It was a good day for Gregoire otherwise, with a court victory for Democrats in King County and promising news from Grays Harbor County. The winner will be determined by the final few votes that remain uncounted, out of 2.8 million ballots cast. A statewide recount is looking more likely by the minute.

The super-close race for governor took two new twists on Tuesday, as Grays Harbor County announced it is re-counting all ballots and the state Republican Party went to court to stop King County from counting some provisional ballots.

In King County, the Republicans lost their challenge. King County Superior court Judge Dean Lum ruled late Tuesday afternoon that counting of 400 provisional ballots in the county can proceed. The GOP claimed the votes in King County should not be allowed because Democrats brought in signature matches on disputed ballots -- something not allowed by the law.

"They should make sure that the ballot was actually cast by the registered voter," said State GOP Chairman Chris Vance. "And the only way to do that is to either match the signature to what they have on file or require the voter to come in person to King County elections office and confirm that they cast the ballot. Obviously the potential for fraud is great if we are going to rely on affidavits collected by partisan campaign workers."

Lum in his opinion said there was no evidence of fraud and what is critical is that votes be counted. He called the court hearing, "a day nobody wants -- a court deciding which votes would be cast." But he said he had no choice but to rule with the guiding principal state law, which holds that every vote is important and each should be counted.

In the Grays Harbor recount, It looks like Christine Gregoire will pick up 508 votes after the county auditor ordered a re-count of all its ballots due to an human error in recording some votes twice.

County Auditor Vern Spatz said the ballots were counted correctly, but approximately 6,200 votes were counted twice because of human error while transferring data to the computer reporting system. The Aberdeen Daily World first reported the re-count on Tuesday.

Most of the results that were entered twice were apparently from east Grays Harbor County -- an area which is considered more Republican.

The original count had Rossi leading 231 votes. The new preliminary totaling of votes Tuesday shows Gregoire ahead by 277 votes. That’s a total swing of 508 votes.

Spatz said each individual precinct's tally was correct, but he and another elections worker's curiosity became piqued when the voter turnout reached 92.93 percent -- much higher than anywhere else in the state.

He said his first reaction was just "Wow" and his second was: "That's impossible." Sure enough, further review found the double-counted precincts. After ballots were counted, the results were saved on computer disks and downloaded into another computer to keep a running tally. Some of the disks were apparently downloaded twice by mistake, Spatz said.

The new numbers dropped voter turnout to a more believable 75.94 percent.

Spatz believes had he not caught the errors Tuesday, they would have surfaced during certification on Wednesday. After all, with a double entering, the turnout in some precincts would have exceeded the number of voters.

He's confident the errors would be caught and if there are similar errors in other counties, he believes they too would be caught in Wednesday's certification process.

Spatz added the problems were definitely accidental.

"I guarantee you, we did not want to be in this situation," he said Tuesday. "We are re-counting 100 percent of all ballots. It's very important to us that the election be an open process and everybody is comfortable with those numbers."

Observers from Gregoire's campaign, the state and local Republican parties, and news reporters were watching the re-count, Spatz said. He said he expects to meet Wednesday's deadline for counties to certify results to the state.

"It emphasizes how much every single vote is going to count in this election," said Morton Brilliant, Gregoire's campaign spokesman.

Rossi's campaign was thrown for a loop by the news on Monday that King County - where Gregoire is winning - had about 10,000 more ballots than previously estimated.

"We definitely want to find out where all these additional ballots came from," Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said. "We can still win this thing. Obviously it's going to be a much closer race, where literally every vote will count."

On Monday morning, King County estimated it had about 11,000 votes remaining to count. But that estimate was revised upward to 21,000.

Bobbie Egan, spokeswoman for the King County elections office, said the county verified more provisional ballots than expected and absentee ballot turnout was higher than projected. Election workers counted 17,000 ballots Monday, so 4,000 remain to be counted.

Gregoire has served as state attorney general for the last 12 years and ran on her record of public service, while also promising change in the governor's office. Rossi, a commercial real estate agent and two-term state senator, touted his business experience and told voters he would be the real candidate for change. No Republican has been elected governor in Washington since 1980.

Not including Grays Harbor County, about 22,000 votes remain to be counted statewide. Of the six counties with more than a thousand votes outstanding, three favor Rossi - Benton, Skagit and Yakima - and three favor Gregoire - King, Thurston and Whatcom.

After the votes are counted and Washington finally has a winner, the next question is whether there will be a re-count.

If the margin of victory is less than 2,000 votes and one-half of 1 percent, state law requires an automatic re-count, funded by taxpayers. The re-count would probably take about four days, state Elections Director Nick Handy said.

Candidates and political parties can also demand a re-count themselves, regardless of how close the election is - provided they pay for it.

None of the six re-counts in statewide elections since 1968 has changed the final results of an election.

KOMO 4 News' Bryan Johnson contributed to this report.