County Chair Finds That Own Ballot Was Rejected
Washington Hand Recount Continues
Published December 13th 2004 in Channel 6 News New Orleans

SEATTLE -- To King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips, the question of whether to reconsider rejected ballots in the election for Washington governor is more than academic.

Phillips was checking the names of constituents whose votes had been rejected and discovered his own name on the list.

Phillips says he thought he did everything right when he voted. "If it can happen to the King County Council chairman, it can happen to anyone else," he said. Officials say Phillips' absentee ballot apparently was yanked for lack of a signature on file with the county elections office.

Rejected ballots could loom large in the manual recount of ballots. An initial tally showed republican Dino Rossi defeating democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes, and a machine recount cut his margin of victory to 42 votes.

The state Supreme Court is hearing a Democratic Party move to order that rejected ballots be reconsidered by county canvassing boards. Republicans are resisting the move, which state election officials say could delay the recount into next year.

Without reconsideration of rejected ballots, officials have said the hand recount should be done by Christmas
IRV Soars in Twin Cities, FairVote Corrects the Pundits on Meaning of Election Night '09
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers.  Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections;  the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.

And as pundits try to make hay out of the national implications of Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections, Rob Richie in the Huffington Post concludes that the gubernatorial elections have little bearing on federal elections.

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