My estimate was just about right: it’s Gregoire by 130 at the conclusion of the hand recount.

Of course, the election is still a statistical tie. 130 votes out of 2,810,059 is 0.0046%, roughly half of the Florida 2000 presidential margin. But it appears that, by pretty much random mathematical chancel, Christine Gregoire is now Washington’s governor-elect.

The result is set to be certified next Thursday. But “once the election is certified, Republicans may pursue a legal challenge. State law allows any registered voter to challenge election results.” So it looks like we’ll still be seeing “Election 2004″ posts into 2005…

P.S. The inauguration is supposed to happen on Jan. 12. Emphasis on “supposed to.” :)

Arash defends Kobe Bryant.

“Every young man should understand what an expensive proposition it is to cohabitate with a narcissistic woman built like a stripper,” and more thoughts on the Christmas season, here.

Andrew just text-messaged me that former Iowa State and New Orleans Hornets head coach Tim Floyd will be USC’s new basketball coach. But now Floyd is denying that it’s a done deal — yet. “I appreciate USC’s interest, but I need to discuss this more with my family and I hope to have a decision sometime after Christmas,” he says.

Former Connecticut governor John Rowland pleaded guilty Thursday to “conspiracy to steal honest service,” a federal crime that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison.

The plea deal ends the two-year-long investigation into corruption in the administration of Rowland, who resigned July 1 after 9 1/2 years in office. Rowland’s lawyer, William F. Dow III, acknowledged the former governor was “the recipient of certain gratuities.”

Prosecutors told the judge that Rowland accepted $107,000 worth of vacations, work on his cottage and free flights from state contractors and others.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nora Dannahey said the single charge also involves a conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.

U.S. District Judge Peter Dorsey advised Rowland that as a convicted felon he would not be able to vote or hold public office. [Woohoo! -ed.]

“There was an effort being made to deprive Connecticut citizens of the honest services of its officials,” Dorsey said.

Rowland’s likely prison sentence is 15 to 21 months, according to federal sentencing guidelines — assuming the federal sentencing guidelines aren’t found unconstitutional between now and Rowland’s sentencing date in March!

(Double hat tip: Andrew and an anonymous Connecticutian.)

Hey don’t worry, not everything in Washington is about politics… we have great college hoops too!

Perennial Brendan Loy favorite Gonzaga (9-1) beat in-state rival Eastern Washington (2-8) by a comfortable score of 83-70.

Meanwhile, across the state in Seattle, the Huskies (9-1) were crushing Sacred Heart (1-7) of Connecticut, 114-53. One word: Ouch!

Ugh. I’m sick. I’ve had a sore throat since Saturday, and it’s been getting progressively worse. When I woke up this (Wednesday) morning, swallowing was, for several minutes, about the most painful thing imaginable. Thank goodness for mentho-lyptus!

I guess I should be grateful that illness didn’t strike during finals, but waited until just afterward. At the same time, though, it’s hard to be “grateful” for the opportunity to feel miserable during my one brief break before I plunge headlong into law-school life again. I’ve only got 2 1/2 weeks of freedom left, and the latter half of that time will be spent moving across the country, which is not exactly a stress-free activity. So I’d better get well soon, dammit!

Then there’s the New Year’s Curse. During the course of our relationship, Becky and I have been on together for New Year’s only twice: in 2000-01, and in 2003-04. Both times, one of us was sick.

Four years ago, the sick one was her; she came down with some sort of mystery illness a few hours before midnight, and nearly passed out in Times Square around 11:15 PM, falling limply to the ground for a few seconds while she tried to recover herself. We had to trudge back to our hotel room (through the snow, no less) and watch the ball drop on TV. Not exactly the dramatic, triumphant start to the “real” new millennium that we had hoped for.

Last year, the sick one was me; we were in D.C. for a family wedding, and I had the flu. You might remember me blogging about how I nearly fainted on the subway on New Year’s Eve. Again, we rang in the New Year lying in a hotel-room bed, one of us utterly miserable. I wasn’t even feeling up to a champagne toast (even though we had champagne in the room), so we did a tap-water toast instead. It was so pathetic that it was really rather funny. :)

Prolonging our New Year’s Curse is really not high on my list of holiday wishes, considering we’re getting married right around New Year’s next year!! So I really hope I’m better by New Year’s — and, perhaps more pertinently, I really hope Becky doesn’t catch what I have. After all, it’s her “turn” to be sick on New Year’s, and the timeline of this illness being what it seems to be, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s exactly what happens. But, let’s not pray for famine, right?

I feel like I’m going to lose my voice in the next day or two, but I think my sore throat (which the Zaks assure me is not strep, since I don’t have a fever) and other symptoms have probably peaked, and I’ll probably start getting better in the next few days. Knock on wood.

Okay, I’m done griping. :) I’m off to bed. [Cough, cough. Ow!]

Henry Bibby and Dr. Evil:

Heh.

It’s now Gregoire by 10 in Washington state, pending tomorrow’s count of those 723 new King County ballots (as well as any other ballots in similar situations that may be discovered elsewhere by the Republicans).

If those 723 ballots break the same way the rest of the county did, it should be Gregoire 417, Rossi 290 and Bennett (the Libertarian) 16, which would increase Gregoire’s statewide lead to 137.

BREAKING NEWS: A unanimous Washington Supreme Court made the blindingly obvious correct choice this afternoon and ordered King County to count the ballots that were erroneously discarded due to clerical error.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if those 735 ballots unexpectedly tilt Republican, and Rossi — who currently trails by 8 votes — wins the election as a result of their inclusion in the count? Heh.

UPDATE: Here’s the court opinion. Money quote:

[S]ince the statute permits recanvassing, it is instructive to remember that canvassing involves “examining ballots or groups of ballots, subtotals, and cumulative totals in order to determine the official returns,” RCW 29A.04.013. Here, certain ballots were coded as having “no signature on file” without having been fully examined to properly place them in that category. In that sense they were never fully canvassed, and the seeming error in placing them in any category has become evident to the King County Canvassing Board. Under Doyle this is just the sort of apparent discrepancy or inconsistency that the board can correct through recanvassing.

It thus follows that the superior court erred in granting a temporary restraining order, and that the King County Canvassing Board properly concluded that it had authority to recanvass the subject ballots pursuant to RCW 29A.60.210.

Of course, although this particular court battle is over, the political war is just beginning:

“Christine Gregoire was elected governor and that will be proven true” when King County reports, Democratic State Party Chairman Paul Berendt said Tuesday. “The Republicans should concede, for the good of the state.”

Not so fast, Republicans said.

“I don’t think anyone will view Christine Gregoire as the legitimate governor” if she wins by a tiny margin in King County or because of the Supreme Court ruling, Lane said Wednesday before the court ruling was handed down. Republicans are already preparing to challenge the election results in court if Rossi loses.

“We’re keeping all of our options open,” Lane said.

The Democrats are jumping the gun, and the Republicans are still being a**holes. Virtually no one will come out of this looking good. But at least the Supreme Court made the right call.

A mystery object orbiting the Earth is perplexing observers. Is it a new, tiny moon, an alien spaceship, or a piece of Apollo 12 that recently re-entered Earth orbit after circling the sun for three decades or so? We link, you decide.

It seems that Roger Kaplan has decided to let JO play on Christmas against the Pistons. What? You think trouble could break out??

No word on whether or not the Commish will challenge the decision, but I’m guessing he will challenge it in Federal Court for exactly 10 games, making the entire decision moot.

More details from ESPN

The Democratic candidate for governor in Washington, Christine Gregoire, has reportedly pulled ahead — by 8 votes.

Eight votes!!! Out of 2.8 million cast!!! Amazing!!!

That’s approximately 0.0003%, in case you were wondering.

P.S. As I just clarified in comments, this 8-vote “lead” is without the benefit of those 735 disputed King County ballots that were initially excluded due to a clerical error. The court still hasn’t ruled on that issue. If the court rules in favor of Gregoire there, her “lead” will likely expand to a hundred or more, but then the Republicans will seek to apply the “King County rule” in other counties that have not previously applied it (an effort which I would support, BTW). On the other hand, if the court rules against Gregoire on the King County issue, her 8-vote “lead” would stay intact, but some counties that have already counted initially excluded ballots might have to subtract those from their counts, and who knows what effect those small changes might have on the final result? At this point, a butterfly flapping its wings in China could change the “winner” of this statisically tied election.

In regards to the King County issue, I continue to await a non-specious, non-cynical argument — i.e., one devoid of logical fallacies and irrelevant partisan potshots — that attempts to explain why on earth perfectly valid, properly cast votes that are accidentally discarded due to a pure clerical or administrative error should NOT be counted, if the error is discovered during a recount. I don’t care about the partisan ramifications; I don’t care if such a rule someday awards Jeb Bush the presidency by 1 vote. That’s not the point. I think such votes, under such circumstances, should OBVIOUSLY be counted, and I’m still waiting for someone to tell me why they shouldn’t.

UPDATE: Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat explains things quite well:

Let’s be clear about these 735 ballots, as all manner of partisan hacks have cast aspersions on them. There is zero evidence they are fraudulent. They were never “missing” and suddenly found by scheming elections officials. [Are you listening, Alasdair and JO?]

They are absentee ballots still in their original envelopes, still sealed, with the voters’ signatures on the outside.

All are either postmarked or dated Nov. 2 or earlier. Nobody has broken the seals to look at the ballots inside (they might all be write-ins for Ron Sims, for all we know).

They were rejected because county employees thought they did not have signatures for those voters, but they failed to check the original paper registration forms.

If the signatures match those of voters on valid registration forms, then how could we not open the envelopes and count the votes?

Republicans argue that in a recount you can tally only those votes that were counted the first time.

State law isn’t clear on this point. In one section it says a recount is a “retabulation.” In another it says a county can revisit any votes to correct “any error that it finds.”

For as long as anyone can remember, counties finding legal, uncounted votes during a recount have made the blindingly obvious choice to count them. Six counties have done so just in the past few weeks.

“Blindingly obvious” is right! This is an open-and-shut issue, people! If the state Supreme Court doesn’t rule in King County’s favor, there is no justice in this world.

P.P.S. Here’s another good column.

The sixth Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” is finished, and will go on sale at 12:01 AM on July 21! YAAAY!

You can already pre-order it, of course.

I neglected to take note of this earlier, but winter officially began at 7:42 AM Tuesday morning. So, Happy Winter, everyone!