County sued over handling of primary:

| Monday, July 31, 2006 11:26 PM PDT ∞

Lawsuit asks court to order recount of Bilbray-Busby race

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO ---- A pair of voters filed suit in San Diego Superior Court on Monday, declaring that the June 6 primary was conducted illegally and demanding that election officials recount the 158,000 ballots cast in the congressional race that pitted Republican Brian Bilbray against Democrat Francine Busby.

The contest was held to pick a temporary replacement ---- through the remainder of this year ---- for now-imprisoned Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former representative who pleaded guilty in late November to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for steering tens of millions in government contracts to local firms.

Bilbray received nearly half the votes, while Busby garnered 45 percent. On June 13, Bilbray was sworn into office as the new representative for the 50th Congressional District.

Filed on behalf of voters Barbara Gail Jacobson of San Diego and Lillian M. Ritt of Rancho Santa Fe, both of whom live in the district, the lawsuit maintains that the results cannot be trusted because poll workers took voting machines home with them before election day in violation of state guidelines. The suit asks that a court order 100 percent of ballots cast in the race be recounted by hand and establish a reasonable cost for the recount.

Secretary of state spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen said her office had not seen the suit and declined to comment on the alleged violation.

Mikel Haas, the county's registrar of voters, said, "If I believed it was a violation of anything, I wouldn't have done it. It's as simple as that."

Haas added that the general practice in California is to require those who request recounts to bear the cost, rather than bill taxpayers. Jacobson had earlier requested a recount in the Bilbray-Busby race and was told that it would cost $120,000 to $150,000 ---- as much as $1 per vote. The suit suggests that figure was out of line given Orange County's recent handling of a recount at a cost of 14 cents a vote.

Haas denied that the cost was exorbitant. He said the county wanted $6,000 upfront and would have charged more as the recounting process continued. He said the $120,000 to $150,000 figure was a rough estimate and not necessarily what Jacobson would have been charged.

The suit lists Haas and Bilbray as defendants.

Bilbray said in a telephone interview Monday he was not concerned about the suit.

"They have the right to do what they want. I'm just trying to represent the people of the 50th," Bilbray said. "I don't count the votes. The county counts them."

Busby, the one who stands to gain if a recount is ordered and it changes results, said in a telephone interview that she is not involved in the recount campaign.

"I personally don't have any reason to question the outcome of the election," she said.

But Busby said she supported the goal of those who brought the suit.

"I support any citizen in their efforts to make certain that our voting processes are open, fair and transparent, and that they function in a way that all the citizens can have confidence in them and trust them," Busby said. "We all know that voting is the basis for our democracy."

Seattle election attorney Paul Lehto, who filed suit on behalf of the 50th District voters, said county voters cannot be confident of the June 6 results. Lehto said that's because the county allowed both electronic touch-screen machines and the optical-scan machines that read paper ballots to be stored in "unsecured locations, such as poll workers' car trunks and residential garages."

Haas said the practice was secure because the machines were sealed. But Lehto said the seals were not tamper-proof.

Haas said earlier that the practice goes back decades in San Diego County and helps the registrar avoid the logistical nightmare of delivering machines to 1,646 polling places early on election morning.

Lehto appeared unimpressed.

"It's not that hard to do," he said in an interview Monday. "I mean, the Postal Service manages to deliver mail to every single house every single day."

Lehto said that taking precautions is worth the effort because "all you need is one disk for about 90 seconds or two minutes" to rig the results.

"It is naive to assume that no one would ever cheat in an election," he said. "And you only need one person to throw an election, you don't need a grand conspiracy."

Velvet Revolution, an umbrella organization that represents about 100 voters rights groups, is raising money to pay for the suit.

-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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Pre-Registration Comments[-]Go to Top

JD wrote on Aug 1, 2006 4:25 AM:Yeah, all of those Bilbray loving ballot box working copmputer wizards conspired to cheat What's her name? out of the election! Hang them all and charge the county a $100.000 for the job! Get a grip!

JD wrote on Aug 1, 2006 4:26 AM:Yeah, all of those Bilbray loving ballot box working copmputer wizards conspired to cheat What's her name? out of the election! Hang them all and charge the county a $100.000 for the job! Get a grip!

JD wrote on Aug 1, 2006 4:26 AM:Yeah, all of those Bilbray loving ballot box working copmputer wizards conspired to cheat What's her name? out of the election! Hang them all and charge the county a $100.000 for the job! Get a grip!

Robert wrote on Aug 1, 2006 6:44 AM:Sour Grapes anyone?

Zephon wrote on Aug 1, 2006 8:28 AM:Fair and true election counts should be a goal of all citizens and political parties. Clearly these computer systems are easily hacked (they run MS Windows ... what do you expect) so allowing poll workers to have access to them at their homes several days before the elections without an audit trail of the ballots (ie: paper) is truly a travesty to the democracy we are supposed to represent. All citizens should want a fair and auditable election result. The elections in Ohio and Florida prove that there are flaws in the system we use.

Bob wrote on Aug 1, 2006 9:33 AM:This is leftists trying to tear America apart. The next election is in November. Since the leftists know they will lose the actual vote they try to destroy America’s whole election system.

Ray wrote on Aug 1, 2006 11:56 AM:Another case of "democrats" crying "election stolen". what they forget is the democrats in 1960 purchased the election for John Kennedy. Every election has some glitches and the only way to fix it is to purge "all" voting rolls nationwide and have everyone re-register but this would not be good for the democrats though, no illegals voting There is nothing wrong with the new election machines, every machine since the old pull the lever types used decades ago could be taampered with, just ask the Kennedy's. When I was a precinct inspector during the special election last November, I could have taken all the blank ballots, filled them out and ran them through the machine, no windows, no hacking, just good dishonest fraud, but I didn't most if not all poll workers have been doing this for years and are "very honest". By the way all Arnold's initatives passed with a strong majority in Bonsall. Just because a system runs windows does not mean it can be "hacked" it's not the standard version we use but specially written for just this purpose and unless you know the resource codes, I doubt if they can be hacked. These machines are considered safe and a paper trail would be nice but even with a record, fraud still exists in "any" machine and in how people register to vote, nobody checks anything that is why my "dead sister" of 31 years registered to vote in San Diego as a, you gueessed it "a democrat". Try working the polls on an election day before you comment on honesty, integrity and accuracy, get involved with the process instead of being an arm chair quarterback.

TOVR wrote on Aug 1, 2006 1:13 PM:All the republiCONs can't see what is clearly fraud. No one should be able to take those awful voting machines home. Our voting rights are at stake here...but wait the republiCONs want election fraud because they don't believe in democracy, they just think the world is ending and the rapture is coming. Fix voting fraud now.

Con's wrote on Aug 1, 2006 1:35 PM:Yes, it is all a right wing conspiracy to get our people to sign up to work the voting sites so we can rig a mid term election against all you poor old DIM-o-crats. I am so ashamed of myself and my fellow CON's!!! All of you other CON's out their I call for a reformation now! I'll have to think about what kind of reformation and get back to you later... This could be serious!!

b wrote on Aug 1, 2006 1:37 PM:http://www.openvotingfoundation.org/ It's very simple. This is only one test of many that proves how easy it is to manipulate the machines' results. "This is leftists trying to tear America apart" Yes. Those evil leftists fighting for civil rights, war only when necessary, following the Constitution, legitimacy in elections, affordable health care, renewable energy, reducing the deficit, making government accountable, and more. Must be THEM destroying America. Must be those evil, kooky, stupid, pushy, godless, terrorist loving retards who still believe in democracy.

Leon wrote on Aug 1, 2006 5:00 PM:The case is moot and should be dismissed. Both Busby and Bilbray will be on the ballot in November anyway.

TOO wrote on Aug 1, 2006 6:34 PM:Con...you should be ashamed of yourself. You keep drinking the kool-aid the republiCONs keep giving you. Oh wait, you have to go read your Rush Limbaugh/Karl Rove bible to find out a response. Voting fraud is rampant and we in San Diego should take the stand to eliminate it, not keep it alive.

CC wrote on Aug 1, 2006 11:09 PM:The major concern is not so much the recent election but the next election when we will be using electronic voting machines all over California. Why should our citizens have to force our government officials to do their jobs? It is the job of the country registrar of voters to ensure that our elections are administered securely and transparently. Instead, what we have generally been getting from registrars of voters in California is assurances that electronic voting is just fine and dandy. In fact, our previous registrar of voters actually had up on the SDVote.com website a whole page reassuring us about electronic voting. At the same time that this web page was on display, I actually saw demonstrated on TV how the results of an election could be flipped in about a minute without even knowing a password. We should not be treated like sleepy children but as citizens that value our democracy.

CON wrote on Aug 2, 2006 5:32 AM:Stand by all of the rest of you CON's I am still working out the details of the reformation mentioned above. Cherry kool-aid is my favorite! It sure messes up those voting machines too! More details to follow! Too all of you DIM's out there... the war on terror is not really happening either it is all a con too!!

American-Irish Resident wrote on Aug 4, 2006 6:20 PM:During the election in Florida a few years ago, the Democrats claimed that the paper ballots were above their level of intelligence so the system was changed to an idiot-proof big screen technique. Now the idiot-proof system is the reason the Democrats lose elections. Should we simply appoint Democrats to the posts so that the Democrats can claim victory and say that this is what the people want for leaders? If Democrats are too simple-mided to vote on any ballot system, how do they formulate an intelligent opinion in their challenged skulls?

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