As a prior Young Democrat of Washington and the head now of the Young Democrats of Oregon, this should come as a wake up call to how important every vote is, especially the young vote. I'm sure not a lot of young people read this. That is why the Old Oregonians need to work harder to get my generation into politics. If your kids or your kids' friends or someone else you know haven't registered to vote, go get them a registration card, have them sign it, and send it in for them. Do not reneg on your responsibility to us.

WE ARE YOUNG OREGON!

Razor thin margins like this show how important it is to have solid mechanisms in place for recounts to minimize the ambiguity of the process. While this has not been mess-free (as anyone who joined me in watching the thrilling C-SPAN coverage of the WA Supreme Court arguments today can attest) it's a world better than the mess we saw in Florida four years ago.

Now, I suspect we'll see some attempts by state Republicans to look for more votes in other counties... we should all support that. Why? Every legal vote should be counted, If that swings the election back to Rossi, so be it. The latest report is that there is a ten vote margin... for a statewide office... yikes!

Wouldn't it be funny (definitely not funny "ha ha," though) if, in a very strange turn of events, allowing the King County votes to be counted actually caused Gregoire to lose?

Jenson,

You'd be surprised to learn how many young'uns like ourselves read the blueoregon. I am probably one among a number of the silent youth out there who have yet to come out of their posting/commenting shells. In fact, I believe this is my first post! Go me.

But I agree with your preeminent point: Old people need to get us riled up. In my opinion, they've been doing a damn fine job of it; I've never read about a more destructive and irresponsible generation than the Boomers, and I'll be damned if our generation gets stuck with the tab for their governmental dysfunction. But we're getting a larger presence on this site, and I (for one) intend to become an actual presence instead of a stealth reader.

And, by-the-way, as far as wake-up calls are concerned, I'm so ahead of you, good sir: Every vote has counted since 2000, thank-you-very-much.

That is why the Old Oregonians need to work harder to get my generation into politics.

and

Old people need to get us riled up

Heh - please define old? ;-) If you call previous generations "old" you may piss us off and we may be inclined to smack you with our canes. There's a reason yours is called "Generation Y" and it's not simply because it follows "Generation X" (that'd be my generation). Apathy has been becoming more and more the status quo as time has progressed because life has honestly been too easy for us. Only recently have we been exposed to those things that spark patriotism and a sense of civic duty.

But it is not the responsibility of any one generation to "rile up" other generations. In fact, people are more likely to motivate peers than are people from other generations. This is why you don't see AARP members registering voters on college campuses.

People become involved in politics for many reasons - for me it was being raised in a family of right-wingers and I realized somebody had to stop them. Call it a sense of duty, call it rebellion - whatever. I'm still right. They're still wrong. ;-) You can never make someone political - you can only encourage them to participate in the process and help educated them (fairly and factually) and hope they make responsible decisions when voting.

As for who is out there in BlueOregon land, here are the BlueOregon survey results for age groups:

Our demographics roughly mirror the population, though we tend to trend slightly more male (58%) than female (42%) and slightly more young (43% under 35, 54% 35-65, 3% over 65).

See? Not all oldsters afterall. ;-)

OK, so this is going to turn into a thread about generational differences. Might as well dig in to this oldie but goodie from the early days of BlueOregon:

Volunteering: Boomers, Gen X'ers, and Millenials

Oh, and don't call 'em Generation Y -- that's just a surefire to piss off the future of the progressive movement.

And I do believe that. The Millennial Generation gives us all hope -- they believe in institutions, they believe in volunteering, and they believe in making a difference.

Evidence: 25% of the $52 million raised by Howard Dean came from people under age 25.

WOW!

I sparked a little bit of debate. See, it's not that hard to rile people up. Sometimes you just have to offend them. Just making sure you're not asleep out there young Oregon because there is still work to be done to make this state blue for good.

And to Old Oregonians - "old" has no pejorative sense; I am simply making reference to the fact that you have been blessed with years to accumulate knowledge and experience - BUT, if you don't impart that knowledge and experience on us, then you have stolen from us the greatest opportunity to grow.

Oh, and don't call 'em Generation Y -- that's just a surefire to piss off the future of the progressive movement.

Ah, mea culpa, mea culpa. You're right. My apologies to today's youth.

I have more thoughts on the whole generation thing, but I'll wait to see how the discussion goes.

Did you hear that as WA Attorney General, Gregoire wrote an opinion arguing that ballots not previously counted should not be included in any recounts.

Now she,,,,,,,,, well, disagrees with herself.

Hey, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. ;-)

Just kidding, I haven't actually read the opinion so I can't speak to it. I just couldn't resist a stereotypical joke - even if it was cheesy.

"Did you hear that as WA Attorney General, Gregoire wrote an opinion arguing that ballots not previously counted should not be included in any recounts."

Or maybe not. From the Seattle Times:

"In court papers filed Tuesday, Reed included a memorandum from his predecessor, fellow Republican Ralph Munro, about a recount that said the Attorney General's Office had said there was no provision in state law for reconsidering previously rejected ballots.

That 1996 memo came while Gregoire was attorney general. But she said yesterday there is no written legal opinion from her office on the subject, either from 1996 or earlier."

So what we have so far is not an opinion by Gregoire, but a memo from one Republican to another purportedly written while Gregoire was attorney general.

Where do you get your information, Steve?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002113878_gregoire09m.html

"Republicans said they will now seek out Rossi voters whose ballots were disqualified because of election workers' errors and fight to have those ballots counted as well."- AP

I find it really interesting that Republicans only want to find Republican/Rossi votes that were disqualified erroneously instead of finding everyone's votes that were disqualified erroneously. I find it even more revealing in the fact that Christine asked for a recount in all counties instead of just King County. In my opinion that shows a lot of difference between the Rossi Republicans and the Gregoire Democrats. The Dems are interested in finding out who the true winner is while the R's simply want victory.

Kenji, Rossi was mentioning his transition team in public the day the first ruling came out; are you really that surprised by the Washington R attitude with regard to everyone's votes?

I was about to offer a riposte about this clear ageism on the part of young Jenson, but then my hip went out, and....

(Getting people riled is pretty much this blog's raison d'etre, so I say good man.)

On the WA gov thing, I find it deliciously ironic that Rossi, who urged Gregoire to throw in the towel before all legal processes had played out, is now claiming to pursue extra-legal options rather than throw in the towel. Looks like a Democrat finally turned up to a knife fight properly armed.

But more seriously, whoever does emerge (and at this point Gregoire has the serious advantage) will have to do some serious outreach to the voters of the other candidate. Whatever can be said about these results, one thing's clear: there ain't no mandate.

The SoS is saying that once certified, counties cannot revisit their totals. The GOP is responding by pointing to Thurston County, who changed one vote after their manual recount total was certified. Reed, the SoS, says they shouldn't have done that. That's a rather cryptic comment--shouldn't have, but we'll count it anyway? Shouldn't have, and we won't count it? Shouldn't have, but we'll leave it unless you force the issue by trying to bring in others?

Anyway, the GOP has limited options here. They can't go to SCOTUS, because apparently they raised no federal issues during their hearings. They can challenge the result, but only with evidence of fraud or malfeasance, which WA's Supremes said was nonexistent before them. Or they can hunt new votes, which the SoS says cannot be recorded in the 38 counties to have already certified.

They'll try whatever they can, but they're pretty boxed in, it looks like.

Welp... looks like we may finally have a winner:

Gregoire by 130

I'm not going to exhale just yet... the count has not been certified and Rossi has not yet conceded. Nevermind the fact that any voter can challenge the results following certification. But this is the best it's looked for Gregoire in weeks. :-)

John,

Not really surprised.

I'm really interested to see the legal theories that the GOP is trying to come up with. I'd hedge to agree with torridjoe. The R's are pretty much boxed in at this point.

k-

there were 2 different legal issues at play in the two trips before the WASC. the first time around, the dems wanted to re-examine votes that had been looked at & rejected; the court said nay. this time, however, the dems wanted to count -- for the very first time -- votes that had been found stuck over in some corner. two completely different issues.

chris vance will piss and moan for eternity, but that's his way. he's a slimy [insert favorite nixonesque expletive] and "fair election" is a concept that he seems to find repulsive. screw him. the gop transition team can now crawl back into their various holes, and the real governor of washington can get ready to take her office.

(and i hope she runs a better re-election campaign in 2008, for pity sake!!)

I don't think anyone can predict how Gregoire is going to be as Governor. But frankly, I like that she's (allegedly) an old hand at slugging it out in the trenches. That'll come in handy on those issues where being on the right side is a lonely thing.