Recount begins _ and there may be two

By PEGGY ANDERSEN   20 November 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

Election officials in some of Washington's 39 counties Saturday began a recount of the 2.8 million votes cast in the governor's race, which Republican Dino Rossi won by just 261 votes over Democrat Christine Gregoire.

Counties are expected to wrap up the work by Wednesday - one week after counties certified the initial tally.

No state recount has ever changed the outcome of an election, but with such a narrow gap, there's no predicting the final result.

Both candidates have named transition teams, and Rossi flew to New Orleans to join possible future colleagues Thursday at the Republican Governors Association meeting. If his win survives the recount process, he'd be Washington's first Republican governor in 20 years.

After counties certified their results last Wednesday, Rossi had 1,371,414 votes to Gregoire's 1,371,153. Libertarian Ruth Bennett had 63,346 votes.

  
  
Rossi's narrow margin of victory triggered an automatic statewide recount. Four counties began the recount Saturday: King, Pierce, Skagit and Spokane.

The Dec. 2 deadline for state certification still stands, said Trova Hutchins, a spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed. But there's a strong possibility the Democrats or Republicans will request a second recount because the race is so close.

Snohomish County scheduled its recount for Monday, but Auditor Bob Terwilliger and election staff were working Saturday, gearing up for it.

Terwilliger shot down reports that four precincts had more votes than registered voters.

He said the discrepancy between the county's voter database - frozen Oct. 20 to prepare for the election - and votes actually counted was due to tardy registration records, which were still coming in Oct. 30 from voters and neighboring counties.

The county could not turn away legitimately registered voters just because their paperwork was late, he said. The database now includes those late-arriving records - and the number of voters now exceeds the Nov. 2 vote count.

Terwilliger said his office will be meeting with the county canvassing board Monday to discuss the handling of write-in votes - an issue that will affect all 39 counties, though it should not be a major concern in less populated areas.

Under state law, write-in ballots need not be counted until it's clear there are enough of them to affect the outcome of a race. With a gap of just 261 votes, that's undoubtedly the case. So write-in ballots will be hand-counted statewide, whether voters used punch cards or voted by computer.

"We have no idea how many" such ballots were cast in Snohomish County, Terwilliger said. But county computers are set up to separate them.

And yes, he said, some voters did write in Gregoire's or Rossi's name, and counting them will no doubt change the tally.

"Whether or not it's a difference in the outcome I don't know," Terwilliger said. "But there's no question in my mind the numbers will be different."

Meanwhile in King County, the Republican Party voiced concerns about security for unmarked ballots, which are kept in the same place as marked ballots in case election workers need to replace a ballot that is damaged or for some other reason cannot be counted by machine.

The GOP sent a letter Friday to county elections director Dean Logan, who insists the process is secure. Marked ballots are kept in sealed boxes - in a gated area guarded by uniformed deputies and accessible only by 10 to 15 people. Both parties will be observing the recount, Logan noted.

State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt issued a statement suggesting the Republicans submit an official request for a manual recount.

State GOP Chairman Chris Vance said Saturday he's not ready to do that. The requesting party must pay $420,000 for a machine recount or $700,000 for a hand tally, though the state picks up the tab if the outcome changes.

"All we asked was, one, count the number of blank ballots so we know how many there are. Two, put them in boxes and seal the boxes. Three, only unseal the boxes when there are observers observing," he said.

"I don't understand why they won't do that, but they won't do it."

Both campaigns and both parties plan to station observers in every county, as they did on Election Day.