Gregoire leads by 10 votes

06:52 AM PST on Thursday, December 23, 2004

Associated Press and KING Staff Reports

SEATTLE - King County's unofficial vote totals from the hand recount of ballots in Washington's governor's race are in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire -- by 10 votes.

That would give Gregoire a victory in Washington's closest-ever governor's race.

King County, which includes Seattle, still must count 723 ballots that were mistakenly eliminated from the original count after the Nov. 2 election, and from a machine recount. The state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that those votes should be counted, which means the election could still swing the other way.

King County was the last and most populous county to report the hand recount in the close race between Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi. If the county certifies its results to the state on Thursday as expected, the Secretary of State plans to certify the election results on Thursday.

Gregoire said she would stand by the results of this latest recount and would concede to Rossi if he ends up winning from the 723 votes Thursday.

She hailed the Supreme Court's decision as "a victory for everyone who believes that every legitimate vote should be counted," but said it was too early to declare herself the state's next governor.

"Although we're ahead right now, there are still hundreds of votes left to be counted in King County," Gregoire said at a news conference. "Once King County is able to fix their mistake, count the votes and certify the results we will know who the next governor for the state of Washington is."

Legal battle likely

If Gregoire does win, more legal battles are a good possiblity. Rossi has said that he would consider challenging the election results in court if he loses the third count after winning the first two.

Republicans have vowed to seek out Rossi voters whose ballots were disqualified and said they will fight to have those votes counted.

State law allows any registered voter to contest the election if they believe there were mistakes in how the votes were counted.

Rossi won the first count by 261 votes and won a machine recount by 42 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast. King County, the state’s largest, was the last to finish its hand recount.

“We’re confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington,” Berendt said earlier Wednesday. “I believe Dino Rossi should concede.”

Berendt and Democratic party officials concluded Gregoire would win by a razor-thin margin after crunching numbers supplied by King County.

KING

Gregoire, flanked by her family, talks about the latest recount Wednesday.

No one ever expected the election to be this close. Gregoire, 57, a three-term attorney general, was the favorite going into the election against Rossi, 45, a real estate agent and former state senator. But as the election results came in, followed by the recount results, it became clear that Rossi’s message of change had struck a chord with independent voters.