Democrats have claimed victory in the race for Washington governor by a razor-thin margin of eight votes, citing preliminary results of a hand recount they say puts Christine Gregoire in front for the first time. Republicans maintained the race was still too close to call.

This doesn't include the 700 or so votes that were wrongly rejected because the signatures weren't in the computer database. Whether they will be counted is to be decided by the Washington State Supreme Court.

We haven't heard the end of this, but the important thing to note is that the margin of the win, however it is ultimately determined, is much smaller than the error rates in any machine voting system. Can we say all together "Bring back paper ballots!"?

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