The Republicans want a revote? Uh, yeah, sure, because all the problems with our voting system have been miraculously fixed. Obviously, there were errors in this election, but there are in every election, in every state.
The difference here is that the Republicans are actively hunting for them, and doing a good job of painting the outcome of the recount as a conspiracy of some kind because the outcome was so close.
But the recount was monitored by Republicans, every ballot that was counted was checked by Republicans during the recount, and the election results were certified by Republicans.
Gregoire has already called for electoral reform. That is what is needed. It is the process, not the candidates, that was at fault for any problems. But the Republicans aren't really concerned with the election process. Or at least, they wouldn't be if they had won the final, legal recount. They are only concerned with winning. As would be the Democrats if the situation were reversed no doubt.
Further, some Republicans go on about the discovered King County ballots as if they were conjured up just to help Gregoire win. But again, any ballots that were counted were checked for legitimacy by Republicans before being counted.
And the very reason those ballots were finally counted was because many other counties had already added additional ballots that they had discovered, many of which went to Rossi. The state election officials therefore decided that they couldn't throw away the King County ballots because they couldn't also go back and figure out which of the ballots already counted in other counties had been new and throw those out also.
And most importantly, those votes were legitimate and therefore deserved to be counted. There is no conspiracy here.
The thing I find the most sad is the way that Rossi actually ran an ad exploiting our troops in Iraq. The ad is definitely emotionally compelling, well done. And I agree that if any military votes had been missed in the original counts, but had been discovered in time to be included in the final recount, they should have been included.
But it turns out that the military ballots were in fact sent out in time by King County. And further, in spite of the emotionally manipulative advantage of focusing on the troops, this issue applies to all voters whose votes were missed, whether somebody's son in Iraq, or the fry cook at Dennys. Again, this is a process issue, not a candidate issue.
I also think Gregoire should have gone on less about the fact her daughter already had a gown for the inaugural ball and more about these facts when talking about why we should accept the results. And she should now address the issues important to Republicans and demonstrate that we can move forward with focusing on our state's many problems, not on the GOP power struggle.
It is the election process, not the candidates, that are at fault for any errors. What will be gained by a revote? More errors? More debates? More uncertainty and recounts and millions of your tax dollars spent? Further partisan bickering?
If you are really upset about the election, then spend all that energy and money being wasted on deepening the divisions and manipulating the emotions of Washingtonians on fixing the problems of our election system before the next election.
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