Huckabee Contests Washington Results

After beating John McCain in Kansas and Louisiana, Mike Huckabee was running a close second to McCain in Washington when the state Republican chair just decided to stop counting votes at 87% and declare McCain the winner. You read that right - they didn't count all the votes but declared a winner based on 87% of the vote with a margin of victory of only a couple hundred votes. The Huckabee campaign is understandably upset:

The Huckabee Presidential Campaign will be exploring all available legal options regarding the dubious final results for the state of Washington State Republican precinct caucuses, it was announced today. Campaign Chairman Ed Rollins issued the following statement:

"The Huckabee campaign is deeply disturbed by the obvious irregularities in the Washington State Republican precinct caucuses. It is very unfortunate that the Washington State Party Chairman, Luke Esser, chose to call the race for John McCain after only 87 percent of the vote was counted. According to CNN, the difference between Senator McCain and Governor Huckabee is a mere 242 votes, out of more than 12,000 votes counted-with another 1500 or so votes, apparently, not counted. That is an outrage.

"In other words, more than one in eight Evergreen State Republicans have been disenfranchised by the actions of their own party. This was an error in judgment by Mr. Esser. It was Mr. Esser's duty to oversee a fair vote-count process. Washington Republicans know, from bitter experience in the 2004 gubernatorial election, the terrible results that can come from bad ballot-counting.

"Frankly, I am disappointed in the way that Mr. Esser has handled this urgent matter. So I call upon Mr. Esser and his colleagues to cooperate fully with the Huckabee campaign-and all Republicans, everywhere, who care about honest and transparent vote-counting-to make sure that every vote is counted and that all Republicans in Washington have the chance to make their votes count. Attempts by our campaign to contact Mr. Esser have been unsuccessful. Our lawyers will be on the ground in Washington State soon, and we look forward to sitting down with Mr. Esser to evaluate this process, to see why the count took so long, and why the vote-counting was stopped prematurely.

"It would be a disservice to every voter in Washington State to not pursue a full accounting of all votes cast.

I find this more than a little disturbing. Chances are that Huckabee wouldn't have won anyway, but how could the state GOP justify not counting all the votes - especially after all the ruckus in Florida in 2000? That just seems insane.

I'll talk about this subject and more on Monday's BlogTalkRadio program which you can hear by clicking on the icon. Feel free to call in and join the conversation. The show kicks off at 8pm PT Tonight.