Friday, March 25, 2005
Flyspecking the voter rolls in Washington
I'm not a fan of election litigation, particularly of the ballot-flyspecking, chad-flicking, franchise-denying-whining variety. When the margin of victory and defeat is less than the irreducible margin of error, we can't really figure out who "won" in any ultimate sense, so we rely on political and judicial mechanisms. I prefer the political mechanisms (the secretary of state certifying the vote, for example) to the judicial (litigation over the mechanics of registration, vote counting, and the like), because I think that it rewards the party that has won the battle at the grass roots sufficiently to control the levers of power. But that's just me.
The Republicans in Washington are still litigating over last November's governor's race, having ultimately "lost" by 129 votes. One of their allegations is that hundreds of convicted felons voted unlawfully. We are to presume that most convicted felons vote for Democrats.
It seems that prosecutors have now identified at least 192 illegal voters, raising the possibility, at least, that Washington has the "wrong" governor. This does not mean that it is in the best interests of Republicans to pursue the lawsuit to throw Christine Gregoire out of office. They will almost certainly lose no matter what the facts are -- what state judge is going to allow the introduction of evidence that will unleash a titanic struggle between two branches of government? -- and in defeat will ratify the legitimacy of Gregoire's victory. That ratifiction, in turn, will make Republicans look like sore losers. Nobody wants to vote for a sore loser.
The Republicans in Washington are still litigating over last November's governor's race, having ultimately "lost" by 129 votes. One of their allegations is that hundreds of convicted felons voted unlawfully. We are to presume that most convicted felons vote for Democrats.
It seems that prosecutors have now identified at least 192 illegal voters, raising the possibility, at least, that Washington has the "wrong" governor. This does not mean that it is in the best interests of Republicans to pursue the lawsuit to throw Christine Gregoire out of office. They will almost certainly lose no matter what the facts are -- what state judge is going to allow the introduction of evidence that will unleash a titanic struggle between two branches of government? -- and in defeat will ratify the legitimacy of Gregoire's victory. That ratifiction, in turn, will make Republicans look like sore losers. Nobody wants to vote for a sore loser.
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