TACOMA – A judge Friday granted a state Republican Party request to block the counting of hundreds of recently discovered King County ballots in Washingtons incredibly close governors race.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arends decision hinged on whether it was simply too late for counties to reconsider ballots from the November election, even if such ballots were erroneously rejected by election workers.
From reading state law and state Supreme Court decisions, it is clear to me that it is not appropriate to go back and revisit decisions on whether ballots should or should not be counted, Arend said.
State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said the party would appeal the decision.
Were going to fight for every vote to count in the state of Washington, he said. I guess were headed to the (state) Supreme Court.
Republican Dino Rossi won the Nov. 2 election over Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes in the first count and by 42 after a machine recount of the 2.9 million votes cast.
Friday afternoon, with all but two of Washingtons counties reporting results of the hand recount, Rossi had picked up just one net vote over Gregoire. Pierce Countys results shrank his overall lead from 74 to 43.
King County – the states most populous and a Gregoire stronghold – and Spokane County are the only two that havent finished their manual recounts.
King County officials and Democrats had wanted to include 723 newfound ballots in the hand recount, saying they are valid ballots that were mistakenly rejected because of county workers errors.
But Republicans went to court, saying it was too late to add ballots to the recount now.
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