent a
Republican to the governor's mansion since 1980.
Copyright
2004 The New York Times Company
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