After a recount of ballots cast in the Nov. 2 election, the addition of 224 more ballots found at the Snohomish County election office on Monday and the infusion of a handful of write-ins, Republican gubernatorial front-runner Dino Rossi lost a single net vote in the county.
Rossi on Tuesday wound up with a 6,483-vote lead in the county, leaving the final election results up to King, Kitsap and Whitman counties. King County, the state’s largest, has been a stronghold for Democrat Christine Gregoire.
King County officials are expected to report the results of their recount today.
When the election was certified last week, Rossi wound up with a razor-thin lead of 261 votes statewide, triggering an automatic machine recount.
Snohomish County began the recount on Monday, and in the process election officials discovered an extra 224 ballots that apparently had not been counted. The mixup prompted state GOP Chairman Chris Vance to show up for Tuesday’s final tally. Vance told reporters that Democrats appear to be pushing for yet another recount, this time an expensive and time-consuming hand count of the ballots.
If Rossi winds up ahead after the King County votes are tallied today, the Democrats “need to be gracious and honorable and concede the election instead of dragging this into the Christmas season with the state not knowing who the governor is,” Vance said.
However, the Republican Party also was poised to request a rare hand recount if the party doesn’t like today’s results.
A hand count would take until nearly Christmas to complete and cost about $700,000. The party requesting the hand count would have to pay for it.
“It looks like that’s the only way we’ll ever break this tie,” state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said Tuesday.
Gregoire’s camp said she still expects to win, and that a hand recount would make sure every valid ballot is counted. Vance said the race is not a “tie,” and the recount has given Rossi an additional 55 votes so far.
The nation’s last unsettled governor’s race has drawn the attention of the national parties. The Bush White House dispatched its election experts, and the Democratic Governors’ Association has offered to help pay for a hand recount in some parts of the state.
The discovery of the 224 uncounted ballots prompted a special Snohomish County Canvassing Board meeting Tuesday, at which the three-member panel voted unanimously to include the 224 ballots in the recount total.
The panel consists of Auditor Bob Terwilliger, Snohomish County Council Chairman John Koster and Rick Robertson, a deputy prosecutor. Although the panel voted to include the 224 ballots in the total, it also ordered that the ballots be kept separate in case of a court challenge.
Koster reasoned that the order from the Secretary of State’s Office called for recounting ballots tallied after the Nov. 2 election, not any new ones. If the election narrows, that could become a factor before a judge, Koster said.
County election official John Zambreano told the board that a worker came to him on Monday saying the 224 ballots were spotted in the bottom of a plastic tray similar to those used by the U.S. Postal Service. Other empty trays had been placed on top of the ballots.
Zambreano informed election manager Carolyn Diepenbrock, and she told Terwilliger.
“We were still more or less in shock. This was unexpected,” Zambreano said.
David Fish, election supervisor, said the proper paperwork was still attached to the ballots and there was other evidence that they had not been counted earlier. In addition, he told the canvassing board that the ballots had been kept in a secure location.
On another Snohomish County recount note, King County Executive Ron Sims got 65 write-in votes, and Mickey Mouse got five.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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