CHIMACUM — Chris Vance refuses to have it any other way.
“No matter what you read in the paper, Dino Rossi will be governor,” the state Republican Party chairman told an applauding group of about 50 Jefferson, Clallam and Kitsap Republicans on Thursday night.
Vance addressed the Republican faithful at a Jefferson County Town Hall at the Tri-Area Community Center.
“We think we’ll go to the Supreme Court and they’ll call for a new election,” Vance said, adding that Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire will “have to move out of the mansion.”
“I’m going to sit on the curb and watch,” he quipped.
GOP governor candidate Rossi and his party contend that illegal votes and election workers’ errors irrevocably tainted November election results. Gregoire won the race by 129 votes, after a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots.
Rossi had won the first two counts.
King County balloting
The state Republican Party has questioned the legitimacy of about 800 King County voters, some of whom were on a Seattle Times’ list following an investigation, and roughly 300 more in other counties across the state.
Vance, re-elected to a third term as state GOP chairman in January, called King County’s voting system “a complete and utter mess.”
He told the audience — including Jefferson County GOP Chairwoman Sandy Farrell and Clallam County GOP Chairwoman Donna Buck, wife of state Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce — that the party’s court battle comes down to three categories of “absolute, rock-solid proof.”
That proof is backed by about 1,800 illegal votes the party has identified, he said.
First, there are the illegal votes of dead people, those who voted twice and those of convicted felons.
Secondly, he said, are illegal provisional votes — those allowed when voters could not show proof of registration in the county in which they voted.
Finally, he said, King County has about 500 more votes than those legally registered in that county.
For these reason, Vance said he believes the party’s civil case will go to trial in May.
