New Washington Ballots Not Allowed

A judge Friday granted a state Republican Party request to block King County from counting hundreds of recently discovered ballots in Washington’s close governor’s race.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend said it was too late for counties to reconsider ballots from the November election, even if such ballots were erroneously rejected by election workers.

“It is clear to me that it is not appropriate to go back and revisit decisions on whether ballots should or should not be counted,” Arend said.

The state Democratic Party immediately appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court.

“We’re going to fight for every vote to count in the state of Washington,” State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said.

King County Elections Director Dean Logan said the county also planned to appeal.

“These are legitimate voters who cast legitimate ballots,” he said. “It’s just a travesty if we do not include these ballots.”

Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander said the high court was prepared to take up the case next week.

“Every day is up for grabs, except, I guess, Christmas Eve, which is a state holiday this year,” Alexander said. “We’re conscious of the need to move with all deliberate speed on this.”

Republican Dino Rossi won the Nov. 2 election over Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes in the first count and by 42 after a machine recount of the 2.9 million ballots.

With every county but King reporting by Friday night, Rossi had gained eight votes in the hand recount for an overall lead of 50. With or without the hundreds of newly discovered ballots, the recount of King County’s 900,000 ballots could change the outcome.

Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said Arend made the right decision.

“If King County were allowed to keep adding more ballots, elections would never end,” Lane said.

As for those whose ballots aren’t counted, she said: “That is King County’s fault. We cannot be held responsible for the fact that King County made a mistake.”

But Gregoire declared in a statement, “From the beginning, this has been about fixing mistakes and counting every legitimate ballot. The people of Washington deserve an accurate count.”

King County officials and Democrats had wanted to include 723 newfound ballots in the hand recount, saying they were valid ballots that were mistakenly rejected because of county workers’ errors.