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May 15, 2008 Providing legal resources and election news to California election officials and the attorneys who represent them. |
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« August 2007 | Main | October 2007 » September 28, 2007 Electoral college initiative backers end effortsFrom the LA Times:
In an exclusive report to appear on this website late tonight and in Friday's print editions, The Times' Dan Morain reports that the proposal to change the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation to one by congressional district is virtually dead with the resignation of key supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds. The reality is hundreds of thousands of signatures must be gathered by the end of November to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot." Posted by Randy Riddle at 06:34 AM | Permalink. . . September 26, 2007 "Questions swirl over hefty donation to electoral college measure""Until this week, Missouri attorney Charles "Chep"Hurth III was best known for a headline-grabbing incident a decade ago in which he bit a young female law student on the butt in a bar. Now Hurth, the city attorney for New Haven, Mo., - population 1,800 - is the agent for a deep-pocketed group that donated $175,000 to fund a Republican-backed effort that would reshape the landscape of presidential politics in California. Hurth has emerged as an unlikely lead player in connection with the ballot measure that seeks to change the way California allocates its electoral college votes in the president election. His actions on behalf of "Take Initiative America" are being examined by the state's Fair Political Practices Commission after accusations from Democrats that the group is hiding the source of its money. It's not the first time Hurth has been part of an effort that Democrats say has been aimed at changing the outcome of a presidential election. In 2004, he was the legal agent behind a GOP-funded group called "Choices for America," which solicited donations from Republicans for another controversial signature drive - to help independent candidate Ralph Nader get on the presidential election ballot in key states, documents show." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 07:16 PM | Permalink. . . September 24, 2007 "Polling purgatory"From the SF Chronicle: "WITH four elections over the next 13 months, San Francisco will need a quick, road-tested vote counting system. Instead, the city will be saddled with condition-laden machinery that promises weeks-long wait for results. It's a joke, a serious clog in a functioning democracy. San Francisco has vastly improved from the ill-starred 2000 election when ballot boxes were found floating in the bay and sheriff's deputies dried rain-soaked tally sheets in microwave ovens. But if the present impasse remains, get ready for a return to Flake City where voting is a random act." Posted by Randy Riddle at 07:24 AM | Permalink. . . September 21, 2007 S.F. supervisors blamed for blocking new voting systemFrom the SF Chronicle: "If it takes three weeks to count the votes in this November's election, the Board of Supervisors should bear the blame, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday. By refusing to approve a contract with another voting machine company in April, the supervisors forced the city to keep a voting system considered outmoded and run by a company that's in a running battle with California's secretary of state. The decision "doesn't look good today, it did not look good three months ago," the mayor said during an appearance at San Francisco International Airport. "We had the opportunity to do it right, and we chose not to." While California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has agreed to allow San Francisco to use the voting system made by Election Systems and Software this November, she made it clear in a letter last Friday that the approval was a stopgap measure until the city "completes the process of replacing this obsolete equipment." Because the city's voting machines can't count some ballots marked in light-colored ink, Bowen is requiring election officials to inspect each ballot for the proper markings before it can be counted. The labor-intensive, time-consuming process means that no ballots other than absentees would be counted on election night, and it could take up to three weeks before the final results are available, said John Arntz, the city's elections director. But that replacement Bowen wants to see could be a long way off. When supervisors rejected a $12 million contract with Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland to provide the city with voting machines designed to meet the state's increasingly strict requirements, they blocked the possibility of bringing in new machines. Instead, the board voted 7-2 to extend the contract with ES&S until the end of 2008. The board, led by Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly, argued that Sequoia should receive the contract only if it agreed to open its software to public review, something the company refused to do. "Our contract had expired, and we wanted to bring in a system that would meet the latest state regulations, which our current equipment never will," Arntz said. With Sequoia out of the picture, the supervisors voted to extend the ES&S contract. "If we put out a new request for proposals for election equipment now, it would be 2009 before we could have it," Arntz." Posted by Randy Riddle at 12:26 PM | Permalink. . . |
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