Sec. of State orders Wash. gov. recount

10:15 AM PST on Monday, December 6, 2004

Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. Secretary of State Sam Reed has signed the paperwork officially ordering a second recount in the Washington governor's race.

Counties will begin counting the votes on Wednesday and expect to finish by December 23rd.

Republican Dino Rossi beat Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes in the original count and 42 votes in the machine recount.

 Rossi called the hand recount a "sad and desperate" attempt to change the election results.

Gregoire said a few more weeks of counting will be worth it to give the governor legitimacy.

Democrats deposited $730,000 on Friday to pay for the hand recount of more than 2.8 million ballots.