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More reports of dead people receiving ballots or voters receiving multiple ballots for Valley Medical Center's all-mail election have some voters again shaking their heads in frustration. Four people reported to the Journal this week that their dead relatives were mailed ballots for the special election. They joined another man upset last week when his son who died two years ago was mailed a ballot. Already inundated by reports of election malfunctions in King County from last November's governor's race, voters are much more sensitive to any irregularities, especially when they show up in their mailboxes.

The discovery of uncounted ballots in a King County elections facility could change the tenor of the governor's-election lawsuit, and it comes just as Republicans fine-tune their case in the final weeks before trial and drop some previously high-profile claims. Already, attorneys for both sides say the news of 94 uncounted, valid absentee ballots means scrambling to change plans for last-minute collection of evidence. They will expand the list of officials they want to question under oath and will change the nature of questions they'll ask King County's top two election officials, who were already scheduled for depositions. News of...

IN THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, it may be that a governor will serve for the next four years who was not properly elected. Voter registration rolls and election practices are sloppy enough--not just in Washington, mind you, but in many places--that in very close elections it may be impossible to know for sure which candidate has received more properly cast votes. (In three separate counts in Washington, the margins were 261, 42, and 129 votes out of 2.9 million cast.) It is past time we address this problem, and here's a thought: Maybe the United States should require eligible citizens...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The 11 contestants left on Fox's reality hit "American Idol" are getting another shot at stardom. Phone numbers that allowed viewers to pick their favorite contestant were incorrectly displayed during Tuesday's show, prompting a re-vote during the show scheduled to air Wednesday, the network said in a statement. Phone lines will remain open for two hours following the episode, when another singer will be booted off this week by viewers. The contestant with the fewest votes goes home. In the running are Bo Bice, Anthony Fedorov, Constantine Maroulis, Anwar Robinson, Scott Savol, Nikko Smith, Mikalah Gordon,...

Wednesday March 02, 2005--Dino Rossi, the man who narrowly lost the race to be Washington's Governor last November, holds a slight lead over incumbent Senator Maria Cantwell in a hypothetical Election 2006 match-up. Rossi attracts 47% of the vote to Cantwell's 44% in a survey of 500 Likely Voters conducted February 22, 2005. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Rossi leads by 7 points among men and trails by 1 among women. A Republican victory in the "Blue State" of Washington would go against the recent trend of Senate elections...

King County election workers counted as many as 660 provisional ballots in the governor's election before the eligibility of those voters was checked, Elections Director Dean Logan said yesterday. Logan promised better control over provisional votes in future elections and said new safeguards tested in a small local-levy election Feb. 8 worked without a hitch. "It's an area where we have to do better and we will do better," Logan said during his second appearance before the Metropolitan King County Council to answer questions about the Nov. 2 election. Sitting beside County Executive Ron Sims' chief of staff, Kurt Triplett,...

Attorneys for Republican Dino Rossi yesterday released the names of more than 1,000 people who allegedly cast illegal votes in November's disputed gubernatorial election. The list of alleged felons, people who voted twice and dead people recorded as voting is at the heart of a lawsuit Republicans filed to overturn the November election of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said the list — given to Democratic attorneys late yesterday in response to a subpoena and released to the media — is based on extensive research. While she said Rossi and his attorneys are confident in the "overall...

OLYMPIA — A "Home Ownership Survey" sent to hundreds of King County residents, along with a $10 check as an incentive for returning it, wasn't really designed, as it claimed, to help project housing trends in the Puget Sound region. The three-question survey and the check are part of a plan by backers of former Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi to search for fraudulent votes cast in the disputed November election. The surveys were sent to more than 400 voters whose absentee ballots were questioned after the election and who signed post-election affidavits to ensure their ballots were counted. The...

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The Building Industry Association of Washington recently sent hundreds of surveys to King County residents, claiming its purpose was to help project housing trends in the Puget Sound region. Turns out the three-question survey -- enclosed with a $10 check as an incentive to return it -- was part of a plan by backers of former Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi to search for fraudulent votes cast in the disputed November election, The Seattle Times reported Friday.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Republicans have released 1,135 names of alleged felons who they say illegally cast ballots in the governor's race that Democrat Christine Gregoire won by 129 votes. The list turned over to Democratic Party lawyers on Thursday contained the names and addresses of the alleged felons, along with 45 people who Republicans say died before the Nov. 2 election but who were listed as having voted. "It's one more significant piece of evidence that this past election was not only deeply flawed but that we don't know who won," said Mary Lane, a spokeswoman for Republican opponent...

When is it appropriate for elected officials to use their power to attack the funding of a political opponent? The Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) and organized labor are two of the biggest players in our state’s elections. And no doubt about it—they are often at odds with each other. Organized labor is working hard to shut down BIAW this legislative session. As Senator Karen Keiser, who also serves as communications director for the Washington State Labor Council (AFL-CIO), said before the start of the session, “Our plan is to cut their funding out from under them.” BIAW earns...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - A task force has found that public trust in Washington state's election system was damaged by last year's tight gubernatorial race that took two months to resolve, and it recommended a package of reforms. The task force, created by Gov. Christine Gregoire in the wake of her razor-thin victory, recommended moving the primary date to earlier in the year, requiring voter identification at the polls, and color-coding provisional ballots so they won't be counted before voters' registration is confirmed. In a 23-page report obtained by The Associated Press, the task force declared that imperfections and mistakes in...

Can anyone explain to me why the Democrat got to recount the votes until the result was what they wanted? Was Dino allowed to recount once again?

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Republicans dissatisfied with the balloting that installed Democrat Gov. Christine Gregoire alleged Tuesday that 1,108 felons voted illegally in the 2004 election. Dino Rossi, the failed GOP candidate, is challenging Gregoire's election in court on the grounds that illegal votes and election workers' errors irrevocably tainted the results. He's pushing for a new election. Gregoire won the election by just 129 votes, after a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots. Rossi had won the first two counts. Democrats say Gregoire is the legitimate governor, and say Republicans don't have enough evidence to warrant nullifying the election....

In the aftermath of the closest, most chaotic governor's race in state history, Democrats are pushing a package of changes that includes moving the primary to an earlier date and shifting the state toward a system in which all votes would be cast by mail. The bills have broad support among Democrats, who control both the House and Senate, but Republicans say they're not enough. "We're not opposed to the stuff that's coming out. We just feel there should be a lot more," said Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, the Senate minority leader. "We want to fix the problem and not...

A Wenatchee judge signed an order Friday confirming that the legal challenge to the governor's election will move forward in Chelan County Superior Court. But Judge John E. Bridges said it's not going to move too fast. The state Republican Party had suggested an April 4 trial date. Bridges said he won't set a trial date until both sides have finished their discovery, the legal term for fact-finding. He didn't get to the question of what, exactly, the Republicans will have to prove at trial. Bridges' order confirmed his ruling at a Feb. 4 hearing. Bridges denied the Democrats' motion...

Bellevue, WA – An internal e-mail adds to the evidence that the King County elections department knew about No Signature On File (NSOF) ballots well before it claimed to have discovered its “mistake.” King County rejected more than 700 ballots because it didn’t have signatures on file to match the signatures on the ballots. On Nov. 3, 2004, an e-mail sent to King County Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens included a list of NSOF voters. A copy of the e-mail is attached. But in December, when news of the NSOF ballots became public, King County Elections Director Dean Logan, Huennekens’ boss,...

Dino Rossi's tantalizingly close finish in the governor's race — a finish so close he's suing to overturn the election — has rallied a corps of Republicans who tried before him to break Democrats' 20-year hold on the governor's office. At least five former Republican gubernatorial candidates have gotten swept up in Rossi's post-election effort to wrest the governor's office from Democrat Christine Gregoire. Some of their connections to Rossi were remote during the campaign. Now they boost his case on talk radio, represent him in court, scour records looking for fraud and malfeasance and push legislation to change the...

The legal challenge to the governor's election won't be resolved until June at the earliest, a former Supreme Court justice says. Republican Dino Rossi's challenge to the 129-vote election victory of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire is heading toward a trial, possibly sometime next month. The state Supreme Court will make the ultimate decision - and former Supreme Court Justice Phil Talmadge says Rossi has a chance, however slim, of winning. "It would be unusual to unseat a sitting governor," said Talmadge, a liberal Democrat who ran against Gregoire before dropping out due to health concerns. "On the other hand, they...

King County Executive Ron Sims has come out swinging at critics who have called the county's management of the contested gubernatorial election either incompetent or corrupt. In his first news conference on problems with the Nov. 2 election, Sims yesterday said he will ask the County Council for money to create a "state-of-the-art" election facility and to improve worker training. Sims defended Elections Director Dean Logan and said he was convinced the county "conducted the most accurate count humanly possible with the systems we have today. ... "I am deeply disappointed that so many have sought to take political advantage...