(
Crossposted at Preemptive Karma)
First they had to contend with
this story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praising King County (the GOP whipping boy) for their "very accurate" election results.
Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack praised King County for having a 99.8% accuracy rate. McCormack also noted that the voter/ballot variance issue (that we've discussed
here and
here at length) is little more than a
red herring. She further noted that such variances are bookeeping issues and have nothing to do with the ballot counting:
"It has nothing to do with the ballot-counting. It's a separate process," she said this week. A nationally recognized authority on election administration and reform, McCormack made the comments in an interview given at the urging of King County election officials.
The criticism, she said, is "maligning the accuracy of the count based on something that has nothing to do with the accuracy of the count."
And to top it off, the Republican Secretary of State agreed with McCormack's contentions:
Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, and Bob Bruce, King County's former elections director, likewise said yesterday that the discrepancy for which King County is being criticized is unrelated to election accuracy.
More bumpy roads are ahead for the Republicans and Dino Rossi in their bid to overturn the election as well. Chelan Superior Court Judge John Bridges refused set a court date for April. Thus the GOP's attempt to have an abridged conclusion to their court filing was dashed.
Bridges also refused a Democratic attempt to gain clarification on his previous rulings (PDF file) regarding the tabulation of "illegal" votes.
Rossi's spokesperson Mary Lane has worked overtime to spin today's events into a win for Rossi. A win? I guess if the threshold for "win" is losing the main piece of your court argument for today and having your PR spin completely eviscerated by an expert is a win.....