Washington Recount completed: Rossi wins by 42

[The Vorlon]

QUESTION...?

I think 150 is the Washington "trigger" for a hand recount.  Since 42 < 150 do we now AUTOMATICALLY get a hand recount, or do the Dems have to ask/pay for it...?

From the Seattle Times, "If Gregoire is trailing after today, he said, the party likely will request a hand recount, either statewide or in certain counties[/i] where the party thinks the vote tally is suspect.

I think if you do a recount you have to recount EVERY ballot in every county.

Wasn't this cherry picking of Counties at the heart of the Bush/Gore/Florida 2000 thing..?

With 42 votes difference out of 2.8 million a recount is certainly a reasonable thing to do...  But you can't JUST recount say King Country.. basic fairness says you recount every single last ballot from the ENTIRE state..

Didn't the Dems learn ANYTHING from the Gore/Florida mess?

Heck, If Gore had said "Recount the entire damn state" I would have contributed to his legal fund.  When he said "Recount Broward and Palm and Dade and ignore the GOP counties" I though he was trying to steal the thing.

I asume/hope/plead/beg that Washington State has thought about this in advance and requires the ENTIRE state to be recounted...

I will likely be disappointed in this expectation...

UPDATE:

A party can request a partial recount, but if the PARTIAL recount changes the result, the state then pays for a FULL STATEWIDE recount.

For example, if they recounted just King county and the Dem pulled ahead, then the entire state would get recounted at STATE expense, but if the GOPO guy was still ahead, the Dems could call a halt to it and not recount any additional counties...

Either party or candidate also can request recounts only in targeted counties.

But if partial recounts reverse the result of the election, the state would refund the party's costs and order a hand recount across the rest of the state at taxpayer expense.

[The Vorlon]

You hit the nail on the head, what is voter intent?

In 2000 Sandra Day O'Conner during Bush Vs Gore asked what I thought was a good question:

"Why can't the standard for counting the ballots be the directions posted at the polling station?"

If the clearly posted directions say "Mark one candidate with an X" it would seem to me a valid ballot should be defined as one that has, well, one candidate marked with an X...

A three color doodle of an airplane, and intepretive dance involving two bears, three lions and goat, 6 random markings in tri color water color paint, and 4 crossed out, circled, or otherwise altered candidates names may be an interesting psycological study...   It's just not an actual valid vote... IMHO

Or am I crazy...?

[The Vorlon]

I believe the law in Washinging actually <<dies of shock and amazement>> is set up to prevent the type of county cherry picking Gore tried in 2000.

Either side can pay for recounts in specific counties only, but if those recounts alter the result (ie change the "winner"), the STATE then pays for a full recount in ALL counties.

For example, if the Dems pay to hand recount King County and suddently Gregoire is 10 votes up then THE STATE will then AUTOMATICALLY hand recount ALL the other counties.

Looks like somebody in Washington actually read Bush v Gore from the 2000 Supreme court rulling..

I would hope that at 42 votes difference that everybody, dems, GOPers, greens alike, can agree that a recount is not a bad idea, but that ALL the votes should be recounted and that a Gore like county by county "cherry pick" is just wrong

[The Vorlon]

I agree, there should be a hand recount of the entire state. There should have been one in Florida in 2000 as well, I did not agree at all with Gore's strategy. It's worth  noting that Bush opposed a statewide hand recount in 2000 as well, however.

The Bush strategy, not that I agree with it, but one that made sense from a tactical point of view, is that they had a high level of confidence that the US Supremes would toss out a PARTIAL recount where they cherry picked states.

It should be noted the ORIGINAL Florida supreme's ruling that allowed the Gore Cherry Pick strategy was vacated by the US Supremes 9-0 after about 20 minutes of debate - the Florida Supremes were just plain wrong.

(I must say I lost every shred of respect for the Florida Supremes after their original ruling - it was just so blatently partisan. - Let's look for more votes, but only in Counties Gore won Big...?)

After the Bush team got a ruling that a partial recount would be vacated, they basically tried to run out the clock.  They were ahead in the count and the Safe Harbour provisions clock in USC Title 3 was ticking...

If Gore has said from day one said:

"It's 537 votes out of 6 million, let's recount the entire state using the rules that pre-existed on election day" - hell I would have sent him some money to help cover the legal expense..

When he went to his cherry pick county strategy I though he was a partisan hack trying to steal the election and lacked the moral values and intellectual honesty needed to  deserve to be President...