Heard this on the morning radio... the story below is from King 5 TV's website.
King County election officials will enter a locked "cage" in a warehouse this morning to look for a plastic mail tray they believe contains up to 162 misplaced absentee ballots.
Elections Director Dean Logan said the ballots, like 573 other ballots that were improperly rejected, were set aside because workers couldn't find voter signatures that corresponded to them.
But unlike the other ballots, these apparently were left behind and forgotten. The original 573 votes were mistakenly identified as having mismatched signatures and then disqualified.
If the ballots are found, it means King County could count up to 735 ballots that have not been counted in the two previous tallies. That could give a significant advantage to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire in a county where she holds a strong lead over Republican Dino Rossi.
Logan said election workers will enter the warehouse cage at 9:30 a.m., with Republican and Democratic observers present.