WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Monday challenged the results of his party's weekend caucus in Washington state, where he ran a close second to likely Republican nominee John McCain.
The Huckabee campaign said it was exploring all availablelegal options to ensure a full accounting of the Saturday voteafter "dubious final results." Lawyers for the campaign arrivedin Washington on Sunday evening.
"We want a fair election up there, and we're just not surewe had one," Huckabee said in an interview on NBC's "TodayShow."
He said Republican party officials stopped counting withonly 87 percent of the vote in. McCain was leading Huckabee byonly 242 votes out of approximately 12,000 at the time, with1,500 votes uncounted, according to the Huckabee campaign.
"We're going to demand a full accounting. We're going tosee what happened ... I appears that arbitrarily the partychairman just decided that he thought he could see how it wasgoing," Huckabee told CNN.
McCain, an Arizona senator who became the likely Republicannominee last week when chief rival Mitt Romney dropped out,lost two of three weekend state contests to Huckabee.
A former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist minister,Huckabee beat McCain in Louisiana and Kansas.
(Reporting by David Morgan)
