Clallam County’s hand recount of ballots for governor gave Democrat Christine Gregoire four more votes — and also added four more for Republican Dino Rossi.
Jefferson County’s election canvassing board on Friday certified a net gain of two votes to Gregoire — a total of eight more for her and six more for Rossi.
The secretary of state ordered the hand recount, after a machine recount in November, after the Democratic Party put up more than $700,000 as a deposit to pay for the manual tabulation statewide.
The recount followed a 42-vote margin for Rossi after the machine recount.
Statewide as of 5 p.m. Friday, Rossi had picked up 28 more votes than Gregoire, giving him a margin of 70 votes as manual recounting in the state’s largest county, King, opened.
In Clallam County, the recount Thursday and Friday was conducted by a dozen part-time employees of the Clallam County auditor, who earned $10.65 an hour each.
Auditor Cathleen McKeown said the changes in the tally between Rossi and Gregoire were due to undervotes by voters using punchcards in the all-mail election.
“An undervote is when there isn’t a chad punched out,” McKeown said.
“The machine cannot read a vote unless the chad is removed.
“We had several ballots that were voted on via a pencil mark. Because the intent of the voter was obvious to the human eye, the ballots were counted.”
One ballot ‘anomaly’
In Jefferson County, an “anomaly” caught in Thursday’s recount was certified in Rossi’s favor — one of the optic-scan ballot apparently accidentally stacked on Gregoire’s side.
Rossi, however, continues to tally behind Gregoire in Jefferson County, one of eight counties in the state to carry the former attorney general.
Clallam remains solidly behind Rossi.
