We hope the resounding defeat won't stop them from exposing the ACTUAL fraud that took place last November!
(Though somehow we doubt they will bother.)
By Brad Friedman on 6/6/2005, 8:30pm PT  

We congratulate the Republicans in Washington State for fighting so hard to ensure the accuracy of the election for Governor there. We're glad to see a political party willing to fight for the validity of every vote.

If they had an actual case, however, as the Democrats do in numerous other states where they've failed to fight the way Republicans do for every vote, John Kerry would likely be the President by now.

Nonetheless, here's the key information on the GOP's resounding defeat as reported by today's Seattle Times...

Judge John Bridges today upheld the election of Gov. Christine Gregoire, dismissing a Republican lawsuit and so soundly rejecting the party's claims that Dino Rossi said he would not go forward with what had been seen as an inevitable appeal.
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"There is no evidence that ballots were changed, the ballot box stuffed or that lawful votes were removed from either candidate's ballot box," Bridges said.
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In a ruling that took nearly one hour to read, Bridges said he saw no evidence of fraud and rejected Republicans' proposed method for apportioning illegal votes. And he went further, saying Gregoire would have won even if he had applied the Republican theory of subtracting illegal votes from each candidate.
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"I think it was a resounding rejection of every one of the Republican claims," said Democratic attorney Jenny Durkan.

"They chose the county, they chose the court, they chose the method of proof," meaning the proportional deduction analysis.

"There is no corner for them to run to in that decision."

On the Republicans' fraud charge, the judge repeated the fact that there was no official fraud claim in the case, but then said that in any case, he saw no evidence of fraud.
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Bridges did not apportion the vast majority of illegal votes to any candidate. The only votes he did subtract from any candidate were five that had been proven by Democrats, through depositions taken from the voters themselves. Of those five, four had voted for Rossi and one for Libertarian Ruth Bennett.
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There is no evidence that the problems in King County had anything to do with "intentional misconduct or someone's desire to manipulate the election" or "partisan bias," the phrase Republicans used to allege wrongdoing.

"There is no evidence before the court to question ballot security as to those ballots actually counted," Bridges said, knocking down another Republican claim about King County.
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Secretary of State Sam Reed, who had been critical of some of the claims of vote fraud made by his fellow Republicans, said he hopes Bridge's ruling, which he called "forthright, practical and clear," will help rebuild voter confidence.
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Reed criticized the Republican efforts to claim vote fraud without producing convincing evidence.

"I think if they were going to allege fraud, they should have done it in the initial filings of the case and I think they should have had proof of fraud, and obviously they didn't do that."

So. No fraud found in Washington State. For the Governor's race anyway. We suppose the only thing that Wingnut Tinfoil Hat Wearers will now be able to use in order to counter the calls for a similar investigation of the Presidential Election in states where the votes were never actually counted (like J. Kenneth Blackwell's Ohio for example) will be those slashed tires in Wisconsin.

Beyond that, we're certain those GOP'ers who were outraged by what they thought they saw in WA will be calling for the same strict standards to be applied to the rest of the country any moment now. Right?

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