PDA

View Full Version : Gregoire Certified As Washington Governor



tom browning
01-19-2005, 11:30 PM
Gregoire Certified As Washington Governor

Pot meet Kettle. Kettle meet Pot.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=511&ncid=696&e=10&u=/ap/20050112/ap_on_el_gu/washington_governor

Gregoire Certified As Washington Governor

Wed Jan 12, 8:47 AM ET

By REBECCA COOK, Associated Press Writer

OLYMPIA, Wash. - On the eve of her scheduled inauguration, Democrat Christine Gregoire was certified by legislators as winner of the election for governor while her supporters traded jeers with protesters outside the Capitol.


Republicans' attempt to delay the election certification failed Tuesday after an hour of debate. Just one Democrat crossed party lines to side with the GOP effort.


Gregoire lost the first two counts, then won by just 129 votes after a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots. Next comes Gregoire's inauguration, planned for noon Wednesday — and then it's on to the courts. A hearing in Republican Dino Rossi's effort to force a new election is scheduled for Friday.


The certification of the election by the Legislature is normally a formality. But during Tuesday's debate, Republicans pleaded in vain for a waiting period instead.


"A two-week delay is a small price to pay to restore confidence in this election," said Republican Rep. Mike Armstrong. "This is a historic time and we cannot afford to rush this process."


But Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, a Democrat, said, "No do-over, no delay."


Gregoire acknowledged the hard feelings later as she thanked the Legislature.


"I strongly believe that we owe it to the people of Washington to get on with the business of the state," Gregoire said in a statement. "One of those challenges will be to improve the state's election process."


During the counting and recounting of the governor's election, many questions and discrepancies have surfaced. One of the main arguments in the Republicans' lawsuit is that King County, a Democratic stronghold and the state's largest county, cannot match more than a thousand votes to actual voter names. That discrepancy, Rossi argues, makes the election invalid on its face.


Democrats disagree, saying the GOP lacks evidence of illegal votes and the state constitution sets a very high bar for throwing out the results of an election. They say the revote that Rossi wants would be unconstitutional.


While legislators met, about 1,800 Rossi supporters were outside to press their demand for a revote, and about 200 Gregoire supporters held a counterdemonstration. Chants of "revote!" overpowered the cries of "Go home, Rossi!"


___


On the Net:


http://www.leg.wa.gov

Unassisted
01-20-2005, 12:06 AM
There was no good solution here. Washington's election process is broken and needs to be fixed.

I wonder if they have recall elections there? With such a contentious win, I could see her being on the receiving end of a recall drive if she doesn't measure up within a year or two.

RedsBaron
01-20-2005, 06:43 AM
Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell is up for re-election for her U.S. Senate seat in 2006. Assuming that Rossi's efforts to overturn the result in the governor's race are unsuccessful, I would expect him to be the G.O.P. challenger for Cantwell's senate seat.

tom browning
01-20-2005, 01:37 PM
There was no good solution here. Washington's election process is broken and needs to be fixed.

I wonder if they have recall elections there? With such a contentious win, I could see her being on the receiving end of a recall drive if she doesn't measure up within a year or two.


The election process foe the entire country is broken.