Rossi maintains lead; Gregoire holds out hope

By Ralph Thomas and Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporters

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OLYMPIA — Republican Dino Rossi yesterday inched closer to becoming Washington's next governor after another tally of absentee ballots increased his lead over Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire.

But with an estimated 85,000 ballots left to count — including a big stack of provisional ballots in King County — Gregoire could retake the lead.

While election officials continue tallying votes, the state's political parties are going to great lengths to get their candidate's votes counted and, in some cases, to question votes in counties where their candidate is losing.

Only tiny Whitman County plans to tally ballots today, but 21 are scheduled to count more votes tomorrow. The race might not be decided until Wednesday, when counties are required to certify the vote, and an automatic recount still is possible.

State law requires a recount if the difference between the candidates' totals is less than one-half of 1 percent of the total votes cast in the race and less than 2,000 votes.

After nearly 80,000 ballots were counted statewide yesterday, Rossi's lead grew slightly to nearly 3,500 votes. His edge is slightly more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the 2.7 million votes cast in the race.

Gregoire got another big boost in King County, where she picked up nearly 60 percent of the nearly 21,000 votes counted yesterday.

But Rossi held his ground by extending his lead in nearly all other counties that reported yesterday, including Pierce, Snohomish, Spokane and Clark counties. He also pulled ahead for the first time in Grays Harbor County and leads in 32 of 39 counties.

About two-thirds of the outstanding ballots are in counties where Rossi is leading. But a large percentage of those are provisional ballots, which are given to voters when problems or questions arise on Election Day.

Gregoire and the Democrats think the provisional votes will fall heavily in her favor.
 
Both parties are contacting absentee voters who have been informed either that they failed to sign the envelope containing their ballot or that there was a question about whether their signature on the envelope matched their voter-registration signature. Election officials are matching the signatures as part of the process in counting provisional ballots.

The campaigns are urging selected voters to verify their signatures at county election offices so their votes will be counted.

Provisional-ballot voters who want to learn whether their vote was accepted can match their ballot-receipt number to a list of ballots that have been counted.

In King County, the information will be on the election Web site, www.metrokc.gov/elections, and will be available by phone at 206-296-8683 (VOTE).

Dean Logan, King County's director of elections, said political parties have made similar efforts in other close contests, including the 2000 U.S. Senate race between Slade Gorton and Maria Cantwell.

In that race, Gorton led by nearly 4,000 votes on election night, but Cantwell overtook him and, after a mandatory recount, won by 2,229 votes.

Nick Handy, state director of elections in the state Office of the Secretary of State, said Democratic and Republican observers at the King County election office were disputing the standards used in deciding which absentee and provisional ballots should be counted.

Because a majority of King County voters support Gregoire, Democrats want as many provisional votes counted as possible, while Republicans hope to keep the vote count down, Handy said.

It is widely believed that provisional voters lean Democratic because they include a disproportionate number of college students.

Ralph Thomas: 360-943-9882 or rthomas@seattletimes.com