Rossi v. Gregoire: Well, that can’t help
The Democrats are working very, very hard to make it appear that the election contest is a doomed, desperate hail Mary pass, rather than a legitimate court case with questions that must be answered–let alone a real danger to her new office. Democrats and their various accomplices–Joel Connelly, for example–would have you believe that the only people pushing for this are partisans and nutjobs, and that it doesn’t have a real chance of getting through (see David Goldstein’s clever poll for another example).
This article from the permanently respectable Economist can’t help their cause much at all. If you’ve been paying attention, it won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. But it’s a fair, balanced look at the issues that makes it very clear that the Republicans have a strong case and a good chance. This fair, balanced look is going to make it into faculty lounges, businessmen’s briefcases and public employees’ mailboxes all across the state, and while the Democrats are–according the the article–”fighting hard to ensure that Governor Gregoire becomes a fait accompli,” the Economist just made that a little more difficult.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. To comment, please register. No profanity, please. Non-family-friendly words will be changed to amusing euphemisms as suits the author.
January 14th, 2005 at 9:24 am
Other than the headline, what’s in the article that hurts the Dems?
January 14th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Timothy
phil spackman here:great interview on kvi last night.
a little off subject here for a moment.Don’t you find it
interesting that state gop chair elections on sat jan 29th
are not listed on the state gop websites calendar.
Gee I can’t imagine why?because its open to the public
and vance doesn’t want people to when it is.
January 14th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Aaah Steve, the caption and the global attention and what was in the third paragraph.
That said - Timothy you ARE cooking w/ gasoline!
January 14th, 2005 at 10:59 am
Timothy… I read the Economist piece, and I’m not really sure what it adds to the debate? Everybody knows the election was flawed, and that the margin of victory is too far within the margin of error to confidently determine the winner. I’ve never disputed that.
But from a purely legalistic standpoint, that doesn’t matter. Our election statutes pragmatically accept a level of uncertainty, and require more than just proof that errors occured to set aside an election. You must show the appearence that these errors advantaged Gregoire sufficiently to have changed the outcome. And I just haven’t seen any evidence of that.
Alternatively, the GOP might try to prove that this election was unusually flawed… well outside the accepted norms… that the court chooses to reach beyond statute to exercise some commonlaw right to uphold the integrity of elections. But again… I haven’t seen any proof of that.
Just my two cents.
FYI… I really appreciate how tempered and reasonable your blog is. Inflamatory rumor-mongering may attract traffic, but it doesn’t generate respect or credibility.
January 14th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
David & Steve– I bring up the Economist article not because it says anything new, but because it’s a very well respected publication that treats Rossi’s contest as legitimate and potentially victorious. It contained not a single caveat, and never called the revote “unlikely.” This sort of thing can’t help the Dem effort to make this contest sound irrelevant and/or frivolous.
Steve, have you read either of my posts on the legal arguments for and against the revote? Things aren’t nearly as simple as you make them sound. Thanks, though, for your comments on my tempered & reasonable whatsit. I’m all for inflammatory rumor-mongering, personally, but clear-eyed, reasonable discussion has its place too. I try to provide an outlet for that.
January 14th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
My point on the Economist article was that at this point, I don’t think public opinion will have any effect on the outcome. The election process has declared Gregoire governor. The election contest is in the courts and I don’t think the WA Supreme Court is going to be influenced by what the Economist or the NY Times or Sound Politics thinks about the various allegations.
I don’t think the issues in this case are simple at all. I read your arguments and I suspect that Rossi’s lawyers will make those or variations of those in this case. I’m glad I’m not the judge in Chelan County. IMHO, the difference between the Adams County case and this election is that there was direct evidence of intentional ballot tampering by election officials in the Adams County case. I don’t think the evidence in this election points that way. I believe that, absent direct evidence of this type of misconduct, the courts will be most reluctant to order a new election. If I were the Rs lawyer, I’d hammer on the enhanced ballots, arguing that the actions of the elections officials made it impossible to verify the actual votes and to get an accurate manual recount. Felons, dead people and registration problems aren’t going to cause a court to throw out this election.
I do appreciate this forum. I don’t know whether you delete all the mindless rants, but the quality of the dialogue here is excellent. I’ve given up on Sound Politics, despite what I think is excellent work by Stefan, because the true believers have taken over and there is no opportunity for discussion.
January 14th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Ack–sorry, Steve, I know you’ve read my posts. I meant that last comment/ question to be directed towards David. Oops.
You’re right, though, Sound Politics’ comment sections have become a victim of their remarkable success. I’ve avoided that sort of success mostly–though I’m stunned that we went through nearly 80 comments on my “What matters” post without it degenerating into a typical Internet flame war. But I haven’t had to delete anything.
As far as this article, I’m thinking less about the court case and more about politics in general. As I noted before, polls don’t matter in court (obviously), but the fact that Rossi’s complaints are being portrayed as legitimate right now will mean that no matter what the outcome of the court case, Gregoire’s PR campaign isn’t working. The full meaning of that will become clear in 2006, but like I said, it can’t help things for them.
January 14th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Tim~
Why don’t you start something on Social Security and tax reform? That would be a fun discussion. I must say, I’m getting a bit tired of this election stuff.
January 14th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Timothy, I had read your blog on the statute, and the comment thread… and I still think you discount the need to show that illegal votes advantaged Gregoire.
I agree that these things are not simple. I’ve been trying to find a “legal expert” to comment on the statutes, but there are no experts on the contest statute.
January 14th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
I’ve really enjoyed reading your last few articles. I have a comment/question, I think that with KC admitting to 300+ provisional ballots that went through-that would mean that you couldnt tell who’s ballot and who they voted for because there was no difference in provisionals vs reg. ballots, correct?? the 300+ could have put gregoire on top despite the fact that they went through the first 2 times as well. But let’s say, hypothetically, they were all for Gregoire or even just 129, it wouldnt have mattered in the hand count when the additional ballots were added in, does that make sense??
another question I have is now that the democrats have come out, since gregoire being sworn in, and are trying to get the case dismissed -according to SeattlePI-
“Democrats want the case thrown out because they believe the state Constitution grants the Legislature (which is now controlled by Democrats), not the courts, the power to invalidate a gubernatorial election. They will argue that the court lacks the proper jurisdiction to rule on the matter”
should we be sending all of the email responses we’ve received back from all of the democratic legislative reps. stating this is not their job, this is for the courts to decide-to the republicans??
I dont understand how one thing comes out of one side of the democrat’s mouths and the total opposite comes out the other side and they continue to get away with it.
January 14th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
I have enjoyed reading this comment thread.
Also, doesn’t it mean something now that we have global prominence? That LITERALLY “the world is watching”!
January 15th, 2005 at 1:08 am
The Democrats are working very, very hard to make it appear that the election contest is a doomed, desperate hail Mary pass, rather than a legitimate court case with questions that must be answered–let alone a real danger to her new office
I supported Gregoire but I don’t believe the contest is frivolous.
There may be enough to overturn the election result. However, to date, there has been nothing that would rise to the level to overturn the election result.
Rossi is entitled to proceed with an election contest but he has a very uphill task
I think the trial court and the Washington State Supreme Court will be exceedingly hesitant to overurn the election results. They do not want to remove an elected official from office unless they feel they absolutely must.
Moreover, the Court will defer much to Sam Reed and his office as to the standards of elections and considering irregularities. The Court members are not experts at elections and will need alot of guidence and education and will look to Reed for this.
So far, the GOP has found errors in the election which are present in very election in every state. The errors appear to be at historical norm as compared to other elections in Washington and other states. Thats not going to do it for the GOP, not even close.
After trial, the court in Foulkes found an error rate that was around 500 times greater than in Washington state because of not only intentional and deliberate fraud but a fraudulent scheme the results of which were documented to have given a party a 46 vote advantage.
January 16th, 2005 at 11:41 am
From my reading of the statute, there are a number of things that may rise to sufficient level to justify tossing out an election:
-1- If there are errors which DID alter the vote tallies beyond the margin of victory, even if such errors are not the result of negligence or malfeasance, but simple accident, the election should be thrown out.
-2- If there is provable negligence or malfeasance, and if it can be shown that such negligence or malfeasance produced a number of “fishy” ballots exceeding the margin of victory, the election should be thrown out even if it can’t be shown for whom those ballots were actually cast.
-3- In cases where the number of fishy ballots is unknowable, it may be sufficient to show that it is likely to exceed the margin of victory.
The fact that ineligible persons voted would probably not, in and of itself, be grounds for overturning the election unless it could be proven either that the people in fact improperly contributed a net 130 votes to Gregoire, or that they were allowed to vote as a consequence of negligence or malfeasance on the part of election officials. In this case, however, there are hundreds or thousands of votes that were illegally cast which are directly attributable to King County officials’ negligence (or worse).
At minimum, the fact that over 400 voters were allowed to insert provisional ballots directly into the counting machines constitutes negligence on the basis that officials were aware of that potential risk (it had happened before) and had even formulated a cost-effective solution which they failed to implement (color-code provisional ballots).
Further, I think it is quite reasonable to question whether an inability to come up with a firm list of people who voted–much less one that doesn’t fall 1800 people short of matching up with ballots cast–could have arisen via any means other than negligence or malfeasance. While it is certainly possible to imagine scenarios where such a thing could occur (e.g. the vehicle carrying some voter logs is hit by a gasoline truck) I would think the burden of proof should fall on King County to show that such a thing occurred.