On the outside chance some might I assume I hold views I do not hold, let me reply generally to some of the recent posts.

Dino Rossi would be a great Governor, and eminently preferable governor, and a credit to his party. Were I a Washington State Washingtonian, rather than the other kind, I would have voted Rossi.

I was attempting, in case it wasn’t evident, to take the debate away from the specifics regarding Washington state, and discuss more abstractly how we settle very, very, very close elections, and the increasingly prominent role judge-ordered remedies seem to play. I contend, and I don’t think anyone disputes this, that this was a very, very, very close election. But there have been other very, very, very close elections and they will continue to occur from time to time. The “sloppy” character of American election administration invites litigation in many close cases, since if you look hard enough you’ll find something wrong — good for me professionally, but if you don’t see at least a potential problem with this approach as the way to settle close contests, then you don’t. Again, if you have a tie, you need a tie-breaker, which can take the form of a recount, or litigation, or a poker hand, or — potentially — litigation followed by a re-do.

I also wonder at the supposition that a re-do with bring finality to the contest. That would assume, of course, that the second election isn’t very, very, very close, wouldn’t it? I know about the polls and all, but polls aren’t dispositive. Moreover, who’s to say the second run will be cleaner than the first? Maybe the arguments will run the other way next time. The seeds of doubt about the “process” have been sown, and may reverberate with voters in unpredictable ways.

I guess what I am trying to get at is the re-do idea seems animated by a belief that there can be a “clean” election completely free from tabulation error, voter suppression, voter fraud, etc. I’m just not sure that can happen.