Recounting the numbers

According to the Associated Press "John Kerry has wired $250,000 in unspent campaign funds to help Democrats pay for a second recount in the election for Washington state governor,..."

Talk now is that the hand recount will cost the Democrats around 1 million dollars. The question is why, for multiple reasons.

First, at 25 cents a voter (the statutory cost for a hand recount) the Democrats will have to pay the state just over $700,000. So the question is why they need an extra $300,000, unless it is to pay election observers to oversee the recount. And if that is so, the questions become even more interesting. Do the Democrats not trust state election officials? Will the Republicans also have to hire election observers? Where are the Libertarians?

Second, is the Governor's office worth $1,000,000? We start with the Governor's salary, which is about $142,000 a year. I've already pointed out the recount will cost more than that. But wait...As of the last campaign finance disclosure (10/26/04) Gregoire had spent over $5,601,928 in the campaign! Meanwhile Rossi has spent $5,675,868. By the way, Libertartian Ruth Bennett spent a whopping $2,703 on her campaign. So, all totaled the campaign cost $11,280,499 for 2,805,913 votes cast, or $4.02 per vote. That's nearly 20 times more than the office pays! So if over 11 million has already been spent, what's another million?