WENATCHEE — Judge John Bridges kept Republicans' legal challenge to the November election alive yesterday when he said he would consider statistical analysis showing how many illegal votes each candidate likely got in the governor's race.

Without that circumstantial evidence, Republican attorney Mark Braden said, "We could not have gone to trial."

That's not what Republicans said before yesterday's hearing. They said their case was strong enough that they could attack the election results through other avenues.

But Republican Party attorney Rob Maguire said that other statements by Bridges yesterday made it clear that only the statistical evidence would work. Bridges said Republicans had to show that Dino Rossi was the rightful winner, and it was not enough to merely argue there were so many errors and illegal votes that the true winner could not be known.

As he has throughout the four-month run-up to the trial, which is set to begin May 23, Bridges gave both sides things to cheer and to worry about.

Though he ruled that Republicans can use a mathematical formula to show how many illegal votes each candidate likely received, he said Democrats will get the chance at a special hearing to challenge the specifics of the Republicans' expert testimony, and he still could exclude it from trial.

In another significant ruling, Bridges said Democrats could introduce evidence of election errors and illegal votes that may have helped Rossi. But he followed that quickly with an invitation to Republican attorneys to raise objections at trial if they have specific disputes with the Democrats' evidence.

He also largely sided with Democrats in setting standards for what each side will have to do to prove someone voted illegally.

Rossi filed the election lawsuit in January claiming that illegal votes and mistakes by election officials polluted the results of the November governor's election. He asked that the election be overturned and Gov. Christine Gregoire removed from office. Rossi was initially declared the winner of the November election, the closest governor's race in the nation's history. He won the first count by 261 votes and a machine recount by 42. But after a hand recount, Gregoire was declared the winner by 129 votes.

Democrats said they've found 432 felons who appear to have voted illegally in November. Republicans say they've found 946 felons.

The major issue at yesterday's hearing was Republicans' plan to use what they call proportional deduction to determine which candidate likely benefited from illegal votes by felons and others. They want to use expert testimony to show that illegal votes in any given precinct should be apportioned between Rossi and Gregoire at the same rate they won the overall vote in that precinct. The illegal votes would then be deducted from both candidates' totals.

"You have to permit the system to appear to be fair and let us put forward the evidence," Braden told Bridges.

Bridges agreed that Republicans should have the chance to introduce the evidence. He said there was nothing in state law or court precedent to keep it out as Democrats asked him to, and decisions in other states cited by Republicans resulted in mixed opinions on the validity of that sort of evidence.

"However, and this is an important however," Bridges told the attorneys, "the denial of this motion should not be interpreted as a pretrial ruling adopting the statistical analysis methodology. So everyone understands that; that's the ruling of the court."

The move follows a pattern Bridges established early in the case. He rules quickly from the bench, but just as quickly tries to rein in any attorney who might read too much into the decision.

In granting a hearing to examine the Republicans' expert testimony, Bridges said Democrats will be given a chance to cross-examine the academic experts who have concluded Rossi would win the election if the illegal votes were taken out of the count.

The Republican case now rests on the hearing about the expert testimony, known as a Frye hearing.

"I think their case is done if they fail the Frye hearing," Democratic Party attorney David Burman told the judge.

Democrats had argued that Republicans should be required to prove how each illegal vote was cast, either through testimony by the voters or by factoring in demographic information about each individual voter.

Burman told Bridges the Republican plan relies on chance.

Proportional analysis that "decides something by chance is not fair to the voters and is not consistent with the statute," Burman said. "Mathematical chances are not good enough."

DON SEABROOK / AP Republican attorney Dale Foreman, left, talks about voting irregularities with Democratic attorneys, from left, Jenny Durkan, Russ Spiedel and David Burman. This was part of a pretrial hearing in the Republicans' challenge of the governor's election last November.

If the expert testimony is accepted, though, the trial becomes largely one based on math. With Bridges' decision yesterday that Democrats can introduce their own evidence of illegal votes and errors, the case could be decided on how many votes each party finds to take away from the opponent.

Republicans had argued against Democrats' right to introduce evidence of errors, saying the issues should have been raised earlier or were settled in earlier legal rounds.

Maguire, the Republican attorney, said Democrats were trying to "sandbag" and had been "hiding the ball" by not disclosing earlier that they had evidence of errors that favored Rossi.

The judge said that since the state law governing challenges to elections requires illegal votes to be subtracted from each candidate, each side must have the chance to present evidence. And he said he didn't think Democrats were hiding evidence.

Both sides will have to hustle to meet the standards for evidence Bridges set yesterday.

AP Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges presided over a pretrial hearing yesterday in Wenatchee.

He ruled that any party alleging illegal votes will have to produce a copy of the voter's signature in a polling-place book or on the envelope of an absentee or provisional ballot.

The easier way would have been to show a voter was "credited" with voting, a step recorded on county registration rolls. That's the method Republicans relied on to find the more than 1,000 illegal votes they cite in their case.

Bridges said crediting is a "post-election administrative exercise" and "does not bear upon the authenticity of election results."

He denied motions from both parties regarding the proof that will be required at trial to show that disputed votes had, indeed, been cast by felons. But he set a standard much more to the liking of Democrats.

Republicans said it was enough to show a voter had been convicted of a felony and that there was no evidence in the court file that the felon's voting rights had been restored.

But Bridges said Republicans will have to present "clear and convincing" evidence and set out six standards, similar to what Democrats had proposed: that the voter was convicted as an adult; was convicted of a felony; was not given a deferred sentence; has not had his or her voting rights restored; that they cast a ballot in the November election and voted for a gubernatorial candidate.

He said he wants both sides to meet his list of standards "to the extent these elements can be established."

"I recognize that it may just simply be impossible to come up with all of these elements I have referred to," he said. But he told the attorneys, "come up with all you have."

In a session with attorneys after the hearing, Bridges said he will keep the trial in the courtroom despite earlier concerns about limited space.

He also changed his mind about televising the trial. He had earlier rejected a request from TVW, the cable channel that covers state government, to install three robotic cameras in the courtroom. Yesterday after a TVW representative answered questions about the technical setup, and with no objections from attorneys, Bridges said he would allow the cameras.

David Postman: 360-943-9882 or dpostman@seattletimes.com