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

To: KLP who wrote (115734)	5/24/2005 1:09:14 AM
From: Neeka	Respond to of 793838

Did you see how the PI framed the story? Setback for GOP in governor election trial seattlepi.nwsource.com Sharkansky comments here: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports "Setback for GOP in governor election trial": Republicans suffered a major blow today to their late-developing strategy to claim fraud in the 2004 governor's race when a judge said that claim cannot stand as a key to their legal challenge of Democrat Christine Gregoire's 129-vote victory. I suspect reporter Greg Roberts is engaged in wishful thinking. I was watching that part of the trial and my recollection more closely matches David Postman's report of 2:26pm Judge Bridges has put off deciding whether Republicans' fraud charges can move forward in the trial. But he may be on his way to another decision that splits the difference between Republicans and Democrats — something he's done before. Bridges agreed with Democrats that fraud has not been an official part of the Republicans' claim. But he stopped short of excluding the evidence. A legal expert e-mails: I'm still digesting today's arguments, however, I think that Roberts overstated Bridge's comments. It is worth paying very close attention to the presentation of [the Sec. of State's lawyer] Tom Ahearne ... I think Tom is probably closer to how the judge actually thinks than any other attorney present. So the judge may conclude that election fraud - as a legal term of art - is not part of the GOP case (and based on Bridge's comments, I think that is likely), but that the election irregularities that form the substantive basis of the fraud allegation may be introduced as evidence to support an invalidation of the election. Judge Bridge is trying to make sure that the hearing goes forward without getting bogged down by premature procedural determinations (hence his "quicksand" comments). I suspect he will read the depositions very carefully tonight. I've asked Greg Roberts to send me Bridges' exact words upon which the report is based, in case the rest of us have missed something. UPDATE: Greg Roberts responds: The key phrase, to me, was "The court does not believe that there is a fraud causation element in this case." Then he said, "for whatever that's worth. I'm not saying the evidence is not admissible." Before saying that,he said that "Fraud has never been alleged in this case," and that fraud has to be specifically pled in very circumscribed ways. The important thing, as I understand it (which is based in part on conversations with lawyers or activists on all 3 sides), is that if you go with fraud and make it stick, you can overturn the election under the Foulkes v. Hays standard, which does not require showing that illegal votes made the difference in the election -- only that there were more illegal votes than the margin. Without the fraud allegation or causation, you're stuck with the Hill v. Howell standard, which requires showing that illegal votes made the difference. The evidence bit, as I understand it, means that the GOP can try to bring in the evidence about what might be called the Nicole Way votes, despite his ruling on causation. I've tried to clarify this in a revised version of the story, which should be posted soon. I'll leave it to the legal experts to weigh in on the interpretation Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at 05:22 PM \| Comments (21) \| Email This soundpolitics.com