The Binary Circumstance

Judge John Bridges ruled against Dino Rossi and the Republican Party in their lawsuit to overturn Christine Gregoire’s narrow election victory.

Bridges turned back the GOP challenge on several fronts. He said the Republicans’ claims of fraud were not supported by any evidence. He rebuffed their statistical proposal for subtracting invalid votes from the candidates, calling it scientifically inadequate. And he rejected their suggested interpretations of state laws and previous court rulings on election challenges.

“I don’t think I can think of anything we argued that he didn’t take lock, stock and barrel,” Democratic lawyer Kevin Hamilton said.

But Republican lawyer Dale Foreman said, “If the standard is that even in a case like this, you can’t have a new election, then the standard may need to be reviewed by the Supreme Court or the Legislature.”

Should the Republicans appeal to the Supreme Court, GOP lawyer Harry Korrell said, they likely would argue that Bridges wrongfully rejected the statistical proposal and misinterpreted the laws.

Due to a ruling by Judge John Bridges yesterday, Dino Rossi’s contest of the 2004 Governor’s race is one stop closer to trial.

WENATCHEE — Republicans yesterday dodged a major threat to their legal challenge of Gov. Christine Gregoire’s election, with the judge in the case saying he’ll listen to their core argument for divvying up illegal votes based on statistical patterns.

But Judge John Bridges also favored Democrats in key rulings on motions for the May 23 trial, in which Republican Dino Rossi will try to overturn his 129-vote loss to Gregoire, his Democratic opponent in the November race.

And Bridges underlined the magnitude of the challenge facing the GOP.

"Unless an election is clearly invalid, when the people have spoken, their verdict should not be disturbed by the courts," Bridges said.

Both sides said they were pleased by the outcome of the hearing in Chelan County Superior Court.

There was also that issue of the thousands of ballots in King County that had no voters attached to them.  But if I remember correctly, the Republicans decided not to focus on that particular problem, as it was only one among the multitude of problems that occurred in the processing the votes.

This ruling sounds so hedged that it seems like the Judge just wants it to go to trial so there will be no appearance the he is deciding the election before all the evidence has been presented by both sides.

It seems like almost every day there are more problems uncovered in the King County elections office.

On April 2, it was reported that 87 more absentee ballots were discovered from last November’s election.  They were unopened and uncounted.

Republican members of the elections council have called for the resignation of election director Dean Logan as the total of newly discovered, unopened and uncounted absentee ballots grew to 93.

King County Executive Ron Sims will have none of that.  He appointed Logan in 2003.

"I continue to have full faith and confidence in Director Dean Logan and believe the people of this county are best served by allowing him to finish the election reforms needed," Sims said in a statement.

Sims’ head is so far up his ass that he probably hasn’t realized that the Pope died.

From the Seattle PI:

Republican Dino Rossi, contesting his narrow loss in the 2004 governor’s election, made public yesterday a list of 1,135 felons he said voted illegally and 45 dead people he said were credited with voting.

Those allegedly illegal votes are the core of a lawsuit Rossi and the state Republican Party have filed in Chelan County Superior Court in an attempt to invalidate Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire’s 129-vote victory in a hand recount.

The number of felons the GOP said voted illegally without having their rights restored is slightly larger than the 1,108 the party said it had found by Feb. 22 when it filed court papers enumerating the number of illegal votes.

The Republicans didn’t disclose the names at that time but have said they are continuing to comb election records for more illegal votes.