Democrats' lawsuit unanimously rejected by the state Supreme Court

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002118956_webballotlawsuit14.html

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OLYMPIA — The state Supreme Court this morning unanimously rejected the Democratic Party's recount lawsuit and will not order election officials to reconsider thousands of previously rejected ballots.
The court, echoing the position of Secretary of State Sam Reed and Republican lawyers, said Washington state law makes clear that a recount should "retabulate" votes already counted and that county canvassing boards cannot be ordered to look again at ballots thrown out during the first two tallies.
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"We do not take petitioners' argument to suggest that a claimed disparity in rejection rates of voter signatures triggers some independent right, constitutional or otherwise, to a recanvassing of rejected ballots under a newly developed standard, nor does such an argument come to mind," the court wrote in its decision.
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Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - Page updated at 12:24 P.M.

Democrats' lawsuit unanimously rejected by the state Supreme Court

By David Postman
Times chief political Reporter


THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Dino Rossi supporters and recount/Gregoire supporters gather on the steps of the state Supreme Court in Olympia yesterday before the court heard arguments on the Democrats' lawsuit.

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OLYMPIA — The state Supreme Court this morning unanimously rejected the Democratic Party's recount lawsuit and will not order election officials to reconsider thousands of previously rejected ballots.
The court, echoing the position of Secretary of State Sam Reed and Republican lawyers, said Washington state law makes clear that a recount should "retabulate" votes already counted and that county canvassing boards cannot be ordered to look again at ballots thrown out during the first two tallies.

The eight of nine justices who attended yesterday's emergency session to hear oral arguments on the case also said there was no call for the court to mandate a statewide standard for signature checking of absentee and provisional ballots.

That had been a key argument of the state Democratic Party who filed the suit against state and local election officials. Party attorneys argued that King County's high rate of rejection for those ballots as compared to other counties meant an uneven standard had been applied.

The court said there was no evidence that the standard applied by King County was the cause of the high rate of rejection.

"We do not take petitioners' argument to suggest that a claimed disparity in rejection rates of voter signatures triggers some independent right, constitutional or otherwise, to a recanvassing of rejected ballots under a newly developed standard, nor does such an argument come to mind," the court wrote in its decision.

Sam Reed, who had predicted the court would not intervene, said he was very pleased with the decision.

"This means we're going to be able to get this hand count completed in a timely manner," Reed said.

Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance was relieved by some good news for his candidate.

"Finally we get some great news," Vance said. "The Supreme Court did the right thing. Clearly the law was on our side."

Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt issued a statement saying he was disappointed in the ruling, particularly given that there is already evidence that there are valid votes in some counties that were not counted. He said the ruling means Democrats will have to make their case to each county canvassing board rather than rely on a statewide order from the court.

"It means that counties across the state will continue to use outdated and inconsistent procedures," Berendt said. "Our goal all along has been to get mistakes corrected. Legitimate ballots were thrown out because of a variety of governmental mistakes. We've been trying to get those mistakes corrected."

Democrats filed suit in the Supreme Court on Dec. 3, the same day they sought a statewide, manual recount of the nearly 3 million votes cast in the governor's race. Republican Dino Rossi won the initial election count by 261 votes over Democrat Christine Gregoire. A machine recount narrowed Rossi's victory margin to 42 votes.

The Democrats alleged that election officials chose "expediency over accuracy and equality" in counting votes in the closest governor's race in history.
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And the recounting continues....

b_b

Does this mean that every state needs to put a "will of the people" ammendment into their respective constitutions when it comes to elections? This is just silly, but it would clearly keep things like this from happening.

n/t

Shove 2000 straight up their asses and right back in their faces.

Isn't the reason for doing a recount to correct the illegal maneuvers and unintentional mistakes made? If the count of the machines is changed in favor of Dems, does this mean that it won't count because you've obviously re-canvassed something and not recounted? If you're just recounting you should come up with the same count as before should you not? Isn't this just like recounting on touchscreens? What's the sense of the WA decision?

and coyright violation


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1070858