SEATTLE : The director of elections in Seattle's King County has found a mistake that could swing Washington state's close governor's race to the Democratic candidate.

Republican Dino Rossi came out ahead of Democrat Christine Gregoire (GREG'-wahr) by just 42 votes out of nearly three (m) million.

The King County elections director says election workers mistakenly rejected 561 absentee ballots because of signatures that didn't seem to match voter registration records. But it turns out they'd checked the signatures against the county's computerized voter registration system instead of the original records.