[Jeff Higgins]

Both of the preceding counts have been decided by a percentage of the voters measured out to the third or fourth decimal place. Statistically well below any kind of significance; within the margin of error by an exponential factor. The fact of the matter, though, is that the same candidate won both. The goal of the losing candidate and her supporters is not to gain a statistically significant victory; they know they will never turn up enough error in the process to widen the gap that much. Their goal is to win the election, all the while knowing that they will be staying well within the margin of error. In other words, they are counting on the luck of the draw to swing this statistically insignificant margin their way on the next count, and thereby win the election. These votes could be counted a hundred times and almost certainly both sides would win in some of those counts. Would the "true winner" win more of those counts? The margin is too close to say for sure. What the "losers" of the first two counts are banking on is that the third will come up in their favor, and statistically it might. Pretty shrewd in my opinion, but I do think they need to pay attention to public opinion on this. Almost overwhelmingly, the people of Washington are fed up and just want it over. If Gregiore pursues this, she may very well do lasting damage to her party in this state. She may have already, which would be too bad.