EXPORTING TEXAS POLITICS: The Republicans have been throwing out mail ballots they don't like in Dallas County for over twenty years. Looks like somebody in Washington has picked up on the same trick -- but they got caught because they threw out the wrong person's vote in Seattle:

King County election officials yesterday admitted a major error in tallying votes in the governor's race that could reverse the results and make Christine Gregoire the winner in the hand recount now under way. The discovery that 561 votes were improperly disqualified super-heated backers of Republican Dino Rossi, who for weeks have worried that King County, a Democratic stronghold, would find a way to give Gregoire the edge.

Republicans are now "absolutely convinced that King County is trying to steal this election," said Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance. "There are Republicans urging us to organize mass protests, to take to the streets," Vance said. "At some point people's patience just runs out." ...

The King County error came to light Sunday when Larry Phillips, chairman of the Metropolitan King County Council, was looking over a list of voters from his neighborhood whose ballots had been disqualified. Phillips spotted his own name on the list, prompting an investigation by King County elections workers that turned up 561 improperly disqualified ballots.

King County Elections Director Dean Logan said that when workers were verifying signatures on absentee ballots, they erroneously disqualified voters whose signatures hadn't been entered into a computer system.

Read it HERE.