election scrutiny in Washington state -

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow - the governor's race in Washington state is quite something to
watch.  It is between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine
Gregoire.  The lead changed back and forth several times during the
counting, including twice on the last day of the official count,
yesterday.

Out of 2.8 million votes, and 1371414 for the winner, the margin of
victory was 261 votes.  That's 0.0019% (of the winner's total).

For a story about some of the procedural decisions being made, see

  http://www.columbian.com/11182004/front_pa/212956.html

Even though it takes a much smaller margin for a recount (2000 votes,
or .015% in this case), there will be one in this case.  This will be
one of the great case-studies in the nation this year on how counties
and parties and perhaps the courts deal with close races.

Official results are at
 http://vote.wa.gov/general/statewide_results.aspx?o=7FR30bVZqpnn5rCqJv1pVg%3D%3D

A history of blow-by-blow in-depth prediction and analysis of the
results is on at least three blog sites:

 http://www.soundpolitics.com/
 http://www.timothygoddard.com/blog/
 http://www.horsesass.org/

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
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