Republican Dino Rossi filed a sweeping lawsuit today challenging Democrat Christine Gregoire's election as governor.

"It is clear this election is a mess," Rossi said this afternoon as he announced the lawsuit in Bellevue.

Rossi and the state Republican Party say a series of problems in King County, as well as evidence that votes were cast under the names of dead people and felons means a judge should throw out the Nov. 2 election and call for a new one.

"The counties have counted a huge number of invalid and illegal votes," said attorney Harry Korrell.

The suit was filed in Chelan County Superior Court.

Korrell said there is no doubt the case will end up at the state Supreme Court. But he said hearings before a judge are necessary to establish what happened in the election and he did not want to do that in the larger counties where most of the problems have been discovered.

"The election contest is not about trying to prove that anybody is out to steal the election," Rossi said. He does not claim a conspiracy.

But he said there are so many problems through the three counts of the nearly 3 million ballots cast that a new election is the only way to "help cleanse this process."

Asked how she felt about the GOP challenge, Gregoire said "I don't take any of this personally. I respect the rights of others to file an action in court. That's their right. I have to respect that, I'm the attorney general."

Gregoire reiterated that she's seen no proof of election fraud.

"Whatever has been said over the last few days, and every day it's a new issue that's been raised, I have yet to see any proof of any illegality on behalf of the election officials," she said. "They have acted in a consummate professional way."

Problems that have been uncovered in the election, she said "are in fact honest, potential mistakes. They are not fraudulent. They are not illegal."

Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, a key Rossi advisor, said it is not necessary to show fraud, only enough errors that puts the true outcome of the race in doubt.

"The number of votes cast questionably, illegally or mistakenly is vastly in excess of the 129 vote margin by which this election has been certified.," Gorton said.

Gorton said this week he was initially skeptical that a lawsuit could succeed. Votes by dead people and felons likely wouldn't have been enough to unseat Gregoire, he advised Rossi's team.

"Earlier this week when it looked like that was all there was, I said, 'Fine, go ahead, but you don't have an awful lot,'. " Gorton said.

He was much more optimistic after the discovery this week that an unknown number, perhaps hundreds, of provisional ballots were improperly fed into voting machines on Election Day.

Those ballots are given to voters who show up at the wrong polling place or whose registration is in question. They are supposed to be kept separate and secure from other ballots until election workers can determine if the voter is properly registered.

When the ballots were put in the counting machines, it became impossible to separate legitimate ballots from those that should have been disqualified.

The Republican challenge also could include the allegation that King County election workers improperly "enhanced" ballots when the voter intent was not clear, said Republican Party Attorney Peter Schalestock.

Rossi won the initial count after the election by 261 votes. That triggered an automatic machine recount that showed him the winner by 42 votes and he was declared governor-elect.

But a hand recount ordered by the Democratic Party reversed that, and put Gregoire up by 129 votes. She was certified governor-elect and is scheduled to be sworn in Wednesday.

The law gives any voter 10 days from that point to file what is called an election contest.

The type of challenge the GOP is planning would essentially put the election on trial, with a judge hearing testimony and taking evidence on allegations of fraud or error that resulted in enough "illegal votes" that the true outcome of the election is unknown.

A judge can throw out the claim, declare Rossi the winner or nullify the election and call for a new one.

Two people got the jump on the official Republican challenge and filed complaints with the Supreme Court.

One was from Dr. Arthur Coday Jr., a Shoreline pediatrician and Republican Party donor who did his own research and drafted his own complaint.

"It was an issue of conscience, to be honest," Coday said.

He was particularly bothered that state law allowed the Democrats to order a hand recount if they came up with the $730,000 or so needed as a deposit to cover the costs if the recount didn't reverse the results.

He said he read the state Constitution, which says elections should be "free and equal."

"Gosh, if private parties can get a recount if they pay and if they can't if they don't, there's something wrong with that. It's not free anymore."

The other complaint was filed by Daniel Stevens of Fall City. He said he filed his complaint Dec. 30, the day Gregoire was certified as governor-elect, and later sent the court the $250 filing fee.

King County Elections Director Dean Logan concedes there were mistakes made with provisional ballots. He said there may be as many as 350 that were improperly put in the vote-counting machine.

But, he said, it would be wrong to "come to a conclusion that those were invalid votes that would have tipped this election."

He said that up to 90 percent of provisional ballots countywide were found to be valid in this year's election, so only a small percentage of the 350 are likely illegitimate votes.

He also said that the county is continuing to reconcile its lists of people who voted Nov. 2 and the number of ballots cast. While there was a difference of about 3,500 in those lists, Logan said that by today it will be down to 1,200 to 1,500.

That, he said, is in line with past elections and what some other counties have seen, and does not present a ripe target for an election challenge.

"That does not clearly indicate that the election would have come out any differently," he said. "There are valid explanations for why there might be a discrepancy."

He will issue a report today detailing the numbers and the reasons for the remaining discrepancy.

An attorney for the Democrats said she doesn't think Republicans will find any strong evidence for an election contest.

"Suspicion is not proof," said Jenny Durkan, a Gregoire confidant representing the state Democratic Party. She is not worried about a judge throwing out the mishandled provisional ballots.

"There is a strong presumption in law that you don't throw out votes just because someone made a clerical mistake," she said. "There's not even a 50-50 chance a court would rule with Republicans to set aside this election."

But this election has seen several unprecedented turns. "That's the only thing that keeps me from saying there's no chance," she said.