Note: This thread is a continuation of Another milestone for our state government....
which was locked by the moderator.

GOP focuses on election "fraud"
By David Postman
Seattle Times chief political reporter

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002286230_trial24m.html


WENATCHEE — The first-ever trial to settle a disputed Washington governor's election opened yesterday with Republicans launching a broad and bold attack on King County, alleging that "sinister" fraud and corruption "up the food chain" robbed Dino Rossi of the governor's office.

Judge John Bridges was quick to rein in such talk. He said fraud charges, which could make it easier for Republicans to get the November election thrown out, have not been part of the Republican case and can't simply be added now.

Bridges said he would allow Republicans to introduce evidence against King County, but as of now it won't be considered fraud in his courtroom. That matters because a fraud claim would not require Republicans to show that King County's actions specifically cost Rossi votes or gave Democrat Christine Gregoire her winning margin of 129 votes.

Without that, Republicans are required to show how actions by election workers, as well as illegal votes by felons and others, directly affected the candidates' vote totals.

Republicans made clear from their opening statement yesterday that fraud in King County is now the central claim of their case.

"The judge will wait ... to see if they connect the dots and show election fraud," said Thomas Ahearne, an attorney representing Secretary of State Sam Reed.

Republican attorney Dale Foreman conceded that Bridges' comments about fraud make it harder for Republicans to make their case. But he said they will continue to lay out allegations that King County's actions cost Rossi the race.

He alleged ballot stuffing in some precincts, disappearing ballots in others, and fraudulent documents, and said those amount to "a case of fraud by upper management of King County elections."

The Republican charges did not come as a complete surprise. Party officials have been saying recently that they would raise such issues at the trial.

But Foreman's opening statement yesterday was notable for the sharp language he chose and because he offered no direct evidence of fraud. He said the case will be made by circumstantial evidence.

"This election was stolen from the legal voters of this state by a bizarre combination of illegal voters and bumbling bureaucrats," Foreman said.

The lawsuit was filed in January by Rossi, state Republican Party chairman Chris Vance and other Republicans. Rossi won the initial count by 261 votes. He then won a machine recount by 42 votes. But Gregoire won the third and final count when a hand tally of nearly 3 million votes gave her a margin of 129 votes.

Since soon after the election, Republicans have criticized the King County elections staff for its inability to reconcile the number of ballots counted with the number of people shown as having voted Nov. 2.

Foreman said yesterday that county records show there were more ballots counted than voters recorded in the two precincts where Gregoire won the largest percentage of the votes. And in two of the three precincts where Rossi did the best, he said, the opposite was true: There were more voters than votes counted.

"That is not a random error," Foreman said, but proof of "partisan bias."

"King County's failure to accurately track the absentee ballots was not only unlawful but opened the door to ballots being lost or added to the process, and the evidence will show we think that both of those things happened," he said.

Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton used much of the Democrats' opening argument to urge Bridges to disallow the fraud charges.

"Fraud is not part of this case and it never has been," he told Bridges. "Obviously there is some desperation seeping into the petitioner's case."

He said Republicans are "hedging their bets" by taking a "loose collection of administrative errors" and calling it fraud.

"Every election has irregularities," Hamilton said. "They occur in every county in this state, in every state in this nation. This democracy of ours is not a perfect system, and we all recognize that."

The trial is the first time a contested governor's race has made it this far in the legal process. All sides have long agreed that whatever Bridges decides here, the case will be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Republicans are hoping that if Bridges nullifies the election, the appeal will happen in time for a new governor's election this fall.

The day quickly progressed from a recognition of the legal history being made, to the drama of the Republican claims of corruption and ballot-box stuffing, to an odd monotony.

Republican lawyers spent hours reading aloud a transcript of Secretary of State Reed's deposition. Foreman played the role of Reed; Mark Braden played several lawyers who asked the questions.

"If Mr. Braden gets tired of playing me I can play myself," Durkan told the judge.

Reed's attorneys objected to the attorneys reading only the portions they wanted to enter in the record, so the entire session was re-enacted for Bridges.

Bridges is struggling with how to keep the trial on schedule. He said he would spend the night reading the deposition of King County elections director Dean Logan, which may avoid another reading today.

"I feel like I'm running in quicksand here," Bridges told the attorneys.

Both sides have said they also want to help fix election problems, something that others fear is lost in the partisan clashes.

Assistant Attorney General Jeff Even, representing Reed, said what happens with the case will affect state elections for years.

Barnett Kalikow, an attorney representing the Klickitat County auditor and, he said, the auditor's "brothers and sisters throughout the state of both parties," said election officials made mistakes and failed to notice some made by other people.

"Human beings will do that," he said. But he said that until yesterday no one had accused election officials of trying to throw the election.

Kalikow, representing one of the few county officials who chose to stay involved in the case, told Bridges that his decision "will determine the outline of when and how judges get involved in elections in the future."

He said it'd be bad if judges got involved in all close races "because it politicizes the judiciary, and the perception always will linger that their political persuasion affected the outcome."

David Postman: 360-943-9882

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Rossi = Sore Loserman

According to this article the trial is being encouraged by the national parties

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=trial23m&date=20050523&query=rove

Rossi is a pawn of the minister of propaganda, who, in turn, also holds the leash for the chimp

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Doesn't surprise me.....some of the most loyal democrats on voting day have been dead for decades....

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

as opposed to the republicans who are only dead from the neck up



ohhhhhhh

All republicans are alive....Check the cemataries and you will find half the registered voting democrats

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Tracy, I swear that everytime I have seen the title of this thread I think, "Kafka". Then when I finally got around to reading the thread, all I can say is, "Nice!"

I've been laughing uncontrollably at your comment for a while now. It is profound and ironic on so many levels. So then……was Kafka a neo-con? Your comment inspired me to search the known universe for an on-line copy of The Trial, which I found at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/ktria11.txt, and which I previously read so long ago as to not remember but the most vague details. It’s a nice change of routine from the other 3 exercise in tedium-books I'm grazing through.

Here's the next installment....

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Leadoff witness key for GOP?
By David Postman

Seattle Times chief political reporter

Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002287879_trial25m.html


WENATCHEE — The King County elections employee who first admitted to producing a falsified ballot report will be the Republicans' leadoff witness today as they try to show the county bungled the vote count so badly that the governor's election should be overturned.

Nicole Way, the county's absentee-ballot supervisor, was subpoenaed to appear today. Republicans have high hopes for her testimony, saying she will begin to draw a link between the false report and higher-level elections officials, including elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens. She is on suspension from her job as the county investigates uncounted absentee ballots found long after the election.

Huennekens was on the stand for most of the day yesterday. With his terse answers, inability to recall some things and frequent objections from the Democratic attorney, Huennekens shed little light on the report and offered no new information.

He said he could not specifically remember what he knew about the falsified report before he gave it to the county canvassing board.

His deputy, Garth Fell, said in a sworn deposition that Huennekens knew the details beforehand.

"On the witness stand, he couldn't recall that information, which is surprising to me, and I think will be surprising to the court when the judge reads the deposition transcript from Garth Fell and hears Nicole Way testify," Republican attorney Rob Maguire said after court yesterday.

Huennekens wasn't asked directly about the most explosive of the charges Republicans leveled during opening arguments Monday — that someone illegally added ballots in some precincts and in others made them disappear.

"There's very little here except guessing," Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton said. "The judge said clear and convincing evidence is necessary to prove this case, and that is exactly what this is not."

Huennekens was on the stand long enough for both sides to try to elevate him to symbolic stature.

To Republicans, he is a key cog in an election administration that is at the least grossly incompetent and possibly corrupt, that cared little about preventing felons from voting and covered up evidence of problems with the vote count.

Maguire asked Huennekens a series of questions about the erroneous mail-ballot report and the county's continuing problems of keeping track of absentee ballots.

"Does King County know the true number of absentee ballots returned in the Nov. 2 general election?" Maguire asked.

Huennekens: "We physically have them. I don't know that we have an exact number of absentee ballots returned."

Democrats saw Huennekens as a dedicated public servant who did the best he could under a tough situation that resulted only in the sort of mistakes inevitable in a system where 300,000 people vote in polling places, and twice that many by mail.

"Is it possible with 300,000 people showing up on one day, being managed by 3,000 poll workers, that everything would work perfectly without any paperwork errors at all?" Hamilton asked Huennekens.

Huennekens: "I don't think it's conceivable for it to be absolutely perfect."

Hamilton: "Democracy is sometimes messy?"

Huennekens: "Sure, yeah."

Hamilton: "But you do your best to conduct the administration of the election in a fair and impartial manner?"

Huennekens: "Yes, I believe we do."

The trial opened Monday in a lawsuit filed by Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi and other Republicans who allege that he, and not Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, is the true winner of the election.

Rossi won the initial count in November by 261 votes. He then won a machine recount by 42 votes. But Gregoire won the third and final count when a hand tally of nearly 3 million votes gave her a margin of 129 votes.

The trial is set to last nine days.

Republicans won an important fight over evidence yesterday but today will face an even bigger test.

Yesterday, Bridges said Republicans could enter evidence that King County records show 875 more absentee ballots counted than voters recorded as having voted by mail.

Democrats wanted that excluded because they said it was not included in earlier filings when Republicans were required to list all their alleged illegal votes.

The evidence is key to the Republican claim that ballots were improperly added in some precincts and "disappeared" from others.

"It cannot be that the election contest statute prohibits litigating the classic ballot box stuffing scenario," Republicans said in a brief filed with Bridges.

Tentatively scheduled for this afternoon is a hearing on whether Republicans' expert witnesses can testify about felon voters.

Republicans want to apportion felon voters by the same percentage as the legal vote in any given precinct. They have two academic experts ready to testify that that is a sound, scientific basis for determining how illegal votes benefited each candidate.

Democrats, though, say the evidence is flawed and should not be allowed. In a brief filed late yesterday, Democrats say Republicans offered no proof that it's a reliable assumption that illegal votes would break down the same way as legal votes.

Democrats also say the list of felons the experts used for their analysis "is an incomplete and biased representation of the illegal votes cast in the 2004 election" because it focused on areas where Gregoire did well and ignored Rossi strongholds.

Before bringing Huennekens to the stand, Republicans questioned Chelan County Auditor Evelyn Arnold about how her county administers elections.

It was an effort to draw a comparison with the story Republicans knew Huennekens would tell.

"Have you ever had more votes cast than voters?" asked Republican party attorney Dale Foreman.

Arnold: "No."

Foreman: "If you had more votes cast than voters, would that be a problem?"

Arnold: "Yes, I would consider that a problem."

Democrats pointed out, though, the obvious differences in running an election here, with 29,000 votes cast by mail and at seven polling sites, and in King County, where about 900,000 votes were cast by mail and at 540 polling sites.

Democratic party attorney Jenny Durkan took Arnold through a series of questions to show that felons voted in Chelan County in November, despite Arnold's best efforts, and that "doesn't necessarily mean Chelan County did anything wrong."

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Go for it! Chant something like freedom for the Ballard locks!

It'll freak out everyone

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Numbers speak for themselves, GOP says
By David Postman

Times chief political Reporter;

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002289056_trial26m.html

WENATCHEE — At the close of day three in the governor's election trial yesterday, the essence of the Republican case alleging ballot stuffing and stealing was projected on a large screen: eight columns and 12 rows of figures on half of a folded piece of paper.

Attorneys didn't finger any suspects or lay out a plot. And the numbers were shown only after a skeptical Judge John Bridges said the Republican witness who had them was walking a thin line between sticking to the stats and giving his opinion about what they meant.

"The saying is 'trying to lick honey from the edge of a razor blade,' I think," Bridges had cautioned.

The figures on the screen showed discrepancies in absentee-ballot counts from 11 King County precincts. In some of the precincts, the county recorded more absentee ballots counted than there were voters recorded as having voted absentee. In others, the opposite occurred: The county recorded more voters as having voted than it did ballots counted.


The key, Republicans said, was to look closely at the precincts where the greatest discrepancies occurred. Precincts with the largest numbers of excess ballots were some of Gregoire's strongest precincts, judging by the share of the vote she got. Precincts with the largest number of excess voters — where there wasn't a ballot counted for every voter logged as voting — were Rossi strongholds.

That, Republican attorney Mark Braden said later, is all that's needed to show someone illegally added ballots in Gregoire precincts and took them from Rossi precincts. He says Republicans don't need to show who did it or how it was done.

"Do I have a theory? No," he said. "I don't know how it happened. I do not know why we have a nonrandom pattern."

Democratic Party attorney David Burman tried to stop the figures from being introduced as evidence in Chelan County Superior Court. He said the Republican witness, D.C.-based Republican consultant Clark Bensen, was being improperly used as an expert witness.

He said showing just 11 precincts, and including the percent of Rossi's vote in those precincts, is the sort of thing "statistical science has spent many, many years analyzing because of the tendency of lay people to jump to conclusions that are in fact not valid."

The judge overruled Burman's repeated objections, saying he was waiting to see how the evidence fit into the Republicans' larger case.

"I understand the objection and it may be valid but I can't drive petitioners' case here," Bridges said. "If they can tie it up, I guess that's their business at this point."

He said Bensen could testify about the numbers and added, "whether that has any meaning in the ozone is something that will remain to be seen."

Rossi and Republicans filed what is formally known as an election contest petition in January. Rossi had won the initial vote count and a machine recount. Gregoire won a hand recount, was declared the winner, and took office in January.

The third day of what is scheduled to be a nine-day trial was marked by several bits of commentary by Bridges along the lines of razor blades and the ozone. He pushed attorneys to keep to a schedule and at times seemed to be feeling the burden of the case.

When Democratic attorney Jenny Durkan said a document should not be entered as evidence because a witness could not say for sure it was accurate, Bridges said if he applied a 100 percent accuracy test to everything in the election contest, "there'd be no evidence in this case."

Calling for a brief recess, Bridges told a witness she could step down but joked she should not run off.

"Even though I may want to run off with you," he said.

At midday he told the attorneys he was "worried about you folks" and asked if they were getting any sleep. And he chose to end the day a bit early by saying, "I'm pretty tired right now."

Most of the day was taken up with the testimony of Nicole Way, King County's mail-ballot supervisor.

Her appearance here has been anticipated for two weeks — ever since she gave a deposition saying she and her boss had submitted a flawed ballot summary report.

Much of her time on the stand was taken up with questions about the report and what she and her boss, assistant elections superintendent Garth Fell, did before and after deciding what numbers to plug into the report.

The problem was they didn't know for sure how many absentee ballots had been returned to the county by voters.

When they had to come up with that number, they added the number of ballots counted and the number rejected, and said that was how many had been returned, meaning the report balanced perfectly.

But in late March and early April, county workers found 95 uncounted absentee ballots still in their envelopes, showing the report was wrong.

There were a lot of questions about whether Way knew the number was false when she and Fell issued the report.

Bridges asked her a series of questions in his most direct involvement with a witness yet.

"I'm sorry to beat this to death, but I want to make sure I have it straight in my mind what this is all about," he told Way.

Way told Bridges that she didn't know the report was wrong until the uncounted ballots were found in the spring.

But Republican Party attorney Harry Korrell read from Way's deposition, where she talked about consulting with Fell.

"We discussed how to fill out this report because we didn't have an accurate number of ballots returned," Way said in the deposition.

Way's last question on the stand came from Durkan, who asked if she wanted to explain the apparent discrepancy.

Way, her voice cracking after hours on the witness stand, said: "It was as accurate as it could be. I was concerned it was wrong, but I didn't know there were ballots unaccounted for in this report until the 95 were found."

Braden, the Republican attorney, said Way's testimony was important because the unreliable mail-ballot system and the fudged report opened the door to wrongdoing.

"Certainly what she did made it possible for people to commit fraud," Braden said on the courthouse steps. "I cannot point to anybody who committed fraud. We're just saying clearly the opportunity was there and it looks suspicious."

Bridges ruled on Monday that there is no official fraud claim in the legal challenge.

And J. Vander Stoep, an attorney and close adviser to Rossi, said as soon as Braden finished his interview, "We don't have to prove fraud to win this case."

He said even if the judge accepts that the errors in King County really are random, it would show enough mistakes and neglect by election officials to overturn the election.

Democrats, though, said what's on the record so far doesn't amount to enough to have affected the outcome of the election.

"They just don't have any evidence of anything," said Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton. "Saying there were accounting lapses that could have allowed something to happen is not clear and convincing evidence that anything happened."

David Postman: 360-943-9882 or dpostman@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

My favorite line from above is "Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton used much of the Democrats' opening argument to urge Bridges to disallow the fraud charges."

I *think* he ment to write "Democrat attorney....." LOL

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Judge won't dismiss lawsuit
By David Postman

Seattle Times chief political reporter


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002291640_trial28m.html

WENATCHEE — Judge John Bridges rejected the Democrats' call yesterday to dismiss the governor's election lawsuit at the halfway point of the first Washington trial to overturn a statewide election.

Bridges said it would be a disservice to Republicans if he stopped the case. He said both sides deserve "a full and complete analysis, not only of the court's finding of facts but as to the court's conclusions of law."

The trial will determine whether Democrat Christine Gregoire or Republican Dino Rossi truly won the November election. But Bridges said it is about issues bigger than the candidates or the political parties.

"The case most pointedly involves Mr. Rossi and Ms. Gregoire's desire to be the governor of the state of Washington," he said. "It's very important to each of those individuals. And almost, if not as important, is the desire of their respective constituents to have them be governor of the state of Washington.

"This case, however, also has another element that is, I think, as important, and that is what the citizens or residents of the state of Washington expect when there is an election contest filed."

Through five days of trial, Bridges has shown himself to be skeptical of key pieces of the Republican case. And while at each step he has allowed disputed evidence to be entered and witnesses to appear, Republicans yesterday tried shifting the legal basis for their lawsuit and saying they want Bridges to reverse himself on a key decision about burden of proof.

Republicans say it should be enough to show the election count was flawed to the point that the true winner of the governor's race is unknown. Bridges disagrees, saying Republicans need enough evidence to show that Rossi is the true winner — which is the decision he made at a pretrial hearing and then repeated in a clarification from the bench at a hearing May 2.

Bridges said in his clarification that the only state election-contest case that didn't require proof that the outcome would be reversed was the state Supreme Court decision in 1975's Foulkes v. Hays, a disputed Adams County Commission race.

Republican attorney Harry Korrell said in court yesterday Bridges is misreading the case.

"With all due respect to your honor and this court, the Foulkes case ... compels rather than precludes you setting aside this election," Korrell said. "It is for the Supreme Court to decide that Foulkes and its interpretation of the contest statute should be changed."

In arguing against the Democrats' motion to dismiss the case, Korrell told the judge there is plenty of strong evidence the election should be overturned.

He said that in an election decided by 129 votes, "it is reasonable to be exceedingly suspicious" about things such as King County records that show 875 more absentee ballots cast than people recorded as having voted by absentee ballot.

Korrell also continued to hammer on what Republicans have said this week are discrepancies in the number of votes cast and number of voters, saying that's evidence of fraud.

"In a case with these huge discrepancies and a disturbing pattern in some of them, if the court dismisses this case at this stage, then Washington has no meaningful election-contest statute," Korrell said.

Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton wanted Bridges to dismiss the case, saying there was nothing to back up the Republicans' central claims.

"There's utterly no testimony that any absentee ballots were taken or any absentee ballots were added," Hamilton said. "Mr. Korrell's suggestion and implication and inference and suspicion as he stands here at this podium is not evidence."

Hamilton also countered the argument that Bridges should revisit the burden-of-proof issue, saying that was one of many issues the judge settled before the trial opened.

"It's settled that petitioners must show more than just errors, more than just frustration with a new computer system, more than just rumor and innuendo," Hamilton said. " 'Could have' is not sufficient. One can always speculate."

Bridges said he denied the motion to dismiss, in part, because he agreed with Thomas Ahearne, a lawyer representing Secretary of State Sam Reed. Ahearne told Bridges the case should be decided on a full, not half, record, "so we can put this issue to rest one way or the other once and for all."

Republicans filed the election-contest petition in January after a hand recount of the closest governor's race in the nation's history showed Gregoire the winner by 129 votes. Rossi had won the initial count by 261 votes and a machine count by 42 votes.

The trial is scheduled to run through Friday.

The Democratic motion to dismiss came as Republicans rested their case yesterday. After Bridges' ruling, Democrats called several county auditors and election officials to talk about problems they faced in the November election and subsequent three counts.

Democrats were trying to make two points: that errors Republicans say looked suspicious in King County are a normal part of any election, and that errors in King County that might have benefited Gregoire are offset by the same sorts of problems in Rossi strongholds around the state.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Funny, me too. Except when I finally got around to reading the thread, all I can say is, "Same old crap..."

__________________
1982 Mercedes-Benz 300CD
1982 Mercedes-Benz 240D - stick

I'll bet "K" said to himself, too.

Secretary of State's Office is not neutral, GOP says
By David Postman

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002294756_trial01m.html

Seattle Times chief political reporter

WENATCHEE — A Republican attorney grilled the state elections director on cross-examination yesterday in a move designed to show the Secretary of State's Office is "masquerading as being neutral" in the governor's election lawsuit.

Attorney Dale Foreman, in some of the toughest exchanges of the trial, said elections director Nick Handy was cheerleading for county auditors and secretly siding with Democrats. Foreman showed an e-mail in which Handy said early this year that he wanted to "severely undermine the confidence of the court" in key Republican arguments.

Republicans allege illegal votes, errors and fraud by election officials marred the election that ended with Democrat Christine Gregoire winning the governor's office by 129 votes.

Republicans pushed hard yesterday on Handy, who said he was neutral, because they say Judge John Bridges relies too heavily on guidance from attorneys for Handy's boss, Secretary of State Sam Reed.

They want to shake Bridges' confidence in Reed's legal team.

Foreman said after court recessed that Bridges looks to attorneys Thomas Ahearne and Jeff Even "because he thinks they're neutral. I wanted to turn that around and say 'You're not neutral.' We thought it was time to call a spade a spade."

Foreman said he assumes the secretary of state's attorneys will side with Democrats at the trial's end, asking Bridges to let the election stand. Ahearne yesterday said the office has been neutral and has not made a decision about whether it will take a position at the end of the trial, which is expected Friday.

"They want to support the status quo while masquerading as neutral," Foreman said.

There's no question the Secretary of State's Office has been influential with Bridges. The judge often looks to Ahearne in particular for guidance and has acknowledged that from the bench.

Ahearne and Even have presented arguments on both sides of the case, though. On Friday, Ahearne argued against a Democratic motion to dismiss the case, citing the importance of developing a full record of evidence for an expected appeal. When Bridges ruled against the motion, he mentioned Ahearne's argument.

Reed's lawyers also have backed Republicans on key decisions about felon voters and the use of circumstantial evidence to estimate how many illegal votes each candidate got.

The Secretary of State's Office has played an unusual role throughout the postelection dispute. Even before this case, Reed, a Republican, had been sued by each of the political parties over election-related issues. And earlier this year, Republicans were unhappy with a series of decisions by Reed, with some high-level supporters of Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi accusing him of being disloyal.

"Considering how many motions we have sided with the Republicans on, I think it'd be rather amazing to characterize us as taking the Democrats' side," said Even, an assistant attorney general.

Democratic Party attorney Jenny Durkan said Foreman was aiming to get Bridges to reconsider one decision by trying to "convince the court it was somehow tricked into making that ruling." That decision, backed by the secretary of state, dealt with voter crediting, the process for recording whether voters cast ballots in a given election.

The election lawsuit was filed in January by Rossi, Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance and other Republicans. They named Reed, the state's chief election official, as a respondent. Democrats then intervened as respondents to defend Gregoire's election.

Handy testified yesterday as a witness for the Democrats. They wanted him to help establish that problems in the election were mistakes, not fraud, and are a part of any close vote.

Handy volunteered that he thought the most serious mistake of the election was the decision by King County election supervisors to submit a falsified mail-ballot report to the state. The supervisors, Nicole Way and her boss Garth Fell, fabricated one number on the report when a series of numbers didn't reconcile properly. "I think that was one of the most serious mistakes made in the election," Handy said.

But even then he wasn't as critical as Reed, who had earlier called it "appalling."

Under questioning by Durkan, Handy said he disagreed with that characterization.

"What I saw were for the most part inadvertent mistakes and errors by human beings who are working their hearts out to deliver a fair and impartial" election, Handy said.

That is the essence of the Democrats' defense of the election.

The heart of Foreman's questioning was about a January e-mail Handy sent to Ahearne, a Seattle attorney on contract as one of the secretary of state's attorneys in the case.

In the e-mail, Handy disputed Republican claims that discrepancies in voter crediting were evidence of a serious problem:

"I expect this will be a major issue raised by the Republicans as they have built their entire public affairs campaign ("Every Vote Should Have a Voter") around this theme and have worked it hard. If we can successfully demonstrate that this is an unfounded claim, I would hope that this would severely undermine the confidence of the court in the other R claims," Handy wrote.

In a testy exchange with Foreman, Handy said he believed Republicans were "manipulating information" to undermine public confidence in the election.

"You're neutral?" Foreman asked Handy.

When Handy repeated that he was, Foreman barked, "How can you say that? You are under oath."

Durkan objected to Foreman's questions, and the judge upheld the objection.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"