The Furious Spinner

This Wednesday, the recount for the governor’s race in Washington state began. Republican candidate Dino Rossi had a lead of 42 votes after the last count, so Christine Gregoire asked for a statewide recount. I volunteered to help. A few minutes before 9:00 a.m. I went to the basement of the county annex where last February I had participated in my first Democratic caucus. The room was once again crowded with about 40 people from our rural county.

The elections officer quickly got things going. At ten tables around the room, one Democratic counter and one Republican counter sat across from a county-hired tabulator. I was paired with a woman I had first met 15 years ago when I read stories to her daughter Friday mornings during storytime at the library. Across from us was an older woman who appeared a bit nervous about the whole process.

Behind us were the observers from the Democratic and Republican parties. The election officer told them they had to stay on the linoleum squares along the wall and they couldn’t come any closer or talk to us. I sensed some awkwardness at the tables as people settled into position, getting accustomed to Democrats and Republicans sitting together again after a long and sometimes ugly election season.

The first thing we would do was sort the ballots by precinct. The election people brought one pile to each table. Then we put them in order by precinct.

Next we needed to count the ballots in each precinct to make certain the total number of ballots matched with the numbers the auditor had. The election worker brought our table the pile of ballots for precinct 103. We divided this pile into three stacks, then each of us counted a pile. When we had a total, the election officer or auditor came by and checked our numbers. If this total matched their total, they took the pile away and got another pile for the table. If it didn’t, the table had to count all over. At the end of this process, one ballot was missing from the whole county.

During a break, I went outside and talked with a group of Democratic observers.

“Man, I wouldn’t want to be in King county today,” one of them said.

We all nodded, imagining the mess that would be.

“They’d have to be really organized,” someone else said.

“I heard the observers have to stand behind plexiglass and use binoculars,” another man said, holding up his hands to his eyes, his fingers curled into circles.

“Rossi’s people keep saying they wouldn’t have asked for a recount,” someone said.

“Right,” I said. “I don’t think I’d want a governor who didn’t ask for a recount if the difference was only 42 votes.”

I ran over to the library, which is next door. The new superintendent happened to be there. Mario introduced us, and we spoke for a few minutes. He seemed like a good man. Yes, I know you can’t really tell that in a few seconds—well, actually, sometimes you can. He looked me in the eyes and held my hand for a moment as we shook hands, but not in a sleazy way. I liked him instantly. We found out from him that the sister of one of my friends had killed herself two days earlier. I was stunned. I called my friend and left a message. Then I had to go back to the counting.

When the break was over, we counted all the ballots again, looking for the missing ballot. We first made sure that in our particular precincts they were all the correct ballots. Only precinct 304 ballots should be in the precinct 304 pile, for instance. Slowly, each table finished without finding the missing ballot. Those who were done got up and left for lunch.

The table next to us counted and came up with two extra ballots. It happened to be the precinct where one ballot had been missing on the first count. The auditor asked our table to count this pile again. We did. Some of the ballots were double—I never understood why—and were clipped or stapled together. The counters had accidentally counted two of these doubles as two rather than one each. Now all the totals matched. The auditor cheered us and sent us off for a short lunch.

After lunch, the 30 of us at the tables raised our hands and took an oath promising to do the work honestly and faithfully. Then we each signed the precinct book the election officer handed out. This ledger book had the candidates names handwritten down one column: Gregoire (D), Rossi (R), Bennett (L), Over votes, Under votes, and Write ins. Then, across from each name were these tiny boxes in a row where the tally marks went. Four tally marks, then one across to equal five in each box.

The person doing our tally was uncomfortable with this process. It was difficult for her to write, and her handwriting was shaky. She was embarrassed and wanted one of us to do it instead, but we couldn’t. We were required to hold up the ballot, then one of us would say “Vote for (candidate’s name).” The vote tabulator was supposed to mark the vote and say, “Tally one for (candidate’s name).” Then we would put the ballots in the appropriate piles.

We decided my Republican partner would say the name outloud and I would put the ballots in the piles. We started as we were instructed. Soon the tabulator was coughing from repeating over and over, “Tally one for...” She took a lozenge, and we continued, not really noticing (or caring) that she no longer said, “Tally one for...” It didn’t matter; we watched her carefully. My partner said, “Vote for Gregoire,” and the tabulator made her mark.

When we finished tabulating, we counted the piles to make certain the piles matched the totals in the book. Then we raised our hands and the auditor came over. Our numbers were correct, so he gave us another book and another pile.

We took a quick break after we finished with one precinct, and I happened to notice Mario walking back to the library after his lunch with a friend. I ran out into the rain and gave him a quick kiss.

I also talked with one of the election observers, a young man I’ve known since he was a boy. He’s headed for law school, after working this last year for the Democratic party.

“I noticed a lot of people who voted primarily Democratic also voted for Rossi,” he said.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It means Gregoire ran a lousy campaign,” he said.

I knew little about Rossi, which shows my own prejudices, I suppose. I’m often hard-pressed to vote for a Democrat, let alone a Republican. Someone would have to be an extraordinary candidate for me to ever vote Republican for any federal or state position. Locally, where I might actually know the person, I would vote Republican if I thought that person was the best candidate. Our community is so close to Oregon and so far away from Olympia or Seattle that we actually get very little Washington news. All our TV stations are Portland stations, and our largest newspaper comes out of Portland. Very few people read the Seattle paper at the library. I don’t know if Rossi ever even came to Southwest Washington; Gregoire did, at least once.

The ballots were a treasure trove of information. I kept having to remind myself to pay attention to the tabulation instead of the ballots. Each one was a kind of history in itself. Some were very lightly filled in. Some had only one vote: for the president. When this happened—when there was no vote for the governor—it was called an under vote. Sometimes every category was filled out as a straight party ticket. Other times, a person voted Republican for the president, governor, and local county commissioners, but also voted for Brian Baird and Patty Murray, a liberal Representative and Senator respectfully. On one ballot, the person voted all Democrat. Then all the votes were Xed out and the person voted completely Republican. I was curious what that was all about.

On our second batch, our numbers differed from the auditor’s, although our total was the same. We had two ballots that had been filled out very lightly. One was for Rossi, the other was for Gregoire. The voter’s intent was clear on each, but the machine had not been able to read either one, most likely. This was why they did recounts. I wondered how many ballots like this there had been all around the country that had never gotten counted.

We started at 9:00 a.m. and were finished just before 3:00 p.m. The day had gone by quickly. Any early morning awkwardness about being together had disappeared. We were a community working together again.

At one point I said to my Republican partner, “This is the way it should be. I used to really admire that about our country, that we could disagree with one another and not shoot each other.”

My Republican partner nodded. “Yeah, now we disagree and shoot each other.”

“Not us,” I said. “Not today.”

In our county, Rossi gained and lost in some precincts, and Gregoire gained and lost in some precincts. When I left, I was told Gregoire had lost one vote overall. It didn’t matter. At least we knew each and every vote counted and was counted.
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