Judge will decide election trial on Monday (Washington-Gregoire vs. Rossi)

[cascadiance]

Well, it looks like a judge will rule on the current court case on Monday, but both sides have indicated that they will appeal to the Washington Supreme Court if they lose, so it won't be over then.

From:

http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050602/NEWS/50602008
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Thursday June 2, 2005
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Judge will decide election trial on Monday

WENATCHEE, Wash. (AP) — The judge in Washington's election challenge trial will issue his ruling Monday, Seattle television stations are reporting. The ruling will be carried live by TVW and at www.tvw.org.

Democrats asked the judge today to exclude the testimony of a Republican witness who described voting discrepancies in the 2004 gubernatorial election narrowly won by Democrat Christine Gregoire.

GOP data analyst Clark Bensen testified last week that the King County precincts with the largest discrepancies between ballots counted and people credited with voting followed a pattern: The five precincts with more votes than voters credited tended to favor Gregoire, and the six precincts with fewer votes than voters credited tended to favor Republican candidate Dino Rossi.
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Note some gems of quotes here!

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But Democrats say ``messed up'' isn't enough — the GOP must prove that Rossi actually won the election. So far, Bridges has indicated he agrees. As the trial winds down, Republican attorneys are making a last-ditch play to change the judge's mind.

"We believe there is precedent in Supreme Court decisions that says in the event you don't know who won, you can set aside the election," GOP adviser J. Vander Stoep said Wednesday.
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Hello!?!! Didn't our national Supreme Court set the precedent that you DON'T set aside an election when votes are "messed up" in Florida in 2000? One has to prove culpability (which we probably could have done had we had a longer time to look into it), or Bush likely wouldn't be president now!

[bluestateguy]

1. Gregoire should prepare to call out the Washington National Guard

(Unless they are all in Iraq) This coup d'etat must not stand. Imagine for a moment if Al Gore had decided to continue fighting the election outcome into June of 2001. My God, the Republicans would have had him put in jail. But it's worth noting here that the Gore campaign and legal team never, ever demanded a re-vote or a new election. They only wanted the existing votes to be counted. Dino Rossi is going way beyond what Gore ever did.

[tmorelli415]

2. Supremes limited their decision to the Bush v Gore case for this reason

they didn't want their twisted logic to be used to benefit anyone else, especially not a Democrat. They based their decision on the equal protection clause (Bush's equal protection of course, not Gore's or the voters of Florida). Maybe they'll find a creative way to award the election to Rossi based on his 14th amendment right to be free from slavery, or the repeal of prohibition. Seems logical.

BTW - I was born and raised in Washington so although I'm not there now, i'm very concerned about this.