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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (110013)	4/18/2005 3:04:55 PM
From: Neeka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793745

I thought they were depressed because Kerry lost the last election. -gg- Washington state dems are on the defense. M Monday, April 18, 2005, 12:00 A.M. Pacific Democrats search for errors in GOP land By David Postman Seattle Times chief political reporter Democratic Party attorneys are trekking through rural Washington this week in search of election errors and illegal votes that helped Republican Dino Rossi as much or more than foul-ups and felon voters in the Puget Sound region may have helped Gov. Christine Gregoire. As both sides begin taking depositions in earnest this week, Republicans want to stop Democrats from being able to use in court what they find on their tour of Rossi country. Democratic attorneys are set to be in Colville today to take a deposition from Stevens County election officials. Tomorrow they will move on to Whitman and then Walla Walla, Whatcom and Adams counties Wednesday. Rossi won all of those but Whatcom County. King County has been the main focus of the legal fight over the November governor's election because it is the state's largest county, has been plagued with vote-counting errors and overwhelmingly backed Gregoire in the governor's race. Republican attorneys have issued subpoenas to four King County officials — election director Dean Logan, his assistant, Bill Huennekens, and two others involved in administering absentee ballots. They also plan to depose Pierce County officials. Logan's deposition begins today and will run at least two days as Republican and Democratic attorneys get the chance to question him under oath. Huennekens will be deposed Thursday and Friday. Democrats issued subpoenas to officials in nine other counties and in the Secretary of State's Office, as well as the Building Industry Association of Washington, the home-builders group that helped Rossi in the search for illegal votes. "It is apparent that the Republicans have cherry-picked all over the state in an effort to present a distorted picture to the court," said Democratic Party attorney Kevin Hamilton. "If they want to talk about any category of error, we need to talk about them all over the state." Republican attorney Peter Schalestock said Republicans did not ignore any evidence of illegal votes that they knew could hurt Rossi and have included in their allegations suspect votes in counties where Rossi did well. But they weren't looking to make the Democrats' case for them. "In any court case, you present the evidence that favors you," he said. "There's no obligation in court to present all the evidence that helps or hurts you. This is an adversarial system." Republicans filed papers last week asking Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges to rule that evidence collected by Democrats now "is excluded from and inadmissible in these proceedings." "It is now too late for the [Democrats] to pursue alternative theories or evidence," Republicans wrote in their motion. In January, Republicans filed a legal challenge to the election under the state's election-contest statute. A trial is set to begin in Chelan County on May 23, when attorneys for Rossi and Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance will try to prove there were enough errors and illegal votes that the election should be nullified and Gregoire removed from office. Gregoire was declared the winner of the race by 129 votes after a manual recount overturned the results of two earlier counts. The Republican lawsuit was filed against Secretary of State Sam Reed and local election officials. Counties and their election officials have been dismissed from the case. The Democratic and Libertarian parties intervened as respondents. On May 2, Bridges will hear arguments on key pre-trial motions, including whether Democrats can present the evidence they are collecting this week. At trial, Republicans will have to prove that Gregoire won the election only because of errors by election officials and illegal votes. The law says that in a contested election, illegal votes should be subtracted from the totals for both candidates involved, in an effort to determine who was the legitimate winner. Both sides will have attorneys at each of the 18 scheduled depositions, and each will have a chance to ask the officials questions under oath. Democrats would not say much about what they are looking for outside of King County. Hamilton said that 1,800 absentee ballots were counted outside of King County without election officials having checked signatures. Democrats also have said they suspect Republicans listed alleged felon voters primarily in places where such votes would be most likely to have helped Gregoire. "That is a phenomenon that doesn't just occur in Seattle," Hamilton said. Democrats are looking for offsetting errors in King County, too, to counter the well-publicized mistakes and lost-and-found ballots that Republicans have focused on. Democrats want to know more about some 200 uncounted absentee ballots that King County set aside with the notation "needs more research." Hamilton said the county has not provided details on what research was done. They are also looking in other counties for evidence that absentee or provisional ballots were wrongly rejected, and if they find it this week they intend "to argue that such votes should be counted," according to an April 7 letter Democratic attorney William Rava sent to his Republican counterparts. Hamilton said Rossi wants to exclude anything that could balance the picture of election errors. "I think that makes his agenda pretty clear," Hamilton said. "He's not trying to ascertain what the will of the voter was. He's trying to do whatever it takes to get power through this court proceeding." Republicans say in last week's motion that some of the ballot-counting issues now raised by Democrats were settled either by the state Supreme Court in earlier cases or by Bridges' rulings on previous pre-trial motions. They say Democrats needed to have filed specific claims with the court, as Republicans did, in order for them to now introduce evidence of wrongdoing. Schalestock said Democrats have also not responded fully to Republican requests for information so "they waive the right to raise the issue." "Up until fairly recently they have referred to this as a model election," Schalestock said. "At this point, all that's on the table is what we put there." seattletimes.nwsource.com