November's election day is long gone, but Monday a judge
approved a recount in the Governor's race in Washington state.
Republicans are the ones asking for yet-another re-count. And they're using they're own mathematical extrapolations to establish a need.
What's even stranger is a judge approved their bizarre formula for extrapolating a more correct number...
The GOP is contesting "unverified provisional ballots" as well as votes they say were cast by felons or dead people. Here's the plan the judge approved.
Using proportional analysis, they want the court to subtract illegal votes from both candidates' totals according to precinct voting patterns. For example, if 10 illegal votes came from a precinct that voted 60 percent for Gregoire and 40 percent for Rossi, six votes would be deducted from Gregoire's total and four from Rossi's.Democrats said the method amounts to statistical guessing.
It's sad that there's not a standard in place that can generate a reliable count of votes. After all the talk about voting reform, there's still these challenges.
It's doubly sad that the judge has dreamed up this complicated scheme to approximate what a reliable count might have looked like. Ultimately this amounts to a do-over -- whichever party can uncover the most contestable votes is declared the new winner.