The election of Democrat Christine Gregoire as governor in November was a process tainted by errors and stained with illegal votes.
But did the sum of the sloppiness affect the outcome, and should the result be voided?
Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges will be asked to decide that question in a trial that begins Monday on the legal challenge brought by Dino Rossi, who lost to Gregoire, and the Republican Party.
If Bridges agrees with Rossi’s lawyers, Gregoire could be removed from office.
Attorneys for the Republican and Democratic parties, who have been sparring for months, will be laying the groundwork for an expected battle in the state Supreme Court.
For weeks, they’ve been deposing witnesses, compiling spreadsheets, creating charts and layering evidence for the trial, which is scheduled to run nine days at the county courthouse in Wenatchee.
Lawyers for other parties, including Snohomish County and Secretary of State Sam Reed, will be present. Gordon Sivley, senior civil deputy prosecuting attorney for Snohomish County, said his primary role will be to ensure that potential rulings don’t harm the county.
In opening arguments, attorneys for the Republicans and Democrats are expected to point out that hundreds of felons voted, thousands of ballots were mishandled, dozens of ballots remained uncounted, and that most of the errors occurred in King County, the source of Gregoire’s largest bounty of votes.
But the party lawyers won’t agree on the remedy.
Republicans assert that illegal votes and mishandled ballots render the “true result of the election uncertain and likely unknowable.” It must be set aside, the office vacated and a new election held, the GOP contends.
Democrats counter that there is no proof that the outcome would be different in the absence of the problems.
Gregoire and Rossi will not attend the trial.
Paul Elvig of Everett, a former leader of the Snohomish County Republican Party and a plaintiff in the case, hopes to attend.
“It’s become a lot more evident in my view just how sloppy the system is,” said Elvig, who is not scheduled to be a witness. “This lawsuit dramatizes it significantly.”
Nearly 3 million votes were cast for governor on Nov. 2, and they’ve been counted three times.
Rossi won the first count by 261 votes. That was so close that state law required a machine recount. Rossi won that one as well, by 42 votes. Gregoire won the third and final hand tally by 129 votes.
In January, Rossi and the Republican Party filed the contest petition and named Reed and each of the state’s 39 counties as defendants.
The proceedings that start Monday will seem more like an inquiry into how the election was conducted than a civil trial.
Republicans will shoulder most of the burden. State law requires proof that illegal votes or misconduct changed the election result before an outcome can be set aside. That would seem to require proving that if illegal votes are deducted from the totals of each candidate, Rossi would emerge the winner.
The Republicans hope to convince the judge that can be done through investigation and mathematics.
They have dossiers on many of 1,143 felons they allege voted illegally. They think the information will meet the standards set by Bridges for “clear and convincing evidence” that the votes were illegally cast.
Ballot secrecy precludes any chance of knowing how the felons voted, making it near impossible to know exactly how many votes to take from each candidate.
Republicans are turning to statistics for a solution. They propose to deduct the felon votes from Gregoire and Rossi in proportion to the percentage of votes that each received in a certain precinct.
For example, if 10 illegal votes are found in a precinct that Gregoire won with 60 percent to Rossi’s 40 percent, then she would lose six votes and he would lose four.
Democrats will argue that there is no evidence that felons voted in the same proportion to the population at large. They also want the proportional analysis to account for the Libertarian candidate in the governor’s race.
Republicans also are forcing the issue of how up to 1,156 provisional ballots were handled in King County. Hundreds were counted before voter registrations had been checked, in violation of state election law.
“On the face of it, the enormity (of felon voters and provisional ballots) means we should nullify the election,” said Mary Lane, communications director for Rossi.
The close election and subsequent lawsuit have cost the two political parties a lot of money. Gregoire and Rossi spent $13 million trying to win the seat. Since then, their respective parties have expended $2 million each on the recounts and lawsuit.
Rossi has set up a campaign fund for the 2008 governor’s race. Money garnered for it can be spent on this fight. He was in Washington, D.C., last week raising money to pay the mounting legal bills. As of April 30, the committee had collected $282,351, had $138,917 on hand and unpaid debts totaling $243,414.
Snohomish County’s costs are not nearly as high. Most of the work is being borne by county employees who are salaried, election officials said.
This electoral struggle is spawning new political groups, too.
In January, Rossi backers formed ReVote Washington. The group spent $44,000 and gathered 210,000 signatures on an online petition during a short-lived drive to force the Legislature to call a new election.
Evergreen Freedom Foundation joined the fray, issuing critical reports on the election process. Its leader, Bob Williams, is calling for a federal grand jury investigation.
Williams and Bob Edelman, who heads the Voter Integrity Project, will be in Wenatchee for the trial.
“We’re trying to fix a system that is obviously broken,” Edelman said. “What comes out will show where the weaknesses are and what we can do to fix it for the future.”
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360 352-8623 or jcornfield@ heraldnet.com
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