A recount of two precincts in Washington's 8th Congressional District will soon take place, at the request of a group that calls itself "Voters for Democracy in America". A total of 925 votes cast by mail and at the polls in an area of Issaquah will be the focus, reports the King County Journal today.

The group apparently did some exit polling on election day (scroll down on link to "Republicans Complain about volunteer exit polling) and found "4 percent variation" from actual election results. according to Hannah McFarland, director of the Voters for Democracy group. McFarland, from Seattle, is apparently also a handwriting analyst/ document verification expert. Why groups like this want to put so much faith in exit polling, when voters can flat-out lie to them and never be caught, is beyond me. Exit polling is of limited usefulness, and will never replace the actual election results, obviously. Nonetheless, this group is determined to get this recount.

The group will pay all costs of the manual recount, which could be just under $1,000, not including security costs--which could run $10,000. The group says it doesn't want security, though. Hmmmm. "We're not challenging the outcome of the election at all," said McFarland, whose group claims to be non-partisan and have 20 members. "This is an academic exercise."

My favorite part of this story is McFarland's dodge-y response when asked if the group members are Democrats:

"I'm not....We've never talked about that, actually."

One thing I'm absolutely certain they're not going to find in this recount: that Democrat-controlled King County Elections went out of its way to fabricate a better result for the winner, Dave Reichert, than he actually got. (unlike the 2004 debacle with Christine Gregoire/Dino Rossi).