This is sickening.

A judge Friday granted a state Republican Party request to block the counting of hundreds of recently discovered King County ballots in Washington's extremely close governor's race.

Even if the election workers wrongly rejected the ballots — 150 of which were discovered Friday — it is too late for King County to reconsider them now, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend said.

The decision of whether to count the ballots could prove to be a pivotal issue in the governor's race. With all but two counties finished with a hand recount, Republican Dino Rossi was leading Democrat Christine Gregoire by 43 votes.

[...]

State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said the party will appeal the decision.

"We're going to fight for every vote to count in the state of Washington," he said. "I guess we're headed to the (state) Supreme Court."

King County Elections Director Dean Logan said the county also planned to appeal.

"These are legitimate voters who cast legitimate ballots," he said. "It's just a travesty if we do not include these ballots."

Link.

This is as clear a case of a Republican power grab as I've ever seen. The ballots in question are from valid voters, but the ballots were either mistakenly not counted or lost for some time. There's something terribly wrong with our system if citizens' votes are not counted solely because of procedural mistakes.

Gregoire clearly won this race; hopefully the courts won't louse this up like they did in Florida four years ago.