No, Attorney General Gregoire, this isn’t ‘golf’ - With so many disenfranchised military voters, how can this be a fair election?

News release from Dino Rossi headquarters

12/30/04

Bellevue, WA – Today Dino Rossi stood with the family of a disenfranchised Marine from Snohomish County to again call for a revote in the governor’s race.

Tyler Farmer is a Marine serving in Iraq who was recently wounded in Fallujah. He is registered to vote in Snohomish County, and went to extraordinary lengths to make sure he’d be able to vote, but he didn’t receive his ballot until after Election Day. His parents, Charles and Marty Farmer, and his brother, Dylan Farmer, today questioned the fairness of the election process.

“I’d like to ask Christine Gregoire how she can take office in good conscience when so many of our Armed Forces, including my son, weren’t allowed to vote,” said Charles. “The rules were changed for some people in King County, but not for everyone else. That’s wrong.”

Rossi said the election is such a mess that at this point the best solution is a revote. He said his office is receiving a steady stream of calls and e-mails from members of the military, or their loved ones, who never got their ballots or received them too late.

Rossi’s spokeswoman Mary Lane said Gregoire’s remark about the election not being “golf” and that there are “no do-overs” isn’t a sufficient answer to people like Tyler Farmer.

“Christine Gregoire is trying to sweep this election mess under the carpet because she doesn’t want to face up to all the wrongfully disenfranchised people across Washington,” said Lane. “But people like Tyler Farmer, and all the other servicemen and women who were denied their right to vote, aren’t going away. And the fact that this entire election process has been a complete mess isn’t going away, either.

“We need a revote because the people of Washington deserve to have a governor who actually wins an election fair and square.”