Republicans understandably decided not to proceed further with their challenge of the 2004 governor's election. They concluded the long-disputed race ended with a powerfully-worded decision by a Wenatchee judge.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges yesterday upheld the election of Gov. Christine Gregoire because, after all the flummery, Republicans failed to prove their case. The GOP tried every possible avenue to challenge Gregoire's narrow victory. In the end, the party failed to demonstrate its candidate, Dino Rossi, won or that the election was tainted by fraud.

Bridges, who ran a smooth, thoughtful trial, was unwilling to allow assumptions about voting patterns of felons or unsubstantiated accusations of fraud to weigh more than the 2.8 million voters who cast legal ballots last November. The hurdle for setting aside an election is appropriately high. It cannot be based on partisan conjecture about what might have happened.

As one wise person said, the most slanderous moment in American life occurs in the opening statement of a legal trial. Lawyers say things they don't have to prove. GOP attorney Dale Foreman used the opening statement in this case to suggest election officials must have stuffed ballot boxes in precincts favoring Gregoire and removed ballots in precincts favoring Rossi. He and the rest of the legal team never proved it.

To argue Rossi won, they relied on an iffy statistical theory that attempted to tally votes of illegal voters, primarily felons, according to voting percentages of other voters in the precinct.

Bridges reached the rational conclusion that the analysis was not sound enough to nullify an election. There is no evidence felons vote the same as other voters. The judge said the analysis should have accounted for gender or even economic differences among the felons.

The argument about fraud was less convincing. The judge threw cold water on the contention that, because there were more ballots than voters in two Democratic-leaning precincts and more voters than votes in some Republican-leaning precincts, something sinister happened.

Without names of individuals who attempted to change the election outcome or descriptions of specific incidents, it was all theory. The court needed compelling evidence the election was manipulated for partisan advantage. There was none.

Bridges had nothing nice to say about King County election offices. He heard enough testimony about election mistakes to give him headaches. As sloppy as elections operations were, the judge appropriately said voters, not judges, should be the arbiter of such actions.

Throughout his ruling, Bridges exercised thoughtful judicial restraint, noting the lack of evidence throughout the GOP case. He was careful to let everyone have their say. Republicans walked away able to take their case to the state Supreme Court — or as they decided yesterday, to feel they gave it enough to walk away now.

This case is over. Gregoire is governor. It is time for members of the losing party to put this matter behind them.