Vern wrote on Jul 11, 2006 1:16 AM:I guess the only thing that surprises me about this article is the NCT slipped up and forgot to use Cunninghams' name two or three times.

JD wrote on Jul 11, 2006 5:15 AM:This woman asked for the moon in an election that was a clear victory by one canidate over another. She asked for the county to produce an incredible amount of paperwork just on a whim. Now she is complaining about the cost to pull all of that paperwork together. To bad! Either pay up or shut up! And oh by the way NC Times, isn't it interesting that your slant on this story goes with the DIMocrats again! No not really interesting at all by now it is expected!!! UNBAISED Reporting would be refreshing, to much to ask I guess.

Offshore Oil Bilbray wrote on Jul 11, 2006 6:30 AM:Bilbray has to go. Last week Bilbray voted to end the 25 year old policy that banned oil and gas drilling in U.S. Coastal waters, including California. The bill is HR4761. He has also accepted over $100,000 from oil and gas companies in campaign contributions in his career. Jerk. Do I really want to see oil rigs off of Moonlight Beach and oil slicks covering our junior life guards and tourists? No! What a Jerk- thanks for nothing -Bilbray! I can't wait to hear the explanation of how a surfer tourist coastal town’s Mayor can take a paycheck and direction from a congressman who supports offshore oil rigs. Just drive up to LA or Ventura to see what an impact it will have on a coastal town. Mayor Guerin- Please tell your boss maybe Imperial Beach want oil rigs, N. County does not! Vote Bilbray out in November or well look like LA quicker than you think.

Harry wrote on Jul 11, 2006 6:32 AM:"On June 13, Bilbray took the oath of office and immediately began the new job." The first thing he attended to after being sworn into office was to vote YEA to give himself a pay raise. (This is the same do nothing senate that hasn't approved an increase in minimum wage in years and has failed to address the most significant issues to the people while wasting time making political hay over non issues.)

Jernico wrote on Jul 11, 2006 7:44 AM:Well, well, well. With the price tag of $120,000 to $150,000 for the recount, let's see if Jacobson still has the resolve to see this through. Of course, with all the DemoWhiners behind her, this is chump (pardon the pun) change for her and her followers. So, the next allegation will be "It's discriminatory."

Marcus wrote on Jul 11, 2006 8:02 AM:The liberals out there will never accept the fact that the majority of voters in our district are conservative. Get over it, move on. Perhaps the best approach would be to put a candidate on the Democrat ticket who actually has some talent and ability. Or maybe a candidate whose beliefs and stances on the issues are similar to those of the constituents. Just a thought.

Tax Payer wrote on Jul 11, 2006 8:33 AM:Thats o.k. - all the busby supporters will kick in to offset the cost.

Coastal Republican wrote on Jul 11, 2006 9:36 AM:I am a long time Republican and Bilbray has to go. Why would he vote for CA offshore oil rigs? I know- he bought and paid for by oil companies. Bilbray is a Dukester JR. and has to go!

Ron wrote on Jul 11, 2006 9:55 AM:Hey, cash up front..... or don't waste our time.

Maybe Oil Companies will pay? wrote on Jul 11, 2006 10:05 AM:Oil Companies throw around $100ks like chump change. If the count is confirmed, they can hang their hat on their boy Bilbray- Oh I mean "Duke" Jr.

Engineer wrote on Jul 11, 2006 10:14 AM:The United States needs to be less dependent or foreign energy. We need to produce more and conserve. We need to drill and produce where the oil and gas exist. We need to increase the mileage requirements for automobiles and trucks. We need larger tax credits for individual consumers for solar power and other renewables. We need to encourage licensing of nuclear power plants. All of these steps and others can be taken little negative effect and likely many positive effects on the environment. If we look at our energy problem as an engineering problem it isn't too hard to solve, since it has become mostly a political issue then we are likely to drift and suffer as we have for decades.

Conservative wrote on Jul 11, 2006 10:17 AM:This continual questioning of election results by leftists tears at the heart of our Democracy and America. That may be the real goal - the weakening of America and of our freedoms.

Smarter Engineer wrote on Jul 11, 2006 11:13 AM:We could solve our dependency on foreign oil by merely having commuters getting out of their lift offroad truck/10 mpg commuter vehicles and into 40 mpg vehicles. We’d than have an abundance of oil and prices would drop. Then we wouldn't have to sacrifice our Ocean. Our Ocean is more important than looking cool. Duke Jr. is more into looking cool. Just check out his kid's my space. Where do you think they got it from? Vote him out in November!

Save the money wrote on Jul 11, 2006 12:10 PM:Just vote Duke JR out in November. Then he can go back to the job he loves and, by the way still gets paid for, with the oil companies. What a bonanza for the energy companies to have Duke JR in their pocket .... Vote him out in November !!!

WOW wrote on Jul 11, 2006 1:15 PM:Whats all this "Duke JR." rhetoric? I guess you Dems are reading your talking points finally. Lets see how your baseless attacks work in November.

Margaret wrote on Jul 11, 2006 1:19 PM:You people amaze me! You whine and snivel about off shore drilling, but your first in line at the gas pump with your gas guzzling SUVs and motorhomes! Your comments are NIMBYism at it's finest. Get off Bilbray's case. He's really working to try to do what's right for this country. There's a lot of GOOD stuff you don't even know about this man and you ought to give him a chance. He will prove himself with time - and yes - he DOES listen to his constituents!

TOVR wrote on Jul 11, 2006 3:01 PM:Ahhh another republiCON way to ensure we don't get our votes counted by making the price tag for fairness be expensive. As true americans we should be expressing our need for a fair election but that won't happen with those in office. Vote in the honest and out with the dishonest.

Laughing from Temecula wrote on Jul 11, 2006 3:01 PM:Ha, ha, ha! Come on Jacobson...put your money where your liberal mouth is. Pony up the money for the recount! Silly liberals...they always expect the taxpayer to fund their pet issues and causes. People like Jacobson are used to having others pick up the tab for their liberal causes and such. Not this time around. Ouch, that's gotta hurt! It's time to put up or shut up Jacobson. Ka-ching, ka-ching!

Mike wrote on Jul 11, 2006 3:59 PM:First of all, Mr. Bennett either needs to take remedial math lessons or not try to push the limit on distorting facts (or perhaps whatever news service like CNS where he might have gotten this info does). If you look at the official numbers, the final listed vote total for Bilbray is 78341 votes or 49.57% and Busby is listed with 71146 votes or 45.02%. When I subtract 45.02 from 49.57, I get 4.55. 4.55 is HARDLY a difference of "more than 5 percentage points". Stating that amongst other things throws away your credibility here. And, Mr. Bennett, you need to talk to more people than just the ROV and state employees who are on the defensive for violating state and national laws on certifying these voting machines. You need to talk to others too. Go to the following URL which was security memo by NASED on March 22, 2006, which says that in order for voting machines to be certified, that "Programmed memory cards shall be stored securely at all times with logged accesses and transfers." and "Failure to comply with this addendum negates the voting system’s status as a NASED-qualified voting system." You fail to mention this. This is why those of us are saying that this election was run on decertified machines and therefore is invalid unless a manual count is done, which is a big reason that government, which failed to adequately protect these machines, should absorb this cost. Failure to provide chain of custody and logs also violates CA Election code 15630. In Orange County a similar hand count was assessed $0.14 per vote and here we have nearly a dollar a vote. That IS exorbitant!

Margaret wrote on Jul 11, 2006 4:26 PM:The previous Margaret is a shame to the name. What has Duke Jr. done for his constituents other than vote for his own pay increase, and vote for offshore oil? As a republican, I am embarassed fort the GOP. It stands for Greedy Ol Party. All Republicans should vote him out in November and let him slink back to IB and his lobbiest ways.

RB Resident wrote on Jul 11, 2006 4:41 PM:Are you guys for real? Are you honestly completely unaware of all the *documented* security issues with electronic voting machines (including optically scanned paper ballots). The chain of custody of these machines were horrendous. They could have *easily* been corrupted. This is what is at issue here, not "whiners." The Sec. of State had specific chain of custody rules on his website specifically because of these security issues. Mikel Haas completely ignored them. Now they have suddenly vanished from the Sec. of States website. Sheesh. Get with it people!!! (bradblog.com is a good place to start)

CC wrote on Jul 11, 2006 5:55 PM:DIMocrats? DemoRATS? republiCON? What are you guys -- five years old? Actually, if you saw the literature from every single person running for office in the last election, you would know that illegal immigration was front and center. So, I don't think Bilbray stole this one. However, letting anyone take home electronic voting machines is a disgraceful lack of security for a voting technology that can easily be compromised. Our currently appointed Secretary of State is up for election this November and should be voted out for not protecting our vote.

Just like.. wrote on Jul 11, 2006 6:15 PM:Just like a democrat to not believe the facts, and then want to spend, spend, spend! GET OVER IT, Busby Lost!

American-Irish Resident wrote on Jul 11, 2006 6:28 PM:OK CC, I wil offer you respect and refer to you as a North County Democrat as soon as your fellow Democrats provide proof that there is oil off of Moonlight Beach. The Democrats' scream to the public that there will be oil rigs off of Moonlight Beach is tantamount to yelling FIRE in a movie theater. The Oil and Gas Journal will provide a dissenting vote against your FIRE yelling fellow Democrats. The problem with Democrats is the problem associated with finding educated Democrats. You just like to yell FIRE. Bilbray won the election because he was the most qualified candidate while Busby was clammoring for illegals to help her vote. If CC deals with reality and then those like CC can spat out indignant comments

Jim wrote on Jul 11, 2006 9:04 PM:I'm from Brooklyn, not exactly in the district. But I am amazed at how few commenters dealt with the important question, which is whether the count was honest. There ARE serious questions about the hackability of electronic voing machines, questions that need to be addressed. There were serious violations by the local board. Who won? Nobody knows, and that is the problem. I don't care if the recount comes out for Bilbray, Busby or Albert Pujols. I just want to be sure the most serious danger to democracy is stopped now. The only thing that matters is that peoples vote get registered for the people they choose. It isn't a 'Democratic" thing, unless you consider Lou Dobbs, Catherine Crier, and Randy hedgecock Democrats.

?'S wrote on Jul 11, 2006 10:01 PM:After reading everyone's comments and the article one must ask some basic questions. How many votes were actually cast on the electronic voting machines at pooling places? I know they had the machines set up at the Registrar's Office for early voting but how many were actually cast at a polling place? Another good question, how many people did the DNC fly into help with the absentee ballot chase and the GOTV effort in the two weeks leadiing up to the election? I know that the RNC had over 100 come in from around the country and ran a very aggressive absentee ballot chase. Miss Jacobsen, 10,000 absentee ballots didn't magically appear, Reeps just did a better job chasing down the absentee ballots than the Dems did. Scoreboard!

Baby Jane wrote on Jul 11, 2006 10:22 PM:So that breaks down to at least $30k per month for this incredibly short term. That's more than I make in a year. Shoot- I'm in the wrong business

TO Vern wrote on Jul 11, 2006 10:25 PM:on behalf of the Times, "Cunningham, Cunningham, cunningham" So is that like Beetlejuice and he'll spring from hell aka prison? zoinks

RB Resident wrote on Jul 11, 2006 11:14 PM:All votes in the Busby/Bilbray race used hackable electronic voting machines. It doesn't matter whether it was an optically scanned ballot, or touchscreen, they are all swiss cheese as far as security. You can't just send them home with poll workers. Actually you shouldn't use them at all. *One* person could change an entire election. All this Republican vs Democrat stuff is bunk. The point is that no one can *prove* that the tabulated vote counts were accurate, because of the severe security breaches in chain of custody of the machines. Only a full handcount of the ballots can *verify* the results. Just running the ballots through a machine again doesn't cut it. Again, I urge readers to check bradblog.com Are these serious issues really beyond some of you?

Mike wrote on Jul 12, 2006 8:31 AM:As RB Resident pointed out, it's not just touchscreen machines that are hackable that went home with poll workers. The optical scanners are also hackable that went home with workers too. With a hard copy of the votes submitted by the voter in this election, we DO have the opportunity to hand count the votes of ballots that are scanned, to compare them to the electronic rendition of these scanned ballots and CAN correct any incorrect results in this instance. In November, we won't be so fortunate when all of the voting is slated to take place on touchscreens, and we won't have the opportunity to do a check against the verified ballots that people cast like we did this time. Paper rolls in the touch screen won't cut it. Poll workers nor voters see this when the voter casts their vote, making it rather useless to catch many errors that can happen on a touchscreen machine. That is why it is so important to do a manual count to verify this count NOW when we have the chance to do so, since we won't later. Even if we don't stop TSX machines in November being used everyplace, which we absolutely SHOULD in my opinion, we minimally need to have these election officials fulfill their obligations of following federal and state laws in protecting the security of our voting devices. If we don't, we've lost our democracy. That is something that all Americans should be concerned about!

Citizen J wrote on Jul 12, 2006 9:13 AM:I'm from Colorado, I don't have a dog in this hunt. Still, it's AMAZING to me that some posters here seemingly do not care whether the election was accurate or not, just as long as THEIR candidate is declared the winner. For instance, the "Scoreboard!" comment. It's not cheering for a team, ya know. It's about OUR (all of us, now) Democracy, and OUR COUNTRY. Conservatives are VERY fond of saying "If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you've nothing to hide." So, why not VERIFY the results? After all, if Bilray truly DID win, the verification will PROVE this. What are conservatives so afraid of, I wonder? Folks, if we don't have total transparency and openess in our elections, we ain't got squat- we're then a 3rd rate Banana Republic with fixed elections. Is this what we aspire to as Americans?

Mark wrote on Jul 12, 2006 2:02 PM:Clearly the San Diego registrar is setting a recount cost so high to keep the voters away from looking at real ballots and voting proceedures, makes one ask: why?

curious wrote on Jul 12, 2006 11:32 PM:Haas has done this before (charged exorbidant fees for a recount) and will do it again until a court orders him to knock it off. Listen people, this is truly about right and wrong, not right or left or democrat or republican. And besides, if a group is willing to spend the money to pay for a real count, why would anyone complain? It IS the American way, you know!

Crybabies wrote on Jul 13, 2006 2:33 PM:To all you Busby-whiners, don't cry, stand in line to contribute towards the recount...oh, sorry...no line.