Today’s must read article reflecting on the election mess in Washington State comes from Michael Barone. In “2000 Changed Everything,” Barone analyzes the political damage to the Republicans and corresponding fallout for the Democrats from Al Gore’s strategy of challenging election process in Florida--dragging out the process and attempting to de-legitimize George W. Bush’s Presidency. Barone’s then surmises that the first Florida State Supreme Court decision in the 2000 Florida fiasco--concerning the selective recounts of four counties--serves as precedent potentially helpful to the pending lawsuit in Chelan County over Washington State’s contested Governor’s race.
According to Barone:
What might have hurt the Democrats even more, perhaps, is if Gore's strategy had been successful and he had been installed as president, thanks to the partial hand count sanctioned by the six-to-one Democratic-appointed Florida Supreme Court.
In Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, the Florida Supremes had their decision vacated by a unanimous U.S Supreme Court—who sent the matter back to Florida for further explanation. (Bush v. Gore was the decision that followed later, essentially ending the matter.)
Barone goes on to explain:
A selective recount, of the sort Gore sought in Florida, has made Gregoire governor, at least temporarily. But it has cast a pall of illegitimacy over her far greater than that cast over George W. Bush by the Florida result.
Without a doubt. Dino Rossi won two out of three recounts in Washington, with mystery ballots and voting irregularities aplenty. Barone also rightly points out the immense popularity that Rossi still enjoys with voters in the state.
Barone concludes:
Of course, no two cases are exactly alike. But now we have a better idea of what a Gore presidency secured by a selective recount would have been like. The negative reverberations from Gore's decision to seek a selective recount would have been even greater than they were. It's unfortunate that he didn't seek a statewide recount or that he didn't follow Richard Nixon's example and decline to contest a close election.
With the pending suit in Chelan County, Christine Gregoire is in a precarious position--despite her installation as Governor. While she has been duly sworn in as Goveror, Provisional Governor Gregoire might be a more fitting title for her at this time. She has thus far succeeded in overturning the outcome of two ballot counts with an Al Gore-inspired strategy. But Gore’s strategy didn’t withstand scrutiny in the courts--and even the Democrats know this. Could this be part of the reason why the Washington State Democratic party has been intent on delaying the case in Chelan?
Whereas majority in the state legislature has abdicated its duty to forthrightly confront the situation, the wheels of justice continue to slowly turn in a small county courthouse in the middle of the state. And one can be that Provisional Governor Gregoire will NOT be missing any deadlines in THIS case...
Barone also has a new article at U.S. News & World Report called “Blogosphere Politics.” Yet another important read for bloggers.
UPDATE: Some sharp commentators (see comments below), have correctly pointed out that, contrary to what Barone appears to be saying, Gregoire did NOT seek or obtain a selective recount of one or a few counties--as Al Gore did in 2000. I did not even take note of this in my initial readings of the article, as I interpreted Barone as speaking to a greater level of generality about contesting elections and fixiating upon one or a few counties. The election procedures and legal technicalities involved in both situations are distinct, yet Barone is onto something.
(Cross-blogged at Seth Cooper's personal blog.)
Posted by Seth Cooper at February 21, 2005 11:04 AM | Email ThisWhile I follow Mr Barone's reasoning, I'm not sure he has all his facts straight.
Ms. Gregoire did not do a "selective recount", but rather, a statewide hand recount. She also did not do so by court order, but through the mechanism provided in the election law.
Mr. Rossi is also not asking for "selective recount", but is simply taking the next step allowed by the election law and asking the court to fix a problem, although it could be argued that his actions are closer to Mr. Gore's action in 2000. Closer, but certainly not identical, as the situations are different.
Mr. Barone's statement "A selective recount, of the sort Gore sought in Florida, has made Gregoire governor, at least temporarily." indicates that either he has not been well briefed on the situation here or he did not make his argument clearly.
Posted by: John Barelli on February 21, 2005 11:23 AMBarone says;
"It's unfortunate that he didn't seek a statewide recount or that he didn't follow Richard Nixon's example and decline to contest a close election."
1960 was a different era than today and the dynamics were different. If Rossi had seeked another statewide recount; 1) I am not certain if that would have been allowed by law and 2) Who is to say that it would have changed results back in his favor - if it would have been another hand recount - the Democrat machine may well have prevailed again - puleeze - one manual recount was bad enough.
He made some points on the national level, but does not appear to fully understand the sequence of events at the state level. John Fund has a better understanding, so it would be more interesting to highlight Fund's most recent article.
Yes, lest there be confusion here, there ARE some differences between how the Washington State Governor's election process has gone and how things went in Florida in 2000. Different statutes and legal issues are also involved.
Nonetheless, there is a fixiation upon one particular county in this State--King County--above all others. The wild ride this election has been on is largely traceable to that one county and its...interesting activities.
Barone did give himself some wiggle room through his weasel words about no two cases being alike. I do think the legal climate generated by Al Gore's strategy makes a Rossi-favoring outcome more likely that it otherwise would have been. In this regard, I think Barone still makes a good point.
Posted by: Seth Cooper on February 21, 2005 11:46 AMShe, then, further attempted to skew that sample
of ballots by polling those voters as to how they
voted in the gubernatorial election before
selectively informing them that their ballots
had been rejected for lack of a signature.
All votes needed to counted the same so the State could exercise its electoral votes so we could elect a Commander-in-Chief (which initially was the main reason for the United States).
As for governor, while I am for a revote, I don't see a reason that each county can't have its own standards.
Posted by: swatter on February 21, 2005 12:42 PMSeth - You sir are correct, there has been a fixation, and you need go no further than this blog for a large part of it.
Posted by: Daniel K on February 21, 2005 12:51 PMThe lawsuit initiated by the Democrats (http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news_docs/Recount/Petition%20for%20Writ%20Mandamus.pdf) sought to require all counties to follow the same rules. Rossi opposed that effort, and won, thereby ensuring that there would be varying standards applied in the recounts. Barone's argument is disconnected from reality.
Posted by: Mike on February 21, 2005 01:13 PMhttp://www.sogladimadeit.com/SC_recountprimer.html
The Recount Primer
by Timothy Downs, Chris Sautter, and John Hardin Young, 1994
Once at the site you can view a sample page. Its rather interesting how a recount has become a science of its own.
Also, about under votes. Pierce County had 6,486 under votes after the first machine recount. They had 6,042 under votes after the manual recount. Additional votes assigned to the candidates totaled 447. 232 for Gregoire, 201 for Rossi and 14 for Bennett. Obviously the 444 additional votes were the result of the waving the magic wand over ballots that had, through TWO machine counts had been deemed to be blank. In a normal year these 444 votes would never have even been looked at, let alone counted, because it took a hand count to "discover" them.
Posted by: Hanna on February 21, 2005 01:26 PMSecond, there was in fact a statewide recount going on at the time the US Supreme Court intervened effectively ending the process.
Posted by: Alan in Las Vegas on February 21, 2005 01:49 PMIf there had not been this series of extraordinary and curious circumstances, difficult questions would not have been asked...questions that the Dem KC party machine cannot answer satisfactorally.
You imply 'sour grapes'...while the facts cry out incompetance or malfeasance.
You demean yourself when you go after those that dig for truth when it is lacking in KC, rather than blame KC officials. It is you that loses credibility.
But then again, you probably knew that.
Whereas John B. normally includes interesting and plausibly valid points. In this one he appears to be right on. Esp. if you include Skor's modifier.
Otherwise...
Right now KC has a pile of ballots/data, and if that pile was counted as is, KC would likely come up with a count not too unlike the results of the hand recount.
What the dem apologists keep missing in this "fair count" defense is that the principle problems aren't the principle problem, as inaccurate as they likely were. The real problem is the 'tainted' aspect...the enhanced ballots, the provisionals run w/o checking, the once rejected ballots being included...and on and on. Once in the pile, they cannot be identified or retrieved. Thus the pile is tainted beyond retrieval.
And...the major issue today...if you were to make this count of that KC pile of ballots...it would be extremely unlikely to come even close to what it would have been if the rules/laws had been followed from the start, vis-a-vis the margin of 129.
That, sir, is the crux of the problem.
Instead of going after bloggers, go back to party headquarters and blame them for giving you hope that CG would become gov and keep it.
Posted by: scott158 on February 21, 2005 02:22 PMSkor Grimm noted:
In the first count, certain voters whose ballots had signature problems were treated differently than others, when they were contacted by political parties who jockeyed for signatures, in order to scrape up a few more votes. In the second count, King County (and as far as I know, no others) essentially performed a partial hand recount, divining voter intent on a number of machine-rejected ballots. In the third count, every county had a slightly different process for handling the ballots, and verifying the counts. Plus, rules for recount observers were vastly different from county to county.
Those things may not constitute a "selective recount," but they sure seem fishy. It also seems as though there may very likely be some serious "equal protection" violations in play here.
Many of our election laws and procedures seem to harken back to a day when a trip between county seats took the better part of a day even for neighboring counties.
Unfortunately, county governments, anxious to show that they still have a role to play in these decisions, have given us a patchwork of different voting machines, rules and procedures thoughout the state.
This is one area that a comparison to Florida is valid, and this might be the perfect time to see if we can fix this.
Oh, and dkpcowboy? Please give Cookie back his cooking sherry. ;-)
Posted by: John Barelli on February 21, 2005 04:03 PMWould have preferred a different beverage, for what it's worth.
Posted by: dkpcowboy on February 21, 2005 04:12 PMHanna is right, only the dems have used that book on stealing elections not just for the big votes but as their standard operating manual ever since it came out in 1994. The real surprise here is Republicans are for once contesting... and so far doing a pretty good job of it, as we can tell from all the liberals spinning and whining over it!
Chuck Miller wrote:
Hey I ran some of the above posts thru my Liberal Decoder Ring and check this out:
Republicans "in essence" sued.... translation "Democrats in fact sued"
Uh, where did these quotes come from? Perhaps I missed them.
Gregoire did not do a selective recount but rather a statewide hand recount... .. translation "Gregoire tried to do a selective recount in all counties but only managed some."
My apologies. I was writing in standard American English. Exactly what language are you translating into?
Considering that I wrote that line, and meant it exactly the way I wrote it (in English), I'm not sure where you are getting your insight into the workings of my mind. Are you truly unable to consider the idea that a professed Democrat might be making a simple statement without trying to spin anything?
What does that say about your statements?
dkpcowboy wrote:
"Would have preferred a different beverage, for what it's worth."
I'll take a Guiness, if you've got one. (I remember cooking sherry from my ill-spent youth. Once. Nasty stuff.)
Posted by: John Barelli on February 21, 2005 04:36 PMAnd give credit to Paul at Wizbang!
Posted by: pgg on February 22, 2005 08:24 AM
At least this blog has a fixation with finding out the truth about this election...
While you seem to have a fixation only with making contrarian statements on this blog.
We'll find the truth. Your Playstation2 is lonely and calling your name.
Posted by: Larry on February 22, 2005 01:39 PM