King County recount puts Gregoire on top, Democrats say

By REBECCA COOK

The Associated Press   21 December 2004

 OLYMPIA ? Preliminary recount results give Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-vote victory statewide in the governor's race, the head of the state Democratic Party said tonight after crunching recount data supplied by King County.

Neither King County nor the state Republican Party could confirm the hand recount results tonight. But if the Democrats' analysis is correct, the Democrat stronghold of King County has handed Gregoire a stunning reversal of fortune.

Republican Dino Rossi won the first count by 261 votes and won a machine recount by 42 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast. King County, the state's largest, is the last to finish its hand recount.

"We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington," Berendt said. "I believe Dino Rossi should concede."

Berendt and Democratic party officials reached their conclusion after crunching numbers supplied by King County. The county has finished recounting its 900,000 ballots, but election officials said they still need to reconcile differences in the precinct totals.

"We are not releasing our results until tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.," said King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan, who confirmed that both parties received the recount data today.

Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said Republicans are looking at the data also but had not drawn any conclusions.

"It's just too close to call," Lane said.

Berendt said Democrats will continue to fight to allow King County to include 723 newly discovered ballots in the recount. The state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a lawsuit over those ballots on Wednesday.

The question before the court is whether King County should be allowed to add those ballots to the recount even though they weren't counted originally because of mistakes made by county election workers. However, the case may be moot if Gregoire's lead stands. 
   
Rossi has indicated he may challenge the election results in court if he loses the hand recount after winning the first two counts.

"We will keep our options open," Lane said earlier today.

State law allows any registered voter to contest the election if they believe there were mistakes in how the votes were counted.

About 350 people gathered today to show support for Rossi in front of the Supreme Court, at a rally sponsored by KVI, a conservative talk-radio station.

The crowd chanted "No new votes!" and "No more fraud!" They held signs saying "Welcome to Ukraine" and wore orange, a tribute to the signature color of demonstrators in Ukraine who protested a fraud-marred election there.

"They need to end it here. This is becoming really ridiculous," said Shelley Weber of Olympia, a part-time school district worker who wore an orange hunting vest and carried a Republican Party flag. But she said Rossi should sue if he loses the third vote count.

"He has a good case, and he needs to fight for what is right," Weber said.