It's Gregoire by 130; is it over? Rossi says this wasn't a clean election
Rossi might contest election results - Republicans concede that at this point it could be his only option

In the run-up to the election, many feared that this one would be too close to call as the last one was. Florida, ground zero in 2000, was considered a likely culprit was was Ohio. Many - including myself - feared that we would see the "sausage-making" of democracy again with an embittered result. Bush won by a sufficient margin in both states to appease all but the most extreme leftists and we had a winner the day after election day. Whew.

The state of Washington is pretty reliably Democratic and Kerry won by a significant margin there. For those of you out of the political look, however, the governor's race was considerably tigher - so tight that a winner was just declared for it. the short rift is that in the midst of the standard recounts, Democratic stronghold King County produced 1,200 previously uncounted ballots (they first discovered 700, which wasn't enough, then found 500 more) which was just enough to push Democrat Christine Gregoire from a 261 vote deficit to a 130 vote victory on the third vote tally of areas whose votes were favorable to the Democrat.

I've been interested in the Washington gubernatorial race for a couple of reasons. First, I'm a political nerd and even races that I'm not voting in interest me. Second, and of slightly more personal importance, there's a decent chance that two years from now I'll be living in Tacoma and will be living under the laws signed by the race's victor.

It is my natural inclination to say that this stinks to high heaven.

But let's be honest here. The four hundred vote swing was out of nearly three million ballots cast in total. Were it not for the mysteriously appearing ballots in King County, I wouldn't have thought a whole lot of the vote swinging a few hundred votes in the first recount. And honestly, if Washingtonians were truly clammoring for Republican Dino Rossi to become governor, he would have won by more than 261 votes to begin with. Washington was evenly divided.

There's been a lot of talk in the past four years over which ballots should count and which ones shouldn't. Democrats worked themselves in a fuss about making sure "every ballot counts" (except when it doesn't favor them) and Republicans have been equally concerned about illegally cast ballots (when they favor Democrats). While making sure legitimate ballots are counted and illegitimate ones are not are laudable goals, we must keep in mind that however sincere we are in fair elections there is inherently a margin of error.

Democrats have been highly critical of electronic voting, and not without reason. Four years ago Republicans were concerned about counting ballots based on who the voter "intended to vote for", also not without reason. But honestly we could have every voter vote three times (electronically, optically, and punch-cardily) and I can guarantee you that we would have three different vote totals. People screw up. A ballot that seems punched may not be. Anyone who's taken a scantron test knows how goofy optical ballots can be. Electronic ballots are subject to computer error, which is concern in and of itself. People forget. People get lazy. People don't always know what they're doing. And, apparently, ballots get lost.

Ideally, none of this would happen. But in the real world, it's not unreasonable to assume that one or two of every 100 ballots gets goofed up. It is reasonable to believe that unless we do away with anonymous voting that we will never know what the voter intended to do. We can chalk this all up to conspiracy theories or we can take reality for what it is and accept the fact that the stars will not always align in our favor. That Bush came out slightly ahead in 2000 does not mean that BUSH STOLE THE ELECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and similarly that it took two recounts and 1,200 ballots to surface does not mean that GREGOIRE STOLE THE ELECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rossi's original margin of victory in 2004 was a fraction of a percent. So was Bush's in Florida in 2000. So, for that matter, was Gore's national popular vote margin in 2000. Even Bush's "mandate" in 2004 was a couple percent, but even that's conceivably within the margin of error. If Bush, Gore, Rossi, or Gregoire had really truly been the choice of the people and not roughly half of the people, they would have won without any controversy.

Just like a controversial call by a referee in a close sports contest, sometimes the decisions are not made on the field or in the ballot box. Sometimes it's a tie.

It's tough to accept a close loss. It's easy to say "they cheated" and to repeat the mantra "president/governor-select" until you've alienated anyone that was sympathetic to your cause to begin with. You can certainly take your ball and go home, or you can pick up the pieces and try to cross the finish line in such a way that will not be determined by a photo finish or referees watching an instant replay until their heads explode.