In
yesterday's edition of my reports on the seemingly-endless race for governor in Washington state, I discussed the early hand-recount results from 10 counties. As of last night, the
Secretary of State's elections website showed results from another seven counties.
Presumably, the current interim totals will be maintained over the weekend, so let's review the current status of the hand count. Analysis continues below the fold...
All seven newly-reporting counties had favored Dino Rossi (R-smarmy tool of corporate interests) over Christine Gregoire (D-rudderless purveyor of wishy-washy wonkery) and Ruth Bennett (L-gay marriage proponent) in the initial count and mandatory automated recount. No surprise, then, that Rossi's lead in the race increased slightly when those counties reported. Comparing the two recounts, his margin ballooned (if that's the right word) by another 27 votes overall.
In a nutshell, and alphabetically, here's a recap of the day's changes:
- Adams -- Rossi lost 5 votes, and the county tallied 3 fewer ballots than in the mandatory recount. Uses ES&S Opscan 150 machines.
- Clallam -- both Gregoire and Rossi received 4 additional votes, Bennett added 1, tally the same as in the first recount. Votes using BCCS Punchcard 228 technology.
- Columbia -- 1 more Rossi vote, 1 more ballot tallied, ES&S Opscan 150.
- Kitsap -- Gregoire +72, Rossi +82, Bennett +7, yet they tallied 16 fewer ballots than in the mandatory recount. Uses Optech 4C-400 voting machines.
- Lewis -- added 2 Gregoire, 9 Rossi, and 1 Bennett vote. Like Whitman County in the mandatory recount, reported their "Registered Voters" count in the column where they were supposed to display "Ballots Counted", thus appearing to have had 100% turnout (though with almost 6000 undervotes). In reality, turnout was probably 87.1%. Uses BCCS Punchcard 228 voting machines.
- Stevens -- increased Rossi's votes by 2, processed same number of ballots as in mandatory recount. Votes with ES&S Punchcard.
- Walla Walla -- Gregoire gained 2 votes, Rossi 13. Bennett lost 2 votes in the hand count. Number of ballots was unchanged. Uses ES&S Opscan 650 machines.
The 17 counties now in the fold represent less than one-eighth of the state's total vote. Only about 16% of the counted votes come from counties won by Gregoire. So it's really too early to say how things are going.
The other important consideration revolves around the capacity for uncovering discernable votes that the automated tabulating systems couldn't. Yesterday, I noted that about 5 of every 10,000 votes recorded in the hand recount had been missed by the machine count. With the addition of these seven counties, that proportion has risen to just over 7/10000. By far the largest proportion was seen in Kitsap County, where 161 new votes were counted among 119,443 tallied -- that's a "new-found votes" rate of 13.5/10000. If this pace persists, approximately 2030 new for-a-candidate votes will be tallied under the hand recount. It remains unknown, and unknowable at the moment, how those additional votes will distribute among the three candidates.
The final wildcard, of course, is the Democrats' lawsuit regarding re-examination of previously-rejected ballots. Oral arguments will be heard by the state Supreme Court in Olympia on Monday.
More ballots to be added to the tallies? Who knows? In any case, we'll continue tracking the county results as they come in over the next who-knows-how-many days.