Washington state military balloting flawed

SEATTLE, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Questions about when Washington State mailed ballots to overseas U.S. military personnel have cast further doubt on the 2004 gubernatorial election outcome.

Republican Dino Rossi was initially declared the winner by a narrow margin over Democrat state Attorney General Christine Gregoire, an outcome confirmed by the initial machine recount of the ballots. A second recount of the ballots, by hand and under different standards in each county, produced a win for Gregoire by 129 votes.

On Monday, the Seattle Times reported the federal government had threatened to sue the state in October because it had not yet mailed ballots to overseas U.S. military personnel requesting them. The ballots are a key argument in Rossi's push for a new election.

"Military overseas and other absentee voters may not have received or been sent their absentee ballots in a timely manner and could have been disenfranchised by the neglect, mistake, or error of election officials," the Republicans argued in Chelan County Superior Court.

Democratic Party spokesman Lisa Cohen said no one has shown evidence of "broad disenfranchisement" of military voters. Cohen did allow that there were "quite possibly" isolated cases in which the military ballots were mishandled.