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		An unidentified worker with "Go Dems" on his gloves processes ballots at the King County counting headquarters.
		By Ted S. Warren, AP

So far it's 2-0 in favor of Republican Dino Rossi and his bid to end two decades of Democratic governors. He led narrowly after Election Day and led again — though more narrowly — after a machine recount.

In a drawn-out second recount by hand expected to end this week, Rossi still clings to a lead of about 50 votes. But Democrats and their candidate, state Attorney General Christine Gregoire, are far from giving up.

As in Florida's Bush-Gore slugfest, it's the lawyers making a killing. Democrats asked the courts to allow 3,000 absentee ballots to be counted even though election officials had ruled them invalid. The Washington Supreme Court said no.

AP photos Dino Rossi (R) is still ahead of Christine Gregoire (D) as the recount in the Washington governor's race continues.

Then officials in heavily Democratic King County, which includes Seattle, found more than 700 ballots that hadn't been counted because of mistakes by election workers, and Democrats sought to include them, too, in the hand recount.

A lower-court judge blocked that late last week, but Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court. The court will hear arguments Wednesday. Those newly discovered uncounted ballots could put Gregoire ahead.

The election to replace two-term Democrat Gary Locke has dragged on so long that calls for a new election are gaining traction.

Last week, a former secretary of State who oversaw elections for 20 years joined the chorus, warning that whoever emerges from the recount would have trouble governing.

The closest governor's race in Washington's history is also one of the closest statewide races anywhere.

In 1974, a two-vote margin in the New Hampshire U.S. Senate race led to a court battle so contentious that both candidates agreed to a new election. Democrat John Durkin won a rematch.

After Lyndon Johnson won a disputed 1948 Senate race in Texas by 87 votes that mysteriously turned up, opponents dubbed him "Landslide Lyndon."

Florida's electoral-vote fight and Washington's razor-close race, just four years apart, are a sign of the nation's red state-blue state polarization, some political analysts say.

"The direction the country has taken has led to these close elections, and perhaps we'll see more of them in the future," says Kirk Wolter, a University of Chicago statistics professor who supervised a team hired by news organizations to review ballots from Florida 2000.

Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org, a non-profit clearinghouse of election information, says Washington's mess could happen anywhere. "If a result were this close in any other state, we'd be seeing similar, if not identical, issues."

The trouble with extremely close elections is that a candidate's victory margin can be smaller than the total vote's margin of error, regardless of voting technology. A lead of just a few votes could be the result of mistakes. That's why there are recounts. But recounts themselves, whether by machine or by hand, have error rates of 1% to 2%, says Phil Howard, a political communications professor at the University of Washington.

Rossi won the machine recount by 0.0015%. "We can recount a thousand times and the sample collected on Nov. 2 won't be good enough to help us figure out electoral intent," Howard says.

A post-election study found victory margins lower than error margins in the presidential vote in Iowa, New Mexico and New Hampshire and in Senate votes in Florida, Kentucky and South Dakota, Howard says.

In blue-state Washington, which went for Sen. John Kerry and re-elected Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, Gregoire was favored to win. She was well-known for a key role in winning the states' $246 billion settlement from tobacco companies in 1998.

But she was seen as an insider while Rossi, a real estate agent, was the fresh challenger, even though he's a former state senator. "Gregoire ran a lackluster campaign," says David Domke, a political communications professor at the University of Washington. "She essentially tried to irritate as few people as possible."

But she failed to attract voters, Domke says. Rossi downplayed issues such as abortion and gay rights to position himself as a moderate.

Among the nearly 2.9 million voters who went to the polls, there is impatience with almost two months of indecision mixed with a desire to see a fair outcome.

"I'd sure like to see it resolved, but I'd also like them to follow the process," says Steve Fry, 49, a government worker who voted for Gregoire. "I just want it to be accurate."

Others are more cynical. "I'm appalled by the recount and them finding those missing ballots," says Barbara Simmons, 56, a retiree and an independent who voted for Rossi. "They're changing the rules as they go along."

The slow, labor-intensive hand count of 875,000 ballots continues in King County, the only county not finished.

In a 17,000-square-foot room in an office building next to Boeing's sprawling complex, 80 teams of three — $12.70-an-hour Republican and Democratic counters and a tabulator — pore over ballots 10 hours a day. Observers from the parties watch closely.

"Even for the best trained, most motivated people it's tedious work," the University of Chicago's Wolter says. "And people make mistakes."

During the recount, each team's counters must arrive at identical totals for each box of ballots.

Democrats will pay an estimated $1.5 million for the hand count because they requested it. But they get their money back if the election is overturned. Kerry donated $250,000 from leftover campaign funds.

On hold is the normally busy transition between Election Day and January's inauguration when a governor-elect builds a staff and makes hundreds of appointments.

If Rossi wins the hand count, he'll be the winner, Republicans say. State law forbids another count.

But the election still could be contested.

"We believe if we just complete a legal recount, Dino Rossi will be the winner," says state Republican chairman Chris Vance. "If the courts begin to allow new ballots into the mix, you'll see nothing but rancor and litigation."

In other words, Florida 2000.