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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=105174&mesg_id=105174http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=105119&mesg_id=105119http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=108291&mesg_id=108291From king5.com:
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Less than a day after Democrat Christine Gregoire vowed to concede the race for governor unless Democrats come up with enough money for a full rather than partial vote recount, her party said it had the money to do so.
The party also is heading to the state Supreme Court to seek a ruling that all ballots be treated the same from county to county.
Top-ranking Democratic sources said the party has raised the necessary $700,000-plus to recount all 2.9 million votes cast for governor on Nov. 2 - not just votes in selected counties. A flood of online contributions put the party over the top, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
State Democrats scheduled a news conference for 2 p.m. to announce the news.
Gregoire said Thursday that she would concede the race to Republican Dino Rossi if her party chose to ask that only some counties or precincts to counted..
“If they can’t raise enough money to do a statewide recount manual recount, then I’m not interested in a recount at all,” said Gregoire.
"I want the voters to feel good about the results because all of the votes have been counted in every part of the state and they have confidence that the next governor is the dually elected governor," Gregoire said.
In a sternly worded public statement to her party, Gregoire told party leaders on Thursday to stop talking about a partial recount of an election that ended with her 42 votes behind Republican Dino Rossi.
“My request of the state Democratic Party is simple: Count the entire state or don’t count at all,” she said in the statement released by her campaign office. “Counting every vote is the only right thing to do.”
In an AP interview later, she was even stronger, “I’m saying that at 5 o’clock (Friday), if they haven’t called for a statewide recount, I’m done.”
Gregoire, 57, the three-term attorney general, trailed Rossi, 45, a former state Senate power, by just 42 votes after a machine recount was certified last week. Rossi won the initial vote count by 261 ballots, a margin so close it triggered the mandatory machine recount.
Rossi and the Republican Party have urged Gregoire to concede.
The party requesting a further hand recount must pay for it, at roughly 25 cents per ballot.
The Democrats have been scrambling to come up with more than $1 million to pay for the full manual recount. By late Thursday they had about $650,000 of the approximately $750,000 deposit that would be required by the state’s 5 p.m. Friday deadline, said Kirstin Brost, state Democratic Party spokeswoman.
Party leaders had said they agreed with Gregoire, but stopped short of offering any guarantees, saying they were looking for $100,000.
“It is absolutely our goal to do a statewide count and if we have the money, we’re going to do it,” Brost said Thursday.
“We’ve said we would raise as much as we can and then call for as much (of a recount) as we can afford.”
State law allows a manual recount of individual or multiple precincts or counties.
The fund-raising drive got a big boost when the party’s unsuccessful presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, donated $250,000 of his leftover campaign funds. The Democratic National Committee and other donor groups are helping.
As of Thursday morning, the state party had received $135,000 in online contributions, with more than 10,000 contributors, Brost said.
In addition to paying for the hand recount, the party faces legal bills and staff costs, driving the total to more than $1 million, she said.
Gregoire and her party have been under pressure to count the full state, rather than “cherry pick” selected counties to try to overturn the election. Outgoing Gov. Gary Locke and other elected officials, as well as many newspaper editorial pages, have urged the party to count all 6,686 precincts.
“I know it would be cheaper for the party to do a limited hand recount,” Gregoire said. “And I know it would be possible to just count a few counties and put me in the lead.
“That doesn’t work for the voters of our state. From the beginning, this has been about getting all the votes counted so we can know for sure who won the governor’s race.”
She added, “It is imperative that we send the message, ‘Every vote, everywhere, must be counted.’ No games.”
The two parties exchanged testy comments about the Democrats’ letter to Secretary of State Sam Reed demanding a fresh review of ballots that were previously rejected by canvassing boards.
Attorney David Burman said hundreds of provisional ballots and more than 1,500 absentee ballots were rejected in King County alone and that counties didn’t handle disputed ballots uniformly.
In the letter, state Democrats threatened legal action if every county isn’t allowed to re-examine discarded ballots, a policy used in King and other major counties but not in the majority of the state.
Former Republican Governor Dan Evans said the Democrats are trying to change the rules too late in the game.
"I think that we will see lawyers in every county, I think we will see of hassling of individual ballots just like in Florda four years ago, I think we will see challenges of almost everything," said Evans.
Republicans pointed to a line in Burman’s letter that said:
“Pre-recount litigation is an option, but we hope your office will do everything possible to keep that from becoming necessary.”
Republican state Chairman Chris Vance said the threat of lawsuits and the demands about expanding the ballot count could amount to “an out-and-out attempt to steal the election.”
Gregoire and the Democrats said they have no intention of lengthy litigation, but want the next recount to be accurate—and final.
Barring legal complications, a recount could start next week and end by Dec. 23. If state Democrats raise the required money, the actually full hand recount will take several weeks.
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