recount

A judge turned down the House Republican Organizational Committee’s lawsuit yesterday seeking a restraining order on the counting of ballots in the 6th Legislative District race, but that will not deter them from going forward with their lawsuit to revisit the original ballots that were made into duplicates.

House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt (R-Chehalis) said that, because less than one percent of the more than 7,000 duplicate ballots would need to be incorrect in order to overturn John Driscoll’s 63 vote lead over Rep. John Ahern, the possible discrepancies need to be explored.

"I've always been an advocate of open government," DeBolt told PolitickerWA.com. "The last thing we need to do is have people not trust our election system."

The Spokane County canvassing board will meet this afternoon to decide on a key parameter of what will almost certainly be a hand recount in the 6th Legislative District race between state Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane) and Democrat John Driscoll. Driscoll leads by 63 votes at the moment, out of nearly 70,000 cast.

The board will be addressing whether or not a hand recount in the race, which would take place if the margin of victory was less than 0.25 percent, would include counting duplicate ballots, as has been done in the past, or original ballots that could not be read by the counting machine.

Duplicates are made if an error on the ballot, usually an overvote where an extra pen mark falls next to a candidate or perhaps a coffee stain, keeps the machine from counting the vote. These ballots are then reviewed by a team of two county elections workers who recreate a ballot based on the intent of the voter.