The Washington Governor Election Mess

Today is court hearing on the Washington State Governor election mess. This election was decided by a mere 129 votes in favor of the democrat, however the Republican candidate Rossi is taking a challenge to court to overturn the election. Indeed this election was a mess. First a tray of 229 votes were lost. Now a new try of 78 uncounted votes also from King County have been found. And some convicted felons cast illegal ballots. And some 3,000 votes that were protected from public view such as battered women were not able to be reconciled with voter rolls. And a number of ballots were accidently sent by election officials to the homes of deceased persons and some were returned.

All these election officials errors are regrettable. But it's difficult to repair the damage of asking some felons how they voted and remove their votes or other repairs to this flawed election. The remedy of republican Rossi is probably not to be found in overturning this November election now in May by a court decision.

And the flawed election is not the entire fault of the Rossi problems. His "Horatio Alger" tale of a janitor turned real estate millionaire seemed to leave the important detail out that the real estate boss he worked for became a convicted felon, although Rossi had no part in this illegal activity. But it had to turn some voters away. And while Gregoire cited a wide background, the Rossi tale of a janitor made millionaire had the unfortunate impact of making Rossi seem like a lesser choice. And with the John Kerry blue state win coattails and a tradition of all democratic governors since 1976, Rossi was running an uphill race to begin with.

No doubt about it, after Florida in 2000, some questions about Ohio, and now this much closer 129 vote governors election in Washington State, the time for a quick, accurate and dependable voting system and vote counting system is long overdue. This is a challenge for an enterprising firm to fulfill. Otherwise the new trend after a long election campaign is an equally long recount or election challenge season that only imparts nonsense partisan arguments about "vote stealing" or "election fraud", and is not a constructive argument to the many election official shortcomings that fueled this mess to begin with.