Nov. 22, 2000 21:08

With all but about 3,000 of 2.5 million ballots tallied as of late Wednesday afternoon, Democratic challenger Maria Cantwell led incumbent Republican Slade Gorton by 2,112 votes, official election data showed.

But 2,500 of those uncounted ballots were from conservative Benton County, said Gary McIntosh, the state's director of elections. Gorton has won about 68 percent of the Benton vote, official election data showed.

McIntosh and Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro appeared in a televised news conference to announce that a recount was certain but that the Evergreen State was better prepared for one than the Sunshine State.

With the White House hanging on 930 votes there, Florida has become a battleground for Democratic and Republican lawyers who have filed a tangle of lawsuits as they try to influence how the recount of presidential ballots takes shape.

Clearly hoping to put to rest worries that Washington could be hit with the same troubles, Munro quickly listed differences with Florida.

We have been blessed in our state with a legislature that was interested in this subject and was willing to pass what we feel were very progressive laws in relation to how the balloting proceeds and how recounts take place and so forth,'' Munro said.

Some of the distinct differences are that in Washington state we do a pre-inspection of ballots before the ballots go into the counting machines,'' Munro said.

So we don't have the problem later of a scanned ballot that was circled or a hanging chad off a ballot after it's already been through the counter. That was already taken care of before the counting took place and set aside for the canvassing board to inspect,'' Munro said.

A SPLIT SENATE?

Washington's 39 counties must certify their results to the state election office on Wednesday. The office will declare which counties need a recount next Monday, after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Munro said that after the automatic recount, candidates would have to wait until the results are certified on Dec. 7 before asking for another recount. Washington law allows a total of two recounts, he said.

A machine recount would take about three to four days, he said, adding that if the difference between the two candidates is less than 150 votes, a hand count is mandated that could take several weeks.

A Cantwell victory would split the Senate evenly between Democrats and Republicans for the first time in a century, but Republicans will retain control either by virtue of Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote or because Joseph Lieberman's Senate seat would be passed to a Republican if he and Gore win.

Cantwell, who once served as a U.S. Representative from Washington, bankrolled her campaign almost entirely from her holdings in Internet media software company RealNetworks Inc. (RNWK.O), where she served as a top executive.

LIBERTARIAN SPOILER?

Despite an initial lead on election night more than two weeks ago, Cantwell has fallen behind Gorton since then as the three-term Senator racked up votes from conservative rural counties.

But Cantwell surged ahead again on Tuesday after King County, a Democratic stronghold that is home to Seattle, reported almost all of its remaining absentee ballots.

While Green Party candidate Ralph Nader has been condemned by some Democrats for taking votes from Vice President Al Gore and possibly costing him the White House, the Libertarian Party appeared to play a similar role in the Washington Senate race.

Libertarian Senate candidate Jeff Jared walked away with 2.63 percent of the vote, or about 64,700 ballots, votes that many observers say would otherwise have gone to Gorton, who has won support from farmers and industries like lumber and timber, as well as software giant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O).