BELLEVUE – Republican Dino Rossi and the state GOP announced Friday they would contest the election that gave Rossis Democratic foe, Christine Gregoire, a 129-vote victory.
Republicans have been building a case over the past few weeks, gathering evidence of voting irregularities, including illegal provisional ballots and a handful of votes cast by dead people. They are pushing for a revote, an unprecedented step in a statewide election.
Gregoire, a three-term attorney general, lost the first count by 261 votes and the second count by 42 votes, then won a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots. Her inauguration is scheduled for Wednesday.
Rossi, a real estate agent and former state senator, wants a revote – an idea Gregoire has called absolutely ludicrous.
Former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton, a Republican supporter of Rossi, said he believes the GOP has enough evidence to support an election challenge. He pointed to questions about mishandled provisional ballots in King County.
GOP observers say hundreds, perhaps thousands, of King County provisional ballots were fed directly into vote-counting machines on Election Day, when staffers should have verified whether they belonged to registered voters.
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