There's Justice In Washington

Vol. I, Issue 3
December 2004

One of the closest elections ever in Washington State history has just been resolved. After three recounts, one with a margin as close as 42 votes, former State General Christine Gregoire won the race for Washington State Governor, defeating Republican candidate Dino Rossi.

The justice isn't in who won and who lost. The justice came from counting every vote. After the second recount, it looked like the race was decided with Gregoire losing and Rossi winning. But Gregoire had a right to a recount, so long as her campaign posted a bond for its cost. This recount would prove fortunate, not for Gregoire, but for democracy. King county, the largest county in Washington (by population) and home to the city of Seattle, discovered that it had incorrectly omitted 573 legitimate ballots because the elections office forgot to enter the voters' signatures into their new computer system.¹ That's 573 voters who were disenfranchised through no fault of their own. This mistake wasn't discovered through careful audit, though, it was sheer luck.

One chilly Saturday morning in December, King County Councilman Larry Phillips decided to volunteer for the Gregoire campaign. The volunteers were going to go house to house to find voters whose ballots were rejected because they lacked the proper signature. Councilman Phillips was handed a list of names for him to investigate. Just by chance, his own name appeared on the list that was handed to him. His ballot had been rejected.² He knew something must be wrong because he checked his ballot carefully and followed every necessary procedure. If his vote wasn't counted, how many others didn't have their votes counted?

Councilman Phillips placed several phonecalls, and the truth was later discovered -- the elections office screwed up. It turns out that 572 other voters suffered a similar fate as the councilman. Their ballots were perfectly legitimate, signed and sealed properly, but they were excluded nonetheless. The elections office forgot to enter these voters' signatures into the computer system, and as a result, their ballots weren't counted in one of the closest races in Washington State history.

But getting every vote counted wasn't a sure thing. King County Elections Director Dean Logan supported counting the ballots, but the local decision rested with the County canvassing board. In a vote split on party lines -- unusual for the normally unanimous group -- the canvassing board voted to include the ballots.³ Republican party officials cried foul, and quickly filed a lawsuit to block the legal votes from being counted.

By filing their suit in the sympathetic courts of Pierce county, the state Republican party was able to secure an initial victory.⁴ Things looked dark for the wrongly disenfranchised voters. They had done nothing wrong, and yet their vote was somehow worthless. Was this the end of American democracy? In a country where the people were told that everyone should vote because "every vote counts", was that no longer true?

King county appealed the ruling to the State Supreme court. While party officials saw “right” and “wrong” in who won, the disenfranchised voters, both Republicans and Democrats, saw “right” in making sure every vote was counted. The fate of democracy was left to the nine justices. Their ruling was unanimous.⁵ They ruled in favor of democracy, overturning the ruling of the lower court and allowing King county to count every legal vote. Justice was done in Washington.

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, who had certified the previous recount results that placed Rossi as the winner, moved to certify the final hand recount placing Gregoire as the winner.⁶ Republican party officials, who had supported all of Reed's prior decisions in the gubernatorial election suddenly turned on him.⁷ A handful of Republican state legislators tried in vain to block the legislature's certification of the results⁸, but lost in an 80-65 vote. On January 12th, Christine Gregoire was sworn in as the Governor of Washington State.⁹