State GOP Chair Esser Speaks About Caucus

Olympia, WA -

State Republican Party Chair Luke Esser, under fire over the weekend by some supporters for his Saturday evening call of the state caucus for John McCain, released a letter today addressing the situation.

Esser acknowledged the accusations made by the Huckabee campaign that vote counting was intentionally stopped on Saturday night, though he does so without naming them directly. He went on to assert that the state GOP was in fact working hard over the weekend to count the votes coming in from all over the state, and they only stopped on Saturday night because it was an all-volunteer force assessing the results and "most of them want to be fresh and alert for Sunday church services."

The State Chairman then took responsibility for his actions, and stood by every move:

"It was my decision as State Party Chairman to announce on Saturday night that Sen. McCain was the "winner" of the precinct caucuses. It's important for everyone to know that I would have delivered the same message on Gov. Huckabee's behalf (or Congressman Paul or Gov. Romney) if the situation had been reversed. The margin between Sen. McCain and Gov. Huckabee is not huge, but after running an analysis of remaining precincts and consulting with my staff, I was confident the margin would hold, and I thought I owed it to all of those who took the time to attend our precinct caucuses to provide them with that information.

 

My statement in no way "disenfranchised" anyone. We have continued our delegate count each day since the caucuses, and will continue until each delegate is counted. All the major campaigns have been treated fairly in this process. In fact, we provided representatives of the Huckabee and McCain Campaigns an opportunity to review the newest data before it is revealed to the media and posted on our website."

Furthermore, Esser brought to light the mistakes that were made in the initial reports, where data from Benton, Grant, Jefferson and Snohomish Counties had been mistakenly reported as direct preference sheets instead of the representative delegates, as is appropriate in caucus counts. All data has since been corrected.

A reminder was then issued to all interested parties that the Republican Party's Presidential nomination process is a two-step process, with the other half of Washington's delegates awarded in next week's primary vote, and urged supporters to vote in order to continue the process.

Read the full text of the letter here.