Dino Rossi, the guy who has redefined the term "sore loser," has failed to convince a Washington state trial judge that he should have been declared the winner in Washington’s 2004 gubernatorial election. So, unless the state Supreme Court goes competely insane and reverses the trial court’s legal and factual conclusions, it looks like Democrat Christine Gregoire will get to keep governing the state.
The reports so far indicate that, while the judge was persuaded that a good number of illegal votes (over 1,600, way more than the 129-vote margin of victory) were cast, he totally rejected the Republicans’ statistical model that was supposed to estimate whom they were cast for (amusingly, the judge did reduce Rossi’s vote total by four votes because the Democrats found and deposed four felons who said that they voted for Rossi). Thus, because there was no evidence as to who benefited from the illegal votes, the Republicans lost on that one. The judge was also persuaded that King County ran a lousy election, but he said there was no evidence that any of the screw-ups were intentional. So the Republicans lost their fraud claim as well. You can watch the judge deliver his decision from the bench here (the good stuff on the facts starts at about 16:30; conclusions of law start at 35:00).
Maybe Rossi will now decide that it’s time to put the interests of the people of Washington first and give it up.
Oh, ho ho ho ho ho!! SURE he will!
UPDATE: Rossi has announced that he will not appeal. Good for him – I am happy to have guessed wrong about how he would proceed.
Classic doublespeak on both sides.When the Dems lost Florida, we were ensuring democracy by asking that the votes be counted more carefully, etc. When Rossi does it, he’s a sore loser.When we took the FL case to the SCOTUS, the GOP said we should just throw in the towel for unity’s sake. Meanwhile, with Rossi contesting Washington, he’s the victim of a vast left wing conspiracy, at the expense of criminals.Bleh. There will always be close elections, and there will always be mistakes in the process. However, it doesn’t seem like any politicos are genuinely interested in focusing on these edge cases and really working hard toward reducing the error rates and the sources of errors. Color me unimpressed with both sides.
stomv: I agree with you that it would be nice to see more effort devoted to improving elections practices, but I can’t agree that this situation much resembles Florida. Despite looking really hard, Rossi had NO EVIDENCE of a SINGLE illegal vote being cast for Gregoire – he just had some statistical models. The judge, quite rightly in my view, said that’s not enough. In Florida, on the other hand, the count was stopped by order of the SCOTUS. It never got to the point that Washington is at now.(Also, important note: it was the GOP who took Florida to the SCOTUS, not the Dems.)
“Dino Rossi, the guy who has redefined the term “sore loser,””Sorry, were you not paying attention the first few times around?
Dear Sirs and Madams–I guess that makes it even, with both parties having lost the election twice now. The lesson is clear: you want to be the LAST winner, not the first or second.The whole thing stinks to high heaven. Poor Ms. Gregoire probably can’t ever live this down. Meanwhile, she’s already signed legislation adding billions of new taxes and the Dems are hiring at an unprecedented rate down in Olympia. The smug pseudo-liberals in Pugetropolis gloat and the rest of the state forms a howling mob.Washington politics as usual, I’m afraid. Good thing I make lots of money, I can still afford to live here. Comments welcome.Mikey.
The lesson is clear: you want to be the LAST winner, not the first or second.Well said, Mikey. He who laughs last, and all that.
“The lesson is clear: you want to be the LAST winner, not the first or second.Well said, Mikey. He who laughs last, and all that.”This is a good thing? What kind of political system is it where you can win simply by getting one out of three? That’s patently absurd. Especially when, as a hand count, it is by nature the least accurate.