Election challenge shows system’s flaws, but will reforms follow?

By REBECCA COOKAssociated Press Writer (AP) – According to the official record, 1,678 people voted illegally in Washington’s 2004 election. No one knows for sure who cast those votes or which candidates benefited. A judge decided the fact that the number of illegal votes dwarfs Gov. Christine Gregoire’s 133-vote margin of victory doesn’t merit ordering a new election. But a new election system? If he had that power, Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges may have liked to order such a thing. “Extraordinary efforts are in place to make it easier to vote,” Bridges said Monday, when he ruled against GOP candidate Dino Rossi’s bid to nullify the election. “Unfortunately I fear it will be much more difficult to account for those votes in the future.” Ultimately, Bridges said, election reform depends on the voters themselves _ pushing for new laws, demanding changes from their elected officials, or simply taking more personal responsibility for voting properly. Whether and how that will happen is anyone’s guess. “Do we have something to prove? Yes,” said King County Executive Ron Sims. “We have to restore the people’s faith in the integrity of the election process.” Republicans focused their election challenge attacks on the Democratic stronghold of King County, the state’s most populous, where many election errors took place. Bridges singled out King County as well: “The evidence here suggests that the problems require more than just constructing new buildings and hiring more staff,” Bridges said in his ruling. Sims recently proposed a $22 million election center and asked the county council for $650,000 to hire more election workers. “I actually agree with that statement,” Sims said, saying the larger building and additional staff are two parts of a much larger change. “One day I want to go to Wenatchee and talk to Judge Bridges, and say: Tell me whether or not we have met the judicial standard you established. I want to look in his face and see in his eyes he is satisfied.” That satisfaction may be elusive for many voters disgruntled with the election results and the judge’s ruling. When he conceded the governor’s race, seven months after Election Day, Rossi said he contested the election in court for two reasons: to get a new election, and to clean up the system. “Today it doesn’t look like we’re going to be achieving those goals, but there is still hope for the future,” Rossi said Monday. On conservative web logs after the ruling, reactions ranged from an election reform initiative to sardonic tips on registering pets and deceased relatives to vote Republican in the future. “I’m seeing people who are just absolutely furious,” said Rep. Toby Nixon, a Republican from Kirkland. A leading proponent of election reform in the state House this year, Nixon has a new item on his to-do list: amending the state’s election contest law to make it easier to overturn an election based on illegal votes. Bridges ruled that because Republicans had not proved with “clear and convincing” evidence whether those 1,678 illegal voters cast their ballot for Gregoire, Rossi or anyone else, he could not deduct those votes from either candidate. The election contest law says an election can only be overturned due to illegal votes when one side proves that the other side would have lost if the illegal votes hadn’t been counted. Republicans say Bridges’ ruling makes it impossible to overturn an election because of illegal votes. “You can only do it if you know with certainty who benefited, and that’s virtually impossible,” Nixon said. He wants state law to address what happened in 2004, when the margin of error far exceeded the margin of victory. Nixon said he’s not sure what the answer is _ a way of resolving statistical ties, perhaps, or automatic revotes when the margin of victory is so small, but he thinks something needs to change. That will be a tough sell in the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Democrats say the election law is just fine. It is possible to overturn an election based on illegal votes, they say — Rossi just had a weak case. “They still think they won,” said Sen. Margarita Prentice, a Renton Democrat. “I’m not going to make it so the loser wins and the winner loses.” The state Legislature has already passed, and Gregoire has signed, a handful of significant election reform bills. New laws address provisional ballot security, state oversight of county elections procedures, standardizing signature verification, and requiring identification at the polls. Public confidence in elections is at low tide now, Secretary of State Sam Reed acknowledged, but he hopes that will change. “I’m hoping in the long run it will be a great civics lesson,” Reed said. “They are going to see some reform, and hopefully that’s going to restore their trust and confidence.”