No sign of proof amid the pomp

WENATCHEE — The trial to end all political trials had barely begun here yesterday when a force more powerful than caffeine descended on it.

Disappointment. Two hours in, people started yawning. Some split for a jolt of bright sunshine.

When several fell fast asleep, even after lawyers had reminded the courtroom of the profound importance of this historic day, it hit me. This trial isn't going to prove anything.

Yes, there presumably will be a verdict, followed by appeals and then more verdicts. All of which hopefully will help resolve who gets to be governor, Christine Gregoire or Dino Rossi.

But I was hoping we'd learn answers to some larger, more important questions. Such as:

• Who really got the most votes?

• Was this election stolen?

• Is the vote-counting system broken, and, if so, how?

Despite the questioning under oath of more than 70 people and the collection of hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence, the opening day strongly hinted that this trial won't help put the 2004 election behind us.

You've gotta hand it to the Republicans. They started off audaciously, accusing King County elections officials of "outright fraud" to steal the election from Rossi.

"Somebody stuffed the ballot box!" said GOP attorney Dale Foreman, promising Judge John Bridges that he could prove it.

This was the moment the crowd would have gasped — had there been a real "crowd," consisting of real people, instead of just reporters, lawyers and political-party operatives.

The air completely went out of the joint when it became clear there would be no direct evidence to support this charge. No witnesses who saw the stuffing, or even heard about it. No display of phony ballots.

Instead, the GOP will present a statistical analysis suggesting that vote-counting "errors" in several King County precincts fit a pattern favoring Gregoire, while if they were truly errors they should be random.

I believe in this sort of analysis, as it underlies much of science. The problem is that there are possible innocent explanations for what the stats show. To come into court and declare fraud without any direct evidence is bold, to say the least.

If the stolen-election story seems dubious, so too are Democratic claims that the election was competently conducted. King County tops the list for snafus, but lawyers for both sides cited vote-counting errors in almost every county.

"I feel like I'm running in quicksand here," the judge said at one point, frustrated at the tedious pace of the trial.

When we're done, what will we have?

Unless you're just rooting for one candidate or the other, the options don't seem good. This trial won't tell us who won. It likely won't prove that the election result should be tossed, or convince us that it should stand. Like the judge said: quicksand.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com