WENATCHEE – In February, Snohomish County stayed in the election contest lawsuit when most other counties got out.
The County Council’s objectives were to maintain a courtroom presence in order to keep the county from paying the cost of a new election, if ordered, and to protect against unwarranted impugning of the county’s conduct of the election, if alleged.
The county achieved both in Monday’s ruling.
| Nov. 2: Election Day. Three-term Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire finds herself in an unexpectedly tight race with Republican real estate agent Dino Rossi, a former state senator. Gregoire is up by 7,000 votes at the end of the night, with hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted.
Nov. 17: With all counties reporting, Rossi leads by 261 votes. State law triggers a machine recount. Nov. 30: The secretary of state certifies the result of the machine recount, making Rossi the leader by 42 votes. Dec. 23: Gregoire wins a final hand recount by 129 votes, the smallest percentage margin of any governor’s election in national history. Jan. 7: Rossi announces he will challenge the election in Chelan County Superior Court. Jan. 12: Gregoire is inaugurated. May 23: The two-week election challenge trial begins. June 6: Judge John Bridges rejects Rossi’s case, dismissing his election challenge petition with prejudice. Rossi abandons his election challenge. |
Judge John Bridges left Gov. Christine Gregoire’s victory intact so there will be no new election. And while he sharply criticized the election system in the state, and King County in particular, the judge said not a word about Snohomish County.
“We were satisfied that the county’s interests were protected, and what we needed to do to accomplish this, we did it,” said Gordon Sivley, senior civil deputy prosecuting attorney.
Sivley and senior civil deputy prosecuting attorney Michael Held represented the county with at least one of them seated in the front row of the court every day of the trial. Sivley made brief statements at the opening and closing of the trial.
“We saw the political parties really get out the magnifying glass in every county in the state looking for mistakes,” Sivley said.
The county’s discovery of 224 ballots during the machine recount was discussed in the trial.
“I thought it was telling in Judge Bridges’ decision that he didn’t mention that, and neither of the parties took issue with that,” Sivley said.
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