Josh's Weblog: Rossi Wins Important Pre-Trial Motion

Rossi Wins Important Pre-Trial Motion

From Chelan county we have a crucial ruling:

Republicans won a crucial victory in their legal battle to overturn the Washington state governor's election on Monday, when a judge decided they'll be able to use “proportional analysis” to subtract votes from Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.

But Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges balanced that GOP win with a ruling that will allow Democrats to present their own evidence of election errors they say helped Republican candidate Dino Rossi.

So, why is this important? Because the GOP believes they can subtract a lot more Gregoire votes than Rossi votes:

Republicans claim they've identified more than 1,000 illegal votes—mostly felons, but also unverified provisional ballots and a few dead voters. Using the proportional analysis method, they want the court to subtract illegal votes from both candidates' totals according to precinct voting patterns. For example, if 10 illegal votes came from a precinct that voted 60 percent for Gregoire and 40 percent for Rossi, the Republicans would deduct six votes from Gregoire and four from Rossi. Most of the illegal votes Republicans have identified come from King County, which went 58 percent for Gregoire.

It will be interesting to see what Stefan Sharkansky over at Sound Politics thinks of this. For now it looks like the massive problems at King County will finally bite them. They've had errors well out of proportion with their size.

Josh Poulson

Posted Monday, May 2 2005 03:36 PM