Medary.com

Followup to this morning's Whip entry on the Washington State Election: What's it all about? Brian Crouch at the blog Soundpolitics has extensive coverage of the scandal. The timeline is here.

The basic gist of the story is that the Democratic candidate, Christine Gregoire, held a slight lead before the absentee ballots were counted. After the absentee ballots were in, the Republican Dino Rossi pulled ahead. Then, over the next few weeks, Washington state election authorities kept "finding" ballots until they had enough votes to "decide" the election in favor of Gregoire.

The most charitable view is that the Washington election officials have managed through their incompetence to destroy any faith in the Washington state electoral process. At worst, we're watching a blatant example of shameless election fraud.

One thing for sure, this Washington morass makes the 2000 Florida Presidential election look like the trivial kerfluffle it really was. The Washington affair is the real thing, folks.

Here's some modest proposals:
1) Votes must be where they're supposed to be by the end of election day. If they're not, they don't get counted.
2) Preventing votes by any means (malice or incompetence) from getting where they're supposed to be by the end of election day should be a Class 1 Felony, punishable by the most harsh punishment available in whatever jurisdiction it occurs (either life imprisonment without chance of parole, or by death).

I'm completely serious here. I don't care who's messing with the votes, Republican, Democrat, whatever. I don't care if it's intentional or if it's sloppyness. It represents a Clear and Present Danger to our Republic.