May 09, 2008

Providing legal resources and election news to California election officials and the attorneys who represent them.

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July 31, 2006

"Law suit seeks to toss out Bilbray election"

"A lawsuit filed Monday asks a Superior Court judge to toss out the results of the June 6 special election in which Republican Brian Bilbray defeated Democrat Francine Busby to finish the remaining term of disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

The lawsuit, which was filed by attorney Paul Lehto of Everett, Wash., also asks for a recount of all ballots cast in the election for the 50th Congressional District seat.

Lehto claims there is no way to ensure that the voting machines used by county elections officials were not tampered with, something that Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas vigorously denied.

The county used both paper ballots and touch-screen machines manufactured by Diebold. The vast majority of votes were cast by paper ballot, county officials said.

The lawsuit took specific aim at the practice of allowing poll workers to take the machines home with them prior to the election -- a practice Haas said is done to ensure that polling places open on time.

"The thing you've got to know about using computers in the election is that computers do whatever they're told to do, without any regard to law, ethics or morality," Lehto said, adding he believes some machines were tampered with.

"When you send them on 'sleepovers' from anywhere from three days to over a week, then you've lost all illusion about any kind of security."

Lehto said the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Gail Jacobsen, a San Diego mediator, and Lillian Ritt, a Rancho Santa Fe lawyer.

Lehto held a news conference on the steps of the Hall of Justice with a half-dozen supporters. A group called CA 50 Action Committee is raising money to cover costs related to the lawsuit, Lehto said.

Ultimately, Lehto said, he would like the county to not use electronic touch-screen voting machines in November.

"There is an opportunity to do it right the next time," he said.

Haas declined to comment on the lawsuit, which he had not seen, but defended his department's handling of the election."

The article is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 02:45 PM | Permalink. . .

Panel of senators to meet on Kern County election troubles

"A committee of three state senators will meet at 1 p.m. Monday at the Kern County Board of Supervisors chambers, 1115 Truxtun Ave. in Bakersfield, to take testimony on the difficulties Kern County voters faced in the June 6 election.

A large number of electronic cards used to record votes on Diebold Election Systems voting machines failed to work and voters were delayed, given paper ballots or asked to come back later to vote.

California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's office investigated Kern's problems and said the Kern County election was not invalidated. A report congratulated Auditor-Controller Ann Barnett and her staff for handling the situation well.

But the Select Committee on the Integrity of Elections is investigating statewide voting problems further.

They will start their investigation in Kern County Monday afternoon.

"We had polling places that didn't open until several hours after they were supposed to, voting machines that didn't work at all, and hundreds of voters around the state who were told to 'come back later' once the problems had been sorted out," said Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who chairs the committee. "That's not acceptable and we need to begin addressing these problems now to ensure they don't repeat themselves in November."

Bowen is running against McPherson in November's election."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 10:16 AM | Permalink. . .

July 25, 2006

Pasadena City Council to place measure on ballot

"The City Council agreed Monday to place an initiative on the November ballot to amend an anti-corruption law passed by voters five years ago.

However, the council failed to muster the five votes needed to add a provision that would have placed limits on campaign contributions in local races.

Councilman Chris Holden, who is believed to be eyeing the mayor's seat in 2007, led the effort to kill the contribution limits.

Holden has said in the past that the caps would unfairly hinder candidates from poorer parts of town who often need the support of large organized groups, such as labor unions, to raise the money needed to wage a credible citywide campaign.

The provision died on a 4-4 vote.

The remainder of the ballot initiative was approved 6-2, with Holden and Councilman Paul Little dissenting.

The initiative would rewrite Measure B, which was passed by 60 percent of the voters in 2001.

Council members have long argued the measure is unconstitutional and tried unsuccessfully to have it thrown out by a court. Failing that, they decided to form a task force, led by former California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, to amend the law."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 10:02 AM | Permalink. . .

July 21, 2006

"Oakland to vote to eliminate midyear primaries"

"Oakland voters in November will determine whether to do away with midyear primaries and move to a system of ranking their picks for local elected offices, the City Council decided Tuesday.

The council, by a vote of 7-2, adopted a proposal to ask voters whether they want to switch to ranked-choice voting, also known as instant-runoff voting, which proponents say increases voter participation in elections, but which opponents say is too confusing and could lead to fewer people casting votes.

Several other cities, including San Francisco and Berkeley, have adopting ranked-choice voting.

Ranked-choice voting allows voters to pick their top three choices, in order of preference, for any race.

If no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is dropped from the list, the second-choice candidates on those ballots are moved to the top spot and the ballots are recounted. The process continues until someone has a majority of the vote."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:39 AM | Permalink. . .

"Secretary of state addresses problems with voting systems"

"California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson recently discussed ways for states to work collaboratively with each other and the federal government to enhance voting system security, accuracy and reliability as well as usability and accessibility, a secretary of state news release stated.

“As election officials, we have the honor to be trusted with administering and safeguarding the basic right of free people, the right to vote,” McPherson stated in the news release. “It is our responsibility to work on a state-to-state basis, and a federal-to-state basis, to improve the administration of that basic right.”

In a speech delivered at the national Association of Secretaries of State Summer Conference in Santa Fe, N.M., McPherson outlined three proposals to improve the voting system certification process nationwide.

First, to address voting system security and reliability, McPherson proposed states join with the Election Assistance Commission to develop a national program to conduct a comprehensive risk analysis of voting systems, in addition to the existing security tests, as part of the federal certification process.

Second, McPherson encouraged the EAC to move forward with the research and development program set out in the federal Help America Vote Act. For the program to come to fruition, Congress would need to provide full funding and the EAC would have to have the full support of the states.

HAVA requires that the states put in place voting systems that meet certain accessibility and usability requirements. Electronic voting systems are the expected solution to these HAVA-driven mandates, according to the news release.

Finally, McPherson suggested that the EAC establish an escrow account for vendors in the process of being certified. The proposal was a response to some criticisms that the federal certification process is “vendor-driven,” in that vendors choose and pay the independent testing authority that conducts the testing for their certification."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:35 AM | Permalink. . .

"Bowen calls for more electronic voting safeguards"

"COSTA MESA State Sen. Debra Bowen, Democratic candidate for secretary of state, told an Orange County group Thursday that electronic voting machines remain vulnerable to hacking and called for further safeguards.

Bruce McPherson, the Republican incumbent, has said the state has the most rigorous standards in the country for voting machines and that the system is safe.

But Bowen said the software that runs the machines - and the tally cards that slide in and out of the machines - can be tampered with to alter results.

"We know of no software in the history of computers that doesn't have bugs in it," she said at the luncheon meeting of Women in Leadership at the Westin South Coast Plaza. "You can hack into any computer. ... We do a much better job of auditing slot machines than we do voting machines."

She would like to see the secret, proprietary "source code" of the machines made public to allow better monitoring of the software. And once an individual voting machine has failed, she would like to see it removed from service until it can be checked out - not simply repaired on Election Day and put back in service.

Bowen, of Marina del Rey, faces an uphill battle in challenging an incumbent, although she has been building credentials for the job.

As chairwoman of the Senate elections committee, she has been active in voting issues and last year sponsored a successful bill requiring an audit of 1 percent of the electronic vote, comparing the electronic tally to the parallel paper totals to ensure they match.

She would like to also see 1 percent of absentee ballots audited.

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:27 AM | Permalink. . .

July 13, 2006

"Drug law changes spark suit'

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday signed a bill that supporters say will improve California's treatment-not-jail law for drug users, but which foes say actually guts the law's original intent.

The Drug Policy Alliance and the California Society of Addiction Medicine later Wednesday sued in Alameda County Superior Court to overturn the new law, claiming it is unconstitutional to significantly amend Proposition 36 — approved by 61 percent of voters in November 2000 — without another popular vote.

Such a vote, presumably preceded by a costly and nasty campaign, could be inevitable: The new law specifies that if a court strikes down any part of it, the new law automatically will be put on the ballot in its entirety."

The article is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 11:01 AM | Permalink. . .

'Recall signatures properly disqualified, judge rules'

"The Registrar of Voters Office acted reasonably when it disqualified thousands of signatures on recall petitions against all seven Capistrano Unified trustees, a judge ruled Tuesday.

The decision means that an election to recall the school board is off, barring a successful legal appeal.

Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner ruled that the registrar of voters was abiding by the California Elections Code when it reviewed more than 177,000 signatures gathered in support of the recall.

In December, the registrar declared about 35 percent of those signatures deficient, many because the signer did not personally write his or her address as required by law."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 10:42 AM | Permalink. . .

July 11, 2006

Court Upholds Law Allowing Faxing of Overseas Ballot

From the California Court of Appeal opinion in Bridgeman v. McPherson:

"We shall conclude the constitutional guarantee of secret ballot must be balanced against the constitutional right of voters to cast a vote. We further conclude we should respect the Legislature’s determination that fax voting is necessary to allow some voters overseas to vote in California. This is constitutional.

The voters allege improprieties in the fax voting system but have failed to adduce substantial evidence in support of their allegations. We shall therefore reverse the judgment."

Update: The California Appellate Report has this analysis.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 05:12 PM | Permalink. . .

50th CD recount to cost $120,000 to $150,000

"Barbara Gail Jacobson said Monday she knew she would have to pay for the recount she requested of the June 6 ballots in the 50th Congressional District election.

What she didn't know was that the bill would run between $120,000 to $150,000.

Election officials say that's what a hand count of the ballots and other information she has requested costs. Jacobson, who challenged the results of the election claiming the potential for fraud, said the fees were exorbitant.

"Charging such a high fee obstructs the public from ensuring the elections we participated in were properly administered," Jacobson said in Monday phone interview.

In a July 7 letter to Jacobson, Registrar Mikel Haas wrote: "Based on prior experience, a rough estimate for a complete recount of this contest, including examination of pertinent materials, is between $120,000 and $150,000.

"Right now, concerned voters we're working with are looking at the information and preparing a response," Jacobson said.

In an earlier interview, the San Diego resident said she is a registered Democrat. She said the issue is not a partisan one ---- it's about protecting the democratic process.

In his letter to Jacobson, Haas also said that she had until 3 p.m. today to make a $6,000 deposit towards the cost of conducting the recount."

The article is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 03:04 PM | Permalink. . .

"District illegally saw recall records"

"Orange County voting officials inappropriately granted Capistrano Unified School District administrators access to confidential recall petitions, many of them signed by teachers fearful of reprisal, county officials acknowledged Monday.

District officials in January requested to see the documents kept at the Registrar of Voters Office in Santa Ana. One former Capistrano official recorded some of the names and gave them to Superintendent James Fleming.

"They shouldn't have done that. They were instructed not to," county Registrar Neal Kelley said.

Kelley acknowledged Monday that Capistrano officials should not have been allowed to see the petitions in the first place.

He said his office was unaware at the time that state law allowed only the 10 original recall proponents to view the signatures. Kelley said that besides district officials, other community members were wrongly given access to the petitions.

"We did some research after the fact and found out," Kelley said."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 02:58 PM | Permalink. . .

July 06, 2006

"Take my initiative, please - this ballot's out of control"

You can find he Desert Sun editorial here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:04 AM | Permalink. . .

July 05, 2006

"PG&E claims bias on ballot"

From the Sacramento Bee:

"Determined to yield nothing in the battle for customers, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is funding a lawsuit against the Sacramento Municipal Utility District over a ballot proposal for SMUD to annex parts of Yolo County.

The suit centers on the wording of the question being put to voters in SMUD territory in Sacramento and Placer counties in November.

For SMUD to expand into Yolo, voters in the area up for annexation, as well as those now served by SMUD -- in most of Sacramento County and a small part of Placer County -- must approve.

If the deal goes through, PG&E will lose about 85,000 customers in the cities of Davis, West Sacramento, Woodland and nearby unincorporated areas.

A suit filed in Sacramento Superior Court contends that the measure written by SMUD is "illegally biased."

The measure's question reads:

Shall Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) provide electric service to the Cities of West Sacramento, Davis and Woodland and portions of Yolo county by annexation; on condition that Yolo customers shall pay the costs of annexation and service and the SMUD Board of Directors shall use any net income from Yolo service to maintain low rates through debt reduction, and invest in energy efficiency and clean energy resources for use in the Sacramento region?

"Basically, what it comes down to is that their ballot label is a campaign ad, not the fair and impartial ballot label required by law," said Jeff Raimundo, a consultant to PG&E's campaign committee, the Coalition for Reliable and Affordable Electricity.

PG&E prefers the wording that will appear on ballots in Yolo County. That question was composed by a third party, the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission.

Peter Darbee, chairman, president and CEO of PG&E, said in an interview that a comparison of the two supports PG&E's position.

"If you hold up the LAFCO ballot question and the SMUD question, you'll understand what our point is," Darbee said.

The LAFCO-composed question reads:

Shall the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) annex into its service territory the Cities of West Sacramento, Davis and Woodland and the contiguous unincorporated area of Yolo County for the purpose of providing electric service?

As for SMUD's wording, its General Counsel Arlen Orchard, who wrote the question for the Sacramento and Placer county voters, acknowledged that it could have been simpler and shorter.

"I think the idea is that people are better off with better information than less information when they're casting a vote," Orchard said."

Posted by Randy Riddle at 03:32 PM | Permalink. . .

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