October 03, 2005

"County tightens election security"

"Napa County now has one of the most secure elections offices in California.

That is the opinion of Registrar of Voters John Tuteur, who provided the Napa County Board of Supervisors this week with a final update on 15 suggestions made last year by a special elections task force as well as the civil grand jury.

The task force was named by county CEO Nancy Watt, following a trial in which Tuteur's office was alleged to have allowed some ballots to be tampered with or altered.

The allegations surfaced as part of former Supervisor Mike Rippey's effort to challenge his narrow loss to rival Harold Moskowite in March 2004. The charges were never proved, but they spurred a series of safeguards including intrusion alarms, security cameras, motion-activated lighting and new written procedures for elections staff to follow.

Tuteur will also limit the number of pens in counting rooms and restrict ink color to blue and black to minimize problems with electronic ballot reading machines.

In addition, partial walls that separate the elections department from Napa County Department of Health and Human Services offices were extended to reach the ceiling. At the trial, attorneys for Rippey suggested that someone could have scaled the wall in the dark of night and altered enough ballots to tip the outcome in the Moskowite-Rippey race.

Of the task force recommendations, Tuteur said, "All ... comments have been addressed within financial and efficiency constraints."

You can read the article here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at October 3, 2005 08:10 AM