Wednesday, December 8 2004
BRINGING BALLOTS BACK FROM THE DEAD: Many of you won't be shocked or surprised by this article in today's Seattle Times. In the impending third recount in the Washington state governor's race, Democrats are petitioning the state Supreme Court to compel counties to reexamine some 15,000 previously rejected ballots. In other words, they want county officials to look at and rule again on ballots that each respective canvassing board has already looked at and declared invalid.

Presumably, Democrats would be on hand to issue challenge after challenge to these ballots, turning the entire system inside out and upside down to come up with the 43 votes they need to get their candidate into the governor's mansion.

All of this is happening despite a 1996 memo issued by the Secretary of State that said quite clearly that:

"The recount procedure provided for by statute is a mechanical function of re-tallying the ballots cast and accepted as valid by the precinct election officers or the canvassing board during the canvass of the election. The decision of the canvassing board with respect to the inclusion or exclusion of a particular ballot during the canvass is not open to question during the recount."

Furthermore, many county election officials in the state including Dean Logan, the head of elections for the largest county in the state, say they flatly disagree with the interpretation of the recount statute Democrats are using as the basis of their lawsuit:

"I don't see anything in the statute that gives us the ability to go back after the election," said Dean Logan, head of King County elections. "I think the recount statutes are written in a way that contemplates you're only going to recount ballots that were counted in the first place."

I know what I'm about to say will sound intensely partisan, and perhaps it is. But once again we have an example of Democrats running roughshod over election law in pursuit of power, all the while self-righteously wrapping themselves in the mantra that "every vote must be counted." Frankly, it's sickening.

So is the implication that by following the law Republicans are somehow obstructing democracy and preventing all the votes from being counted. All the ballots in this race that were cast validly have been counted and recounted according to the letter of the law. Now they are going to be counted a third time.

To be honest, in the larger scheme of things I could care less whether the governor of Washington state is a Republican or a Democrat. What I do care about is that regardless of the outcome, both parties adhere to the law and not try to retroactively engineer a victory through the courts when following the law doesn't produce the desired results. The only exceptions to this rule should be cases where substantial evidence of vote fraud or voter intimidation/suppression exists. That is certainly not the case in this race.

Nor was that the case with the Bush-Gore debacle in Florida in 2000 or in the Torricelli-Lautenberg switcheroo in New Jersey in 2002. Whatever your political persuasion, it's an undeniable fact that over the last few years Democrats have been increasingly willing to turn to partisan lawyers and legal shenanigans as a tactic to gain and hold political power. Instead of resolving real and legitimate election disputes, Democrats are now using the courts as a tool for creating them. - T. Bevan 9:30 am Link | Email | Send to a Friend