Talk about close

Although the Presidential election was not in dispute, one election that wasn't resolved quickly is for the Governor of Washington State. The final result of the original count had Republican Dino Rossi leading his opponent, Democrat Christine Gregoire, by 261 votes out of a total of 2.8 million. This is well within the range that triggers an automatic recount and one was conducted by machine.

The final result of the recount has Dino Rossi ahead by a mere 42 votes. That's a difference of only 0.0015 percent. Washington's Secretary of State Sam Reed is going to certify the election results today (and may already have done so by now). It is not surprising that Gregoire and her supporters are not going to concede with the results so fantastically close.

According to Washington State election rules, either party can order a recount, either by machine or manual, after the Secretary of State certifies the results. The big catch is that they have to pay for it. According to an article in the Seattle Times:

Democrats would prefer to order a complete hand recount, but the party may not be able to raise $1 million by Friday, [Washington State Democratic party spokeswoman Kirsten] Brost said. A labor-intensive manual record costs 25 cents per ballot, or about $700,000 for a statewide tally.

Coupled with legal bills and party staff costs, that could push the total cost to more than $1 million, and both the Gregoire campaign and the state party are running on fumes, Brost said.

However, there is an alternate strategy:

The party may decide to order a recount for King County or counties where they've spotted possible "anomalies," said state Chairman Paul Berendt.

(Cynical translation: "counties where we have the best chance of gaining votes.")

The catch here is that, should the partial recount put Gregoire in the lead, the state would then conduct a manual recount of all votes statewide at public expense.

Something else to note is this bit from the Washington Secretary of State's website:

Q: What is a recount?

A recount is the process where the counties simply re-tabulate all the ballots that were counted in the original count.

In the original count, final determinations are made by the county canvassing boards on what votes will be counted.

The recount does not allow a review of decisions by the county canvassing boards of what constitutes a vote.

Thus, the same ballots counted in the original count will simply be re-tabulated.

In other words, any statements from either party that they will "make sure every vote is counted" have no meaning as any votes that were not counted the first time for any reason will never be counted in any recount.

The Republicans are responding to the challenge:

Republicans, meanwhile, will respond with their own recount request, while stepping up the heat on Gregoire to concede, said Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane.

"We'll be prepared for them, whatever strategy they decide to go with," Lane said.

Historically, no recount has ever led to a change in the final result. However, I would bet that no gubernatorial election in Washington State has ever been this close in terms of percentage. In any event, if the Democrats can pony up the cash, and they probably will, it ain't over yet. I could call for Gregoire to concede but, to tell you the truth, with the results this mind-numbingly close, I would probably not do so were I in her shoes. We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out. My fingers are crossed.