State GOP gets specific about election charges
Court filing is effort to speed up calls for governor's race revote
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
By CHRIS MCGANN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT
The state Republican Party presented more precise allegations yesterday of voter fraud and election irregularities, hoping to speed up the fact-finding portion of its legal challenge to Christine Gregoire's election as governor.
In a filing in Chelan County Superior Court, the GOP said preliminary comparisons of a statewide voter file obtained Saturday from the Secretary of State's Office and other databases showed:
437 provisional ballots were counted without first being verified.
37 felons who have not had the right to vote restored voted in the election.
Nine dead people were credited with voting.
20 people in Washington who also voted in another state.
10 people voted twice.
Much of what was in the documents has been discussed before, but yesterday's court filing provided more specific details about the Republicans' arguments in their attempt to have a revote in the governor's race.
Republican candidate Dino Rossi and the GOP have formally challenged the gubernatorial election Democrat Gregoire won by 129 votes after a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots. Rossi narrowly prevailed in the first two tallies.
Tomorrow, Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges will hear arguments for and against expediting the fact-finding segment of the lawsuit. Republicans will also oppose the Democrats' request to dismiss the case entirely on grounds that only the Legislature, not the courts, has the constitutional authority to settle a contested governor's election.
Rossi's spokeswoman Mary Lane said the illegal votes itemized in the most recent court documents are only part of the picture. The list will likely grow when voter records are compared with a database of felony convictions maintained by the Washington State Patrol, she said.
Rossi's legal team is also trying to expand the cornerstone of its case for throwing out the election: 2,200 votes that cannot be matched with voters credited with casting a ballot, so-called "mystery voters." Auditors across the state have said the GOP is harping on a situation that happens in every election and that the lists are never meant to match up vote for vote.
Republicans have not received reconciled votes-to-voter lists from 28 counties. Although they expect even more mystery voters to surface when and if all counties report, they contend that on its face, a 129-vote margin of victory in an election with 2,200 unaccounted for votes is reason enough for a revote.
Democrats argue that Bridges should not force the cash-strapped counties to comply with costly records requests until the jurisdictional issue of the case is resolved.
What's the point in burdening the counties with all that work and expense if the court determines the issue should be settled by the Legislature? Democrats have asked.
Republicans said the Democrats' objections are "transparent attempts at interfering with the significant public interest."
"The Democratic Party was not sued; it voluntarily intervened in this lawsuit," Republicans said in court documents.
Republicans hope to speed up the proceedings -- the longer Gregoire is in office the tougher it could be to force a revote. Democrats, meanwhile, are in no hurry to see the Republican's suit proceed.
Christopher Yetter, a technical analyst for the state Republican Party, explained his findings in the court documents.
He said he compared information from an updated statewide voter registration data base that includes each voter's birth date with: voting history lists provided by 11 counties; Department of Health Death Records; and data bases of known felons provided by the Building Industry Association of Washington.
"Daily, I continue to receive additional databases, and I continue to compare such databases to the databases of persons who voted in the Nov. 2, 2004, election," Yetter said. "Daily, I find more deceased persons and felons who voted and persons who voted more than one time within the state of Washington or in more than one state in the Nov. 2 2004, election."
Democrats have dismissed the Republicans' documents requests as a "fishing expedition."
The party maintains that Republicans have requested "what has never been done in the history of this state -- overturn the results of a governor's race and eject a sitting governor from office," according to court filings. "They do so with no proof of fraud or illegality. ... Rather they seek to use the court as a forum to conduct discovery in the hopes that they can find proof."
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