WA Governor Race Ends

Republican Dino Rossi decided last night to not appeal yesterday's decision by Chelan judge John Bridges to let last November's governor election stand -- the closest in U.S. history -- which keeps Christine Gregoire, who won by 129 votes after two recounts, in office. The Republicans claimed that fraud and mistakes far exceeded the difference between the candidates, and that statistical analysis showed Rossi might have received more legal votes. Bridges concluded there were thousands of incorrect votes and other major problems, but that the Republicans didn't meet the high threshold of proof that the result was incorrect. He also said he feared current law will make elections problems even worse, and urged the government and voters to work to fix the system.

Shoddy Vote Counting

[ndansmith]

I am shocked that the results of an election can change so much between recounts. Here we are in the information/computer age, and a swing of several hundred among 2.9 million in a simple count is unacceptable. Where else is that sort of margin of error acceptable?

Why can't we develop a more accurate system for counting votes? With our current resources, the court contest in Washington should have been a moot point: we should have known the exact vote totals without room for doubt.

Definition of close

[jgardn]

I think a reasonable margin of victory could be at about 0.1%. For ten millions votes, you would need to win by 10,000. For 100,000 votes, that's only 100 votes.

Currently, Washington State does have a method whereby close elections are handled without long, drawn-out challenges. The legislature can refuse to accept any result with a majority vote. If there was any candidate for the legislature to exercise this power, the governor's race of 2004 was it. It was too close and there were too many weird things happening. It was a Democrat controlled legislature and they refused to accept responsibility, instead telling the courts to fix it. The courts made the right decision and explained that the remedy that should be applied can't be applied because they are bound by the law as it is written. The voters are going to have to have the final say on whether the legislators made the right decision or not.