Free Republic

SEATTLE, April 21 - The Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of corporate gay rights for decades, is coming under fire from gay rights groups, politicians and its own employees for withdrawing its support for a state bill that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Many of the critics accused the company of bowing to pressure from a prominent evangelical church in Redmond, Wash., located a few blocks from Microsoft's sprawling headquarters. The bill, or similar versions of it, has been introduced repeatedly over three decades; it failed by one vote Thursday in the State Senate. Gay...

Ballot checks vary widely across state By Christine Willmsen and Susan Kelleher Seattle Times staff reporters It never mattered much — until this election. But the fact that one county in Washington verifies ballot signatures differently than another county has taken on more significance as the gubernatorial election hangs on a handful of votes. A Seattle Times survey of counties shows that procedures for evaluating signatures are highly subjective and vary widely from county to county. More than 3,400 ballots in Washington were rejected in the November election because the signatures didn't match those on file with elections officials. And...

Red Alert to all Dino Rossi supporters!!!Rally for Dino this Sunday the 19th in Bellevue at 2:30 PM!!!330 112th Ave. NE, at the corner of 112th Ave. NE & NE 4th St.Christine Gregoire's allies in the Democratic Party are planning a protest in front of Rossi headquarters in Bellevue tomorrow, Sunday, Dec. 19. Please help us send the message that we must only count legal votes, and that the rules can't be changed midway through the recount! The Gregoire people are showing up to protest at 3 PM, so please be at Rossi HQ by 2:30 PM. Feel free to...

Counties won't be forced to reinspect invalid ballots; but saga's not over.The state Supreme Court yesterday shot down Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire's best chance for a comeback, but the discovery of even more uncounted ballots in King County left Republicans livid. The justices unanimously rejected a lawsuit that would have required counties to reinspect more than 3,000 previously disqualified absentee and provisional ballots. Gregoire's hopes to prevail in a hand recount now rest largely on 573 King County absentee ballots that election officials say were wrongly disqualified because of a clerical error. Initially officials said there were 561 such...

The discovery late Monday of 561 votes in the still-ongoing Washington State governor's race had both state and GOP officials crying foul yesterday, with Secretary of State Sam Reed saying that vote fraud is a possibility. Asked if he thought the eleventh-hour vote find could be fraudulent, Reed told KTTH Seattle radio host Mike Siegel, "You want to look at that, just because it's so late in the process and the impact it could have on the outcome of this race." Washington State is currently undergoing it's second ballot recount in a race where Republican Dino Rossi won the initial...