Reply #55: WA Recount: Keep eye on the goal

[dzika]

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Keep eye on the goal

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

-snip-
The Washington Supreme Court convenes today to consider the King
County recount case. The resulting ruling may well be a rather cut
and dried pronouncement that Pierce County Superior Court Judge
Stephanie Arend should not have read into the high court's decision
last week any prohibition on county canvassing boards reconsidering
erroneously rejected ballots.

If, however, the justices presume to take on the broader decision of
which ballots should be counted, we trust they'll keep their eyes on
this -- or any other election's -- paramount goal.

-snip-
The goal is to as accurately as possible determine the will of the
governed, as represented by the ballots cast by the voters. Even in
pursuit of that goal, some ballots must be excluded: ballots of
those voters who failed to sign them or get them in on time, voted
twice or were blatantly incorrect in marking their ballots or failed
to make their intent clear.

The ballots of those voters who cast them correctly and on time but
were not tallied because of elections officials' errors must be
counted now.

There is no sustainable argument for disenfranchising these voters.

In at least five Washington counties, legitimate ballots not counted
in the original tally were added to the recount. Why, then,
disenfranchise King County voters? To keep Gregoire from winning?


Link:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/204699_govoted.html