Rossi wins recount by 42 votes; Gregoire to call for hand count 

05:52 AM PST on Friday, November 26, 2004

By JIM KLOCKOW / KING5.com

SEATTLE - With all ballots counted, and recounted, it appears Republican state legislator Dino Rossi was elected governor of Washington state Wednesday by just 42 votes of 2.8 million cast.

The 42-vote gap is the closest gubernatorial election finish in state history. Republicans immediately called for Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire to concede.

At a press conference late Wednesday afternoon, however, Gregoire said a hand recount in at least some precincts or counties in Washington was the only way to discover who really won the election.

"In Washington State, we want to have confidence that the person who is sworn in in January is the person who was elected," Gregoire said.

Gregoire said her campaign had sent a letter to Secretary of State Sam Reed asking his office to address several anomalies in the vote counting process, including why thousands of provisional ballots had been thrown out without being counted, why some counties showed more votes than voters and why as many as 15,000 votes had changed between the initial tally and the recount.

Her campaign has not, however, formally asked for a second recount yet.

"My friends, if the machines had done it right in the first place, we'd be in a handcount right now, well on our way to finding out who the next governor of Washington should be," Gregoire said to her supporters.

In Olympia, Reed said the problems identified by Gregoire were not uncommon in elections and all had been addressed.

"It isn't a situation that results in a change in the votes per se," he said.

Earlier in the day, however, Republicans had a different take on the recount results.

"As far as we're concerned, Dino has won. Dino has won twice," said a jubilant Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane. "It remains to be seen what Christine Gregoire will do after losing two counts, whether she wants to go ahead and drag the state through yet another count."

Rossi is currently on vacation with his family. His campaign issued a statement from him Wednesday.

"This process has lasted a lot longer than anyone thought it would, but I'm grateful that the people of Washington have placed their trust in me," Rossi said. "I know a lot of Democrats and Independents crossed party lines to vote for me, and I appreciate that very much."

Reed said he planned to certify the machine recount next Tuesday, but would probably direct that a recount begin the following Monday, Dec. 6. The job could take as long as two weeks.

One possibility is that state Democrats or the Gregoire camp could ask for a hand recount of just some counties or even precincts that are most likely to yield extra votes for Gregoire. Democrats would have to pay for such a recount.

If a partial recount changes the outcome, however, state law requires a manual recount in the rest of the state. That would extend the uncertainty past Christmas.

Gregoire said her campaign had not yet decided whether to ask for a full or partial recount.

Until King County released its recount totals around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Rossi had gained a net of 26 votes over Gregoire for a 287-vote lead. But Gregoire gained a net of 245 votes in the King County count to narrow the gap to 42 votes.

The gain for Gregoire comes after more than 700 previously uncounted ballots were added in King county after election workers, under the close watch of party observers, "enhanced" ballots to reflect voters' intentions and over the objections of Republicans.

An enhanced ballot is one in which a voter circled the candidate's name, for instance, rather than filling in the oval for an optical scanning machine to read.

A lawsuit over the practice had been expected to be heard Nov. 30 after a judge earlier refused to issue an injunction stopping the practice. But an official from Rossi's transition team Wednesday said the case was moot since Rossi had now won both the initial tally and the recount.

Additional votes were also discovered in other counties. In all, the recount reflects an additional 2,435 votes for governor that had not been counted initially.

Gregoire, 57, of Olympia, hoping to become only the state's second woman governor, carried eight of the 39 counties, most notably the largest, King, which includes heavily Democratic Seattle. Gregoire, strongly backed by the women's movement, is best known for battling America's tobacco industry.

Rossi, 45, a self-made real estate millionaire and former state Senate budget chairman from the Seattle suburb of Sammamish, was hoping to become the first Republican since 1980 to win the governor's mansion. He carried 31 of 39 counties and ran on a platform of change and job-creation.