WA ST Gregoire Victory: Legal Opinion on Repub's court challenge

As you all know, Christine Gregoire has been inaugurated the Governor of Washington.  Nevertheless, the Washington State Republican Party is still challenging the certified election results in the state court system.  

A friend of mine is a Seattle attorney who has been following the matter, and his opinion is that the Repubs do not have much of a case.  I thought you would like to read his reasoning.  I should add the caveats that he is not an election attorney (but he does seem to have a "bird's eye view" of what is happening) and there is no way to know exactly what evidence the Republicans will present.  

His legal opinion . . . .

Dino Rossi has filed a contest of the election in Chelan County Superior Court.  Based on my brief review of the law, I don't expect Rossi to prevail in his election challenge.  To prevail, Rossi would have to prove that 129 more illegal votes went to Gregoire than went to him.  It is not enough to prove that there were 129 votes that should not have been counted.  Rossi needs to prove that Gregoire actually got these votes in an amount 129 greater than himself.

The standard is set forth in RCW 29A.68.110.  "No election may be set aside on account of illegal votes, unless it appears that an amount of illegal votes has been given to the person whose right is being contested, that, if taken from that person, would reduce the number of the person's legal votes below the number of votes given to some other person for the same office, after deducting there from the illegal votes that may be shown to be given to the other person."

Rossi has never shown any evidence that 129 more illegal votes went to Gregoire than went to him.  (Actually, I am told that most of the votes from dead people's illegally cast absentee ballots went to Rossi, not Gregoire.)

Further, the time to contest whether somebody is properly registered to vote, is before, not after the election.  So, for example, the time to challenge the felons who voted but whose civil rights were not restored was before the election.  Felons who improperly registered to vote and then voted cannot be challenged now.  RCW 29A.68.020(5)(b) provides,

"Illegal votes do not include votes cast by improperly registered voters who were not properly challenged under RCW 29A.08.810 and 29A.08.820." (RCW 29A.08.810 and 29A.08.820 provide for challenges before, not after, the election.)

So we can plan that Christine Gregoire will be our governor for the next four years.