Recount in Washington State Shows 42-Vote Margin

A microscopic margin of 42 votes, out of nearly 2.9 million cast, separated the two top candidates for governor in Washington state, according to the results of a recount released Wednesday -- enough for the Republican to declare himself the victor but far from enough for his Democratic foe to concede.

State Sen. Dino Rossi, vying to become the state’s first GOP governor in 24 years, prevailed in the machine recount of the Nov. 2 balloting; it made for one of the closest statewide races ever in the nation.

“Dino has won the count -- twice,” his spokeswoman said as Republican officials mounted a unified call for Democratic Atty. Gen. Christine Gregoire to let Washingtonians “move on” and prepare for inauguration day Jan. 12.

But Gregoire, who during the recount process closed the 261-vote lead Rossi held after last week’s results were released, pronounced the race tied. It seemed all but certain that the Democrat would demand another recount.

State officials in the capital of Olympia and local elections authorities, conceding that the race was so close that they were in uncharted territory, said a hand recount could take weeks and involve hundreds of election workers and partisan “observers.” Some election experts said it would not necessarily be any more accurate than the machine count.

The legal wrangling here is evoking images of the tumultuous fight over Florida’s 2000 presidential results, with “optical scans” replacing “hanging chads” as the subject of inquiry.

Most Washington voters fill in ovals on a ballot to record their preferences. The courts already are hearing challenges from Democrats concerning ballots that cannot be read by scanning machines but nonetheless bear some evidence of a voter’s preference.

By the standards of Wednesday’s announcement, George W. Bush enjoyed a comparatively plush cushion in his 2000 Florida fight with Al Gore -- 537 votes out of 5.9 million, or a margin of 0.0091%.

Here in Washington, Rossi’s margin of victory is 0.0015%, according to the results released by Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican. Rossi, 45, a realtor and former state Senate budget chairman from the Seattle suburbs, got 1,372,484 votes to 1,372,442 for Gregoire.

“I’ve been in the election business for 33 years, and I’m astonished,” said Reed at a news conference in Olympia. “When they gave me these results, I must admit I was stunned. We are talking about such a small percentage of difference that it is almost unbelievable.”

Under recount procedures, in which some ballots that failed to be read optically the first time were recounted, Gregoire picked up 1,289 “new” votes to 1,070 for her opponent.

“I would characterize this as a photo finish in a marathon,” said Richard Smolka, editor of Washington, D.C.-based Election Administration Reports, a biweekly newsletter for election officials.

Smolka said the race appeared to be one of the closest statewide contests in history.

A 1974 New Hampshire Senate race came down to a 2-vote difference between the candidates, with the Republican leading after a recount. But the contest proved so close -- and so legally fractious -- that the candidates agreed to a new vote well into the following year. The governor declared the seat vacant, and the Democratic candidate, John Durkin, won the rematch in September 1975.

In one of the most famous Senate races in U.S. history, rife with allegations of ballot fraud, Lyndon B. Johnson won a Texas seat in 1948 by 87 votes out of 988,295 cast, or a margin of victory of 0.0088%. After that, critics mockingly started calling him “Landslide Lyndon.”

In 1839 in Massachusetts, Marcus Morton was elected governor by a single vote out of 102,066 cast, according to that state’s League of Women Voters.

Washington’s initial results were delayed by complex verification rules and by ballots that were postmarked by election day but still trickling into county election offices.

That tally was so close it triggered an automatic recount, which the state mandates for any margin of less than 2,000 votes.

Even though the latest recount reduced Rossi’s lead, he declared himself the winner Wednesday.

But Gregoire didn’t see it that way, telling supporters: “Every vote should be counted. The race continues. A 42-vote margin -- that, my friends, is a tied race.”

Democrats echoed the theme. A meticulous examination was needed to ensure that the next governor was “elected legally and legitimately, and with a majority of the votes,” state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said.

Reed, the state’s chief election official, is expected to move for a certification of the machine recount Tuesday. At that point, Gregoire will have three days to request a full or partial recount of the results, although she may have to pay for it, with a refund due if she winds up the victor.

A hand recount would probably begin Dec. 6, and officials were unclear as to how long that would take. It would also likely be marked by Florida 2000-style haggling over disputed ballots and whether they showed a clear enough sign of voter “intent.”

“Voters fill out ballots all sorts of ways other than the ways they’re supposed to,” Smolka said. “For example, they may have circled the oval on the ballot, rather than filling it in.”

At least 75,000 ballots cast Nov. 2 indicated no preference for governor.

Doug Chapin, the director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., group that monitors election reform efforts, said a manual recount could make for a spectacular legal tussle but would not necessarily guarantee a more accurate count than the one provided by optical scanning machines.

“This margin of victory is so tiny, you can simply never have absolute certainty with these kinds of numbers,” said Chapin, whose group is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“So it kind of comes down to a philosophical question of who do you have more faith in, a machine or a person?” Chapin said.

“Machines are imperfect, but so are human beings. Human beings going through all these ballots one at a time are going to get tired, they’re going to get confused. They’re going to make mistakes.”