Surveying 405 registered Washington voters yesterday for the Republican Governors Association, independent Seattle pollster Stuart Elway found that by a margin of 68 percent to 25 percent, voters do not approve of uncounted ballots being tallied in the upcoming hand recount for the WA governor's race. The recount is currently being funded by national Democrats and their supporters on losing candidate Christine Gregoire's behalf.
Democrats have filed suit to add in previously rejected ballots, because they fear simply recounting the ballots already cast, even with human "error" factored in, won't be enough to snatch back the WA governorship after their weakest showing in 20 years.
The poll also shows respondents believe Republican Dino Rossi is the legitimate winner and Gregoire should concede, by a narrow margin of 51 to 45 percent.
Results of that last question could quite arguably be labelled a draw, given the poll's five percent margin of error. But the overwhelming majority opposed to the Democrats legal effort to include legitimately rejected ballots should be carefully considered by state Dem chair Paul Berendt, Gregoire and the DNC.
As Elway puts it:
By almost a three-to-one margin, voters are very clear that the Supreme Court should not change the rules to put disqualified ballots back in the recount. This means more than half the Democrats in the survey disagree with their party leaders on this issue.
Even if Berendt and Co. steal this election by changing the rules, they are poisoning the well for Democrats in Washington, and perhaps nationally, for years to come.
Oh, well. There's always a silver lining to every cloud.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 06, 2004 05:38 PM | Email ThisIt's amazing that Gregoire would so callously ignore the opinion of the voters.
If she somehow manages to win, it will be a Pyrrhic victory.
Posted by: Jeff B on December 6, 2004 05:51 PM"who really cares about a republican governors survey. i wouldn't doubt that they hand picked the people for their survey from the republican party contributors list."
Actually Jim, it was a random survey of registered voters, weighted in proportion to the percentage who voted for Gregoire versus Rossi, which given the extremely close (but not "tied")results would mean that out of a sample of the size indicated, or just about any sample, Rossi-supporting versus Gregoire-supporting respondents would be evenly matched.
Plus, if you have even an iota of knowledge about Stuart Elway's history, reputation and methods, you'd never have written that he did a survey based on Republican campaign contributor lists.
If you want to troll, Jim, work harder at it.
Posted by: Matt R. on December 6, 2004 06:06 PMI notice the elipsis in the statement as carried by MSM in Seattle and it looks like they left something out that is pertinent.
"Our assumption is that their job is to simply recount the ballots that were previously counted in the machine recount," Reed said in an interview. "However, in our rules we point out that the canvassing boards have the prerogative to take up and re-examine any problem ballots that have come to their attention ... and we are giving them the word that the Washington state Supreme Court will take up the Democrats' case on Thursday.
"But at this point, we are not authorizing them to go back and start all over again."
I still want to know how many illegal votes there are.....especially the provisionals, but I also want the list of voters checked for college students, and then see if they also voted in other states....
I still want to know how many illegal votes there are.....especially the provisionals, but I also want the list of voters checked for college students, and then see if they also voted in other states....
Gregoire knew this going in to the second recount, and chose to both call for the reliability-challenged second recount (paid for by Kerry and groups like move on, both of which are now keeping Al Gore company in the "loser" club) and to support the lawsuits. Her actions are not in the State's interest, she knows it, and we are still where we are. Waiting for a result that is no better than a roll of the dice, and hoping the courts don't totally screw it up.
The illegal votes that have been counted will hopefully be discovered after all of this is over, by the press or ?. Maybe then some meaningful elction reform, like making sure only one vote is cast by each legal voter, will result. Silver lining I hope.
Posted by: zip on December 7, 2004 12:53 AMFor Kelptocrats, it's OK to take from the rich as long as you give to the poor. This is the party of Robin Hood. The party of self justified stealing. The Kleptocrats.
Posted by: Jeff B on December 7, 2004 10:12 AM