Why all the votes should be counted in Washington

The Democrats appear to have developed a good legal argument as to why all of the votes should be counted in the Gubernatorial race (aside from the obvious fact that all of the votes should be counted). The AP has this story:

A Leavenworth woman's vote for Dino Rossi - which almost didn't count - shows why King County should be allowed to tally several hundred mistakenly rejected ballots in the race for governor, a Wenatchee lawyer has argued.

Attorney Russ Speidel, in a brief opposing the Republicans' bid to keep King County from counting several hundred previously disqualified ballots, outlined the saga of Nancy Johnson's ballot.

Her ballot was initially rejected because Chelan County officials thought she had voted twice. It turns out there were two Nancy Johnsons with Leavenworth post office boxes who mailed in absentee ballots, causing a mix-up, The Wenatchee World reported Saturday.

Johnson's ballot was finally counted Wednesday after the county canvassing board ruled that the county's error led to the earlier rejection, the newspaper said.

Speidel says that illustrates why King County should be able to count 723 ballots that weren't originally tallied because of mistakes by election staff.

Check out the rest of this wire story for more on the details.

It's quite disappointing to see this occur in Washington after almost exactly the same thing occurred in Florida four years ago. Our Democracy is not functioning correctly right now, and something needs to be done to fix it. If the Democrats try to take on the mantle of electoral reform -- an issue I believe has saliency at this time -- they could be rewarded greatly in future elections.