The contested governor's election: A timeline of events

Nov. 2, 2004: Election Day. Three-term Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire finds herself in an unexpectedly tight race with Republican real-estate agent Dino Rossi, a former state senator. Gregoire is up by 7,000 votes at the end of the night, with hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted.

Nov. 17, 2004: With all counties reporting, Rossi wins by 261 votes. State law triggers a machine recount.

Nov. 30, 2004: The secretary of state certifies the result of the machine recount, making Rossi the winner by 42 votes.

Dec. 23, 2004: The Democratic Party requests and pays for a statewide hand recount. Gregoire wins that by a margin of 129 votes.

Jan. 7, 2005: Rossi sues in Chelan County Superior Court, seeking to throw out the governor's election. He alleges errors and illegal votes deprived voters of their constitutional right to a "free and fair election." A Republican attorney says the legal dispute could be resolved within weeks, and Secretary of State Sam Reed says if the court calls for a new election, it could be held as early as March.

Jan. 12, 2005: Gregoire is sworn in despite Republican lawmakers' attempts to stop the inauguration.

Jan. 20, 2005: Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges denies a Republican request to expedite the schedule for collecting evidence in the case, saying that could lead to chaos and injustice.

Feb. 4, 2005: Bridges rejects Democrats' motions to dismiss the case or move it to the Legislature or the state Supreme Court. But he says that to prevail, Republicans will have to show that any illegal votes would have changed the outcome of the election.

Feb. 22, 2005: Republicans say they have identified 1,108 convicted felons who voted in November, in violation of state laws that prohibit felons from voting unless they've met conditions for having their civil rights restored. The list changes over the next two months as the party corrects mistakes and adds new cases. The final list cites 946, most of them from parts of the state Gregoire won. The party cites other illegal votes, allegedly cast by dead people and those who voted twice. But the felons remain the largest group.

March 8, 2005: King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng says his office will move to revoke the voter registrations of 99 convicted felons. The office later pursues others on lists of felon voters provided separately by The Seattle Times and the Republican Party.

April 5, 2005: Bridges sets a trial date of May 23 and says the trial should last two weeks.

May 2, 2005: Bridges says he will allow Republicans to introduce statistical analysis to show how many illegal votes each candidate likely got in the governor's race. This means party attorneys will not have to call individual felons to testify about their votes. But the lawyers still must prove to Bridges at a separate hearing that their evidence is solid. Republicans say that without the statistical evidence, they could not have gone to trial.

May 6, 2005: Democrats say they've identified 743 felons who voted illegally in the election. The vast majority come from areas of the state where Rossi won the vote.

May 23, 2005: After more than four months of pre-trial preparation, the lawsuit over Gov. Christine Gregoire's election began at 9 a.m. in a small auditorium across the street from the Chelan County Courthouse.

June 6, 2005: Judge John Bridges ruled the election should stand. He knocked down, one by one, Republicans' claims that Gregoire's victory was due to errors, illegal votes or fraud.