BREAKING: King County recount puts Gregoire on top

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Tuesday, December 21, 2004

King County recount puts Gregoire on top, Democrats say

By The Associated Press


OLYMPIA - Democratic State Party Chairman Paul Berendt says recount
results from King County give Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-
vote statewide victory over Republican Dino Rossi in the governor's
race.

The report is very preliminary, and neither King County nor the
Republican party could confirm the hand recount results tonight.

But if the Democrats' analysis is right, it's a stunning reversal of
fortune in the closest governor's race in Washington history. Rossi
won the first count by 261 votes and won the machine recount by 42
votes.

"We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of
the state of Washington," Berendt said. "I believe Dino Rossi should
concede."

Berendt and Democratic party officials reached the conclusion after
crunching numbers supplied by King County, and adding in the 320
ballots that were considered during Tuesday's canvassing board
meeting. King County has finished tallying its 900,000 ballots, but
election officials said they still need to reconcile differences in
the precinct totals.

"We are not releasing our results until tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.," said
King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan, who confirmed that
both parties received the recount data on Tuesday.

LINK:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002126929_webrecount21.html