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December 22, 2004

Republicans Claim Irreparable Harm

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled that more than 700 belatedly discovered ballots from Seattle's predominantly Democratic King County should be counted in the Gubernatorial election.

At a hearing Wednesday morning before the high court, Republicans had argued that a recount should be a mere retabulation, and that it was too late for counties to go back and correct errors. But the court unanimously said state law and previous court rulings specifically allow county canvassing boards to correct mistakes during a recount. Justices questioned Republican claims that counting the votes would cause irreparable harm. "You're looking at it from the point of view of the winner or the loser — shouldn't we be looking at it from the point of view of the voter?" asked Justice Susan Owens.

"There is a sacred American right to have legitimate votes counted," Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Christine Gregoire said in a news release after the ruling. "The justices recognized that principle today."

Republicans said they will now seek out Rossi voters whose ballots were disqualified because of election workers' errors and fight to have those ballots counted as well.

Question: Why are the Republicans only now seemingly concerned with possible legitimate votes that might have been incorrectly disqualified? It seems crystal clear to me that at least with respect to this one race the GOP clearly isn't interested in whether votes are counted correctly or not - only with whether they win or not.

Posted by Kevin at December 22, 2004 04:03 PM