I’m now a dis-enfranchised voter in the Washington State governor race. I never received my absentee ballot to vote in the last election in November and I had to send in my Presidential election ballot by using absentee ballots the Army provides. On those ballots soldiers just write down the address of their county clerk and mail it in. Being that my home of record is the People’s Republic of Washington (PRW for short) I wonder if that ballot ever got counted. The military ballots did not have an option to vote for governor races so I had no chance to vote. So I am dis-enfranchised! Where is Jesse Jackson when I need him? Somebody get Al Sharpton over here!

For those of you unfamilar with the governor race in Washington here is a summary from the Star & Stripes.

WASHINGTON — Washington state election officers and military officials say they have found no evidence of problems with overseas military absentee ballots, despite allegations that many may not have been delivered or counted.

“We’re seeing allegations made that large numbers of military voters did not get ballots, but we think that’s partisan rhetoric over a close election,” said Pam Floyd, assistant elections director for the state. “And we believe all military ballots signed by Washington voters and received were counted.”

But state Republicans believe that hundreds of overseas servicemembers never received their ballots, and that may have stolen the election from their gubernatorial candidate, Dino Rossi.

“We’re getting tons of calls and e-mails from troops overseas who didn’t receive their ballots, or who got them weeks after the election,” said Mary Lane, spokeswoman for Rossi. “We’re looking at a lot of disenfranchised military voters.”

Lane provided Stars and Stripes with complaints from 14 family members who have loved ones in the military, most deployed overseas, who did not receive absentee ballots. The Rossi campaign said it has heard from 260 voters who claim not to have received ballots, though not all of them are military.

Department of Justice officials would not comment on news reports that the federal government is investigating whether state elections officials broke the law by sending out the ballots too late. Republicans have filed suit to mandate a new election because of the military issues and other supposed voting irregularities.

In November, Rossi was named the winner of the general election by 261 votes and won a machine recount by 42, but a second, manual recount last month showed Democrat Christine Gregoire with a 129-vote margin of victory.

What is interesting about the recount was that it was done only in King County which encompasses the Seattle area and that is where all the phantom votes suddenly appeared. This is exactly the same thing that happened in 2000 in Florida when the Democrats were trying to cherry pick what counties they wanted to recount.

It seems if you do a recount you should recount the entire state, not just cherry pick democratic counties? This thing is still in the courts but I love getting updates from my dad about the latest happenings in the PRW governor race. Never a dull moment. It is Ukraine all over again.

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